Special to USAfrica magazine (Houston) and USAfricaonline.com
The high point of President Joe Biden’s mid-June 2021 outing in Europe was not merely the collective sigh of relief heaved by hitherto frustrated allies at NATO or at the G-7. It was the cherished tradition of camaraderie with an American leader that his counterparts in Europe had missed.
This was evident from the inability of United Kingdom’s Boris Johnson and France’s Emmanuel Macron to hold back. Simply stated, the essence of their spoken and body languages was how refreshing it felt to once again be seated across from someone whose soul was so present it left no room for searching, whose ego needed no Taj Mahal of a basket to sit on an elevated Great Pyramid.
Biden embodies the U.S president the civilized world had grown used to, the Commander-in-chief befitting of the American aura.
But the best was yet to come. Putin’s lavishing compliments and respect on Biden at his earlier-in-sequence post-summit news conference capped it all. He did not hold back either. He had relished the difference experience, knowledge, and discipline can bring, even at a get-together of leaders of the two most powerful superpowers. The warmness he felt from the encounter bore out his compliments of Biden.
Listening between his words, one heard Putin even wonder how the nightmare of the prior 4 years happened! Notwithstanding that Tump effortfully never ceased to try and impress Russian interests, the strong man of the Kremlin did not mince words conveying the relief it was to finally interact with an American leader that understood the stakes, and was sufficiently self-assured to not crave attention. Putin summed Biden up as “focused” and “constructive”. That has value.
To a keen and informed observer, the admixture of Johnson-Macron reactions and Putin’s words validated Biden’s assertion that “America is back”. Thus it is healthy to once again live in a real world, a world where serious-minded people do not have to worry about being told to inject an unspecified dosage of disinfectant to prevent a viral infection.
As things stand,
and mindful that certain Republican Congress persons publicly stated a few weeks ago that the January 6, 2021 insurrection looked like a normal tourist event, and that there were only peaceful demonstrators. Therefore, today’s challenge for every serious American is how do we ensure that recent nightmares like those never reoccur. •Okorie, an attorney, is a member of the editorial board of USAfrica.
