World parties as Obama wins
2008-11-05 14:09
London - Supporters of Barack Obama erupted into song and dance around the world on Wednesday, from the bars of London and Sydney to a sleepy village in Kenya, after his historic US election victory.
Parties spilled onto the streets from Berlin to Havana and from Paris to the small Japanese town of Obama, and expat Americans joined rallies in cities around the globe.
"Senator Obama is our new president. God has answered our prayer," said pastor Washington Obonyo in Kogelo, the Kenyan village where Obama's grandmother lives and where his late father was born.
"I am very happy, I have not slept the whole night, even my wife slept alone as I waited for the results," added Joseph Otieno, a jubilant Kogelo resident, while men cheered and clapped while women ululated and shouted "Obama! Obama!"
Make history
For tens of millions of non-Americans without a direct share in the vote, it was a chance to see Obama make history as the first black US leader.
In Obama, an ancient fishing town on the Sea of Japan, residents dressed in Hawaiian skirts performed a hula dance in celebration, embracing Hawaiian-born Obama as one of their own.
"I'm so excited because Obama shares our town's name. But even if the town was called McCain I would still support Barack Obama," said 44-year-old dancer Masayo Ishibashi.
In London, Americans munching hot dogs and swigging bottled beer crowded the Democrat-dominated Yates bar in the nightclub quarter, the second largest party in town after a bash at the US embassy.
"It would be nice to have a president who is celebrated when he goes abroad and his effigy is not burned," said one partygoer, David Grey.
There were similar scenes across western Europe. In Berlin revellers partied on the Unter den Linden boulevard, just down the road from where Obama drew 200 000 people to hear him speak in July.
Catherena Oostveen, a German-Russian actress who trained in the United States, showed up in a red-white-and-blue t-shirt and a cowboy hat.
Intelligent and inspiring
"Obama is so intelligent and inspiring that I hope he can change the things that the rest of the world is so angry about right now," she said.
In Paris, American expats gathered at one of Ernest Hemingway's favourite watering holes as well as other bars.
Across town, proudly wearing an Obama pin, Herve Moussakanda loaded up his plate with cheese before sidling up to a big screen in a nightclub.
"I just couldn't miss this. This is historic. A dream come true," he said, one of hundreds of French blacks cheering the first African-American to win the White House.
In an upmarket suburb of the Indonesian capital Jakarta, where Obama spent part of his schooldays, ex-classmate Dewi Asmara Oetojo recalled an easy-going little boy who said he wanted to be president.
"It's just amazing, I mean we're so proud of him," said Oetejo, a lawmaker in Indonesia's parliament.
In Afghanistan, where tens of thousands of US soldiers are still fighting al-Qaeda remnants and the Taliban, about 150 Americans, Afghans and US embassy staff watched the results at the upmarket Serena hotel - targeted by bombers in January.
Rafaat, an Afghan who runs a finance company and spends much of his time in the United States, said Obama would be a welcome change from President George W Bush.
"This is good news for America and for Afghanistan," he said.
"We are fed up with Bush and his policies. My wife voted for Bush in 2000 and we regretted it for seven years."
In Iraq, the other war that Obama will inherit, his win was hailed by black US soldiers and civilian workers at the sprawling Camp Speicher near Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit.
Kareem, a 50-year-old contract bus driver from Houston, Texas, said with a grin: "We'll finally have our African-American president! Whites had 43 presidents, they might as well leave us one."
But there was bitter disappointment from other soldiers that Vietnam veteran John McCain - seen as more pro-military - had lost.
One woman sergeant said Obama's win "will be hell for the army".