America now leads the world in all dimensions of power—military, economic, cultural, scientific (see chart 1)—by a margin out of all proportion to its population.
Look how they (American) seek to reshape the world. They have defined their war as one of good against evil, of civilization against terror, but have then butted their heads against the blood-stained brick wall that is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They have spoken about a “regime change” in Iraq, but have done little about it. They have said they favor democracy, but then hesitated to condemn an attempted coup in April against Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez. They have said they favor free trade, but then slapped tariffs on steel imports and subsidies on farming. They have rubbished foreign aid, then embraced it; supported a bankruptcy procedure for countries in financial crisis, then opposed it.
1 comment:
VISIT THE BLOG AT WWW.GLOBALJUSTICEONLINE.COM
MY AMERICA
" The point, at heart more than in global political reality, is that I realise that we inhabit one interdependent planet."
With what right does a non-American write of his America?
The right, I suppose, of any human being to reflect on anywhere he has traveled. Having trodden to about forty countries, into the South American jungle and to the outskirts of a desert in Africa, I have never found the lines that are so boldly placed on political geography maps seperating countries on a continent. Not that I had ever searched with microscopic precison to determine where one man's piece of land ended and where mine began when I embarked on my vagabond travels of interest and inquiry. The point, at heart more than in global political reality, is that I realise that we inhabit one interdependent planet.
My first visit to America at age ten took me to New York and Washington. In New York I visited the 1964 World's Fair, and in Washington I saw the Monument and also stood looking up at Mr. Lincoln sitting in his grand marble chair.
I start my reflections on America a bit earlier than those early memories when America's national myths were first told to me. Somehow I still recall the day John Kennedy was assassinated. Mrs. Roberts, a lady who rented half of my parents' home was outside shrieking, "They killed President Kennedy - he was a good man..." and so she wailed on. Maybe then, from my tender years ( who really knows), I started to take an interest in the human, the political, the global that was happening beyond my narrow shores and commenced thinking of the great beyond where America loomed large. Or, did my awareness of great America start when I sat by the radio with my father as the radio announcer, himself inconsiderately interjecting words as my father vocally and excitedly commented on the likely impact that Cassius Clay's ( Muhammad Ali's) last punch had inflicted on Sonny Liston or vice versa. Somewhere back then America as a country began to inflict its presence into my consciousness and my impressions of America over the latter part of the twentieth century have changed and evolved.
I think of America and her people in two groupings. Each set viewed on its or their own is unambiguous. There is in one category the policies and persons I detest. In the other category is a geographically expansive, beautiful America filled with people I like. Mental muddle would prevail if one did not find a way to resolve the apparent contradiction between detesting that which one accepts as undeniably beautiful.
America,if not my own perplexed grasp of her, invites compartamentalisation. There is in America, as with other countries, the historically based national mythology and conversely there is the contemporary urge to discard aged falsehoods. "Thanksgiving" is a sacred day in America. Giving thanks for what? - those not within the pale of historically bestowed European privilege might honestly ask. The Native American gave some solace and welcome - then the Europeans stole, dislodged, marginalised, enslaved and also built with African free labour, and depending on who is being thankful - the giving need not disturb itself with the unavoidable corollary of a brutal and genocidal taking. That is one America which in polite discourse I relegate to that recess of my mind where graceful conversation overrules the stating of ugly historical facts. The America that categorises all its citizens into segregated groups of "Whites", "Blacks", "Hispanics", "them" and "us" and a myriad of hyphenations - Serbian-American and - other-Americans, is the modern continuation of America's differentiated immigrant past. When interactions with Americans are occasioned my disapproval of America vacillates as my sympathetic understanding of individual Americans grows when confronted by their personal hardships.
My trip to the West coast was to a family in the California suburbs I met while scuba diving in the Caribbean. Their third invitation I accepted once convinced that their offer was not being extended as an insincere or polite perfunctionary gesture. And to have enjoyed their hospitality, ease of conversation, relaxed openness about self and others is to have experienced the American persona at its generous best. Generosity and conviviality do not tell the complete story of Americans I have met over many years.
Two Americans in recent personal exchanges have left me with noteworthy thoughts. One, I recall, an ivy league graduate, recruited to the OSS ( later to become the CIA), himself a senior positioned operative who numbered George Kennan ( chief US architect of the US clod-war)among his associates. We spoke on many topics for about five hours on the occasions we met, inclusive of about the uses of propaganda during the cold-war and I left considerably better informed about how power actually operates and why it did that which it felt compelled to do in the world. About Vietnam he commented, "a mistake", and of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq he had no respect for the sense or sensibilities of the Bush administration's foreign policy. At an earlier time in Budapest I met an American who had served as an Ambassador in Africa. Our daughters were with us and as fathers, we conversed easily about family, interests, politics, the world. His insightful observations about the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/ Halliburton cabal or conspiratorial nexus was exchanged before the current Iraq crisis. He explained then with crisp analytical clarity the processes propelling a war. I had said two, but there was another old hand I had met who was within the inner circles of Kellog, Root and Brown ( later merged with Halliburton) and his personal experiences of LBJ’s crassness and the dishonesties that took place in the 1960s informed me about the other America, the one I mentioned earlier as not having particualar fondness for. Somehow both Americas have to be reconciled.
Might I place relatives, family, and all the Americans I maintain friendships with within "My America"? My cousin who was a foot solder in Vietnam would have to be classified as being on misplaced duty or a functionary tool of the "mistake" the old CIA hand had spoken of. The other America arises, I surmise, by reason of avarice if not otherwise by dint of misguided foreign policy - but I am focused from outside looking into America. When I step into America I find New Orleans with its jazz - the Appalachians of Daniel Boone and Chief Blackfish fame - the riverways of the Ozarks - the embrace of four of the five Great Lakes onto Michigan - Alaska and its icy cold natural beauty - me crossing undulating hills of San Francisco to have an early morning peek at the Golden Gate Bridge from Market Street. I am now in America at an Irish bar in New York talking to an Irish man about.... well, you meet all sorts while traveling. I am in America with my friend, the computer geek, and we are at the same old restaurant and he is flirting with the waitress. He feels compelled to pay the bill but is not enarmoured at the thought of me being left to offer the quid pro quo of leaving the tip. His fear derives maybe from my "third world" status that might equate in his mind to the "Third World's" reciprocal generosity of $1. So, he pays the bill and leaves a $10 tip, and I add $5 for the waitress. He quips, " my we are generous today", and I thank him for his treat as we move to the bar.
I have been on a considerably long journey across America. In my mind I have grappled with "The growth of the American Republic" and how Morrison, Commager and Leuchtenburg saw their America, then had seen through Zinn's eyes " A people's history of the United States of America:...".American movies over the years have been constant reminders to me of how America sees herself. The bad Indians and the good cowboys of my youth was how I was first introduced to the movies, but then I saw "Soldier Blue" which reminds of how the majority prefers not to be portrayed. A brief course at Harvard, a walk down the historic trail with reflections on the deeds of Samuel Adams and later sipping his excellent namesake beer all converge in my mind in recalling my America.
I have never entertained any desire for American citizenship or residency, but in recalling the American exchange students I met while a student at London University, they too have coalesced into my recollections of and experiences with Americans. Looking back on America as a repeat visitor over several years I recall others experiences of racism and inflicted hardships. On my way to London to start my studies, I had stopped in New York and was introduced there to Judge Bruce Wright. He was not of a pale complexion and had been accepted to study law sometime around the second World War. He packed his case, bright, young, eager and willing to start his studies at one of America's best institutions of higher learning based on his merit and excellent grades. He arrived at Yale and being discovered to be an African-American Yale declined to admit him. Sometime in the 1990s I was reading the New York Times and there I saw a story about Judge Wright. Yale had extended an embarrassed but reconciliatory hand and at a graduating class he was honoured. I had broached this story with the old CIA hand whose alma mater was Yale, and he was shocked, not dismissive, but with stunning unawareness merely observed that his group was not like that. Yet as I think of a cousin, himself a lawyer, and a researcher on the Brown v.Topika Board of Education 1954 desegregation case, its impossible in all reality for me not to be aware that America is/was just like that. The 2005 response, or lack thereof, by President George Bush to the Hurricane Katrina impact on New Orleans and his mother's callous comment about those most devastated by the natural disaster brings me forward to the question - what is America today?
Am I at ease with America? - not with belligerent and inhumane US foreign policy - but then that's the other America. "My America" is the one with knowledgeable, open, warm, friendly and generous people who I sometimes visit.
Courtenay Barnett was born in Jamaica.
He is a lawyer who has defended human rights cases.
His web site is http://www.globaljusticeonline.com
His new book is entitled, “Learn the Law.”
Email: ablec2000@yahoo.co.uk
7 January, 2006
Post a Comment