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Shared Opinion

Hugo Rifkind

Wednesday, 5th March 2008

If it's good that Harry was fighting the Taleban, why are we queasy when Israel fights Hamas?

I asked, but the Klan didn’t answer. ‘For God’s sake,’ I wanted to shout. ‘You may be bigoted, murdering scum, but at least have the courage of your convictions!’ Is race such an emotive issue these days that even the Klan don’t want to talk about it?

We pick and choose when it is acceptable to talk about race and ethnicity. It doesn’t always make sense. We’ll talk happily about the sympathies between the Iranian Shia majority and the Shias in Iraq, or Kosovo Serbs and Serbian Serbs. We might even seek to draw emotional links between Jewish Britons and the State of Israel.

And yet, as America inches towards electing its first ever President not to be entirely descended from Europeans, there is not a single European voice that appears to mind one whit. In fact, quite the reverse.

Ignoring his Kenyan ancestry, Barack Obama would be the first President, even, without a European name. Indeed, aside from the odd dash of German or Dutch, the vast majority have had Anglo-Saxon names. But nobody worries out loud that a President Obama might not have the same emotional response towards Europe, or Britain, as a President Wilson or Roosevelt.

Is this a good thing? I think it probably is. I just cannot figure out how it has come about. Has multiculturalism seeped so far into the European psyche that we barely even notice? Do we just pretend not to notice? I have no idea. Mind you, there’s always George Bush, with his face and name from next door, and his mind, apparently, from Pluto. Maybe it’s something to do with that.

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