France Votes, Toulouse 2005

This Sunday, May 6th, the French go to the polls for the decisive vote for their next President. May their elections be free and fair.

I lived in France from 1995-1996, just as soon-to-be former President Jacques Chirac took over. He was charming, suave and good-looking for his age. He had a quick, wide smile. Over the last 12 years, he has aged, but the charm still stays. His record as a leader, however, is tarnished.

When my niece, now 15, had learned how to talk, I was preparing to leave for France. I was determined that she would know a few things about politics. Start young, I thought. So I used to give her a quiz. "Who's the President of the United States?" She would say with her cute little voice, "B-will Clit-ton". "Who is the Vice-President?" She would pause to think because she always had trouble remembering this one, "Alberrrrt Gorrrrre". "Who's the President of France?" She responded crisply, "J-ah-que She-raq!"

J-ah-que She-raq has reined for 12 years. It is a short time, and yet so much has happened. How quickly things change even as they are staying the same. My niece has become a young lady who is learning French in her own right now and who will soon be making her own decisions about her future. And soon, she will be off to see the world as I was. I wonder, as this new generation of leaders (if they will indeed be worthy of the name) comes into power in Great Britain, France, and soon (though not soon enough) the United States, what world will my niece see as she prepares to launch into her future? When I launched off to France at the age of 23, it was a world of hope and prosperity! We had a new set of leaders then who promised to re-make the world. And they did. Since then, what they made has been undone as they have left office or gotten stale while still there. The grand movements they created in globalization, trade, and communications have out paced our ability to use them wisely, to control them. We are now drifting, lost in a sea of imaginary money, hollow values, broken promises, hot wars, paralyzed and corrupt governments, and strained alliances.

And so for better or worse, we must start again to re-make the world. We have no other choice.