Youthful politics

The victory of youthful politics over its senior version. In today's world, youth is to reign over any other human virtue. Its power prevails over wisdom, experience and intellectual education. Fashion and modelling, advertising, TV journalism, sport and now politics too. The main case against John McCain is precisely his age. 72 years old is too much for the eternally young America. Barack Obama, 46, is the other side of the coin: young, full of life and bringin nerve into the American stagnant political system he looks ideal for the vacancy. Youth vs age was the decisive factor in David Cameron's win over David Davis in the Tory primary back in 2006. Another David, David Miliband, the young British foreign minister, burnt onto the political stage with an article penned in The Guardian standing for renovation. Despite waiting for more than 10 years to get into Number 10,, Gordon Brown political momentum is over: he is 54. Too old to lead a country, people are suggesting. Miliband vs Cameron seems to be the next duel... are they worthy of Mrs Thatcher, Churchill and Clement Attlee? They are young, that's all. When metrosexuality politics?

The improbable speech

Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate for the US Presidency, did recently pronounce a speech on the symbolic location of the Brandemburg Gate, Berlin, which was considered by many as historical. The partnership between Europe and the US, the ever closer alliance between the two sides of the Atlantic after the Bush era and the fight on terror were the major issues. Some political commentators begin to consider whether there is consistency behind Obama's emerging global figure, probably the first global leader, or not. [The Economist, though, pointed out that "the listeners were mainly European, but the real audience was in America"] The thing is: could this speech have been delivered in Spain? Obama gathered some 300.000 people despite saying no word in German. Fully in English. The answer to the question is no. Why? According to a recent poll by Funcas (Association of Spanish Saving banks), only a 50% of Spaniards can speak a foreign language other than Spanish. Amongst them, the Andalusian people fall down to the last place: only 64% of them can speak a foreign language.

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/sociedad/I/m/sorry/solo/hablo/espanol/elpepusoc/20080728elpepusoc_2/Tes

If Madrid and Spain as a country want to stand out as an international political actor and catch up with its remarkable and successful multinational companies, the language issue needs to be adressed soon.