The Selfie Heard Round The World

I am trying to make sense of the blowup over events surrounding our President at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service. This should be old news by now (actually most of it barely should have become news), but it is still seems to have some legs.  The world had been preparing for some time for Mr. Mandela’s death but, instead of being awash in Apartheid and Mandela documentaries, we are awash in trivia surrounding the U.S. President.

Americans, on the whole, have the luxury of being able to get along just fine without paying much attention to foreign affairs. The complacency born of being at the center of the economic, military and technological world makes ‘us’ far more important to ‘them’ than the other way around. (This is reflected in the U.S.’ abysmal knowledge of geography and our comparatively low levels of bilingualism among first-world countries) Despite the demise of Apartheid being one of the greatest civil rights successes of the century, our collective level of interest was middling at best.  Media outlets would lose money investing significantly in a story that, collectively, we don’t have that much interest in.

As a result, we get the comparatively free still photos and raw, audio-less video upon which the pundits and public can apply whatever narrative they care to. So we get a ‘selfie’ with three world leaders and a handshake and we get to go to town filling the airwaves and the web with whatever comes to mind….and whatever comes to mind is often more scintillating than the probably-mundane reality. (I am reminded of how the duo that head the band Steely Dan avoid interpreting their famously obtuse lyrics for the public because they find the listening public’s narratives more interesting.)

When I first saw the selfie, I thought “Wow! I never would have done that at any funeral/memorial that I ever attended.” That’s probably everyone’s first thought...and that first, reflexive thought alone filled untold hours of cable news time and countless social media comments. But, even before we dig deeper into the context, we might consider some things.

The infamous selfie includes three leaders of first-world countries. Regardless of what you might think of their individual politics; I think we can agree that rising to their positions would indicate, at the very least, a notably-better-than-average social skill set. For three first-world leaders to simultaneously forget basic rules of etiquette would seem statistically improbable. Then we have the First Lady. Is Ms. Obama angry with her misbehaving husband? ...or is she a bit fatigued from a long stint in an uncomfortable seat? ...or is she, like me, afflicted with a default ‘mad face’ that, if not openly smiling, looks something less than happy?

Well, there is actual information to be had about the selfie, right from the mouth of the photographer that took the photo. It was a party atmosphere (did you see all the dancing...even behind the President during his speech?)  The First Lady was, moments before, jocular, engaged and smiling. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary to the person whose lens was trained upon them. The selfie is only news because our own fabricated narrative made it so.

Then we have a handshake between Fidel Castro’s brother Raul. Really? Is this middle school? “Do you think Obama likes Castro? I mean, LIKE likes him?” (quote by Paul Bruno). In diplomatic circles world leaders shake hands with despots and the unsavory all the time. That’s what grownups do...at least those responsible for international diplomacy. I understand the sensitivity of the Cuban-American community, but they are not playing the diplomatic long game. Spend a little time on Google looking at world leaders shaking hands with bad people. Go on. I’ll wait. [90 seconds later] See? It happens all the time. Moreover; given the slight thawing of relations between the island nation and ourselves; is Mandela’s memorial the time to spite him and cast that progress aside? Indeed, the greater faux pas would have been to kindle an international spat at Mandela’s memorial.

Lastly, we have a sign language interpreter that was, apparently, doing little more than playing an agitated game of “patty cake” with himself. This, uniquely, actually has a story embedded in it. Ignore that I have heard even this used as vague indictment of our President (despite it being the South African government being responsible for the interpreter’s hiring). As his backstory comes out, we need to consider that the host country put, what appears to be, an unstable individual with a violent history shoulder to shoulder with so many world leaders and luminaries...including our own president. The obvious and real offense to the deaf community seems secondary to what might have happened.

The state of political discourse seems to be at an all time low. I certainly cannot recall any worse in my lifetime. It is telling that the recent budget compromise elicited reactions of wonderment as though compromise was some radical new form of negotiation. Let’s try to look past the trivial and [as in this case] the fabricated and focus on substantive issues. If you don’t like the behavior of Congress then remember, we elected them. We get the politicians we deserve.