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The election for the President of the United States
is now over and half of the American voting public
is upset, even in despair, over the result. As we
have been constantly reminded, this has been one
of the most hotly contested election in decades,
with the nation being more polarized than at any
time since the 1960s. This genuinely reflects the
attitudes of most of the people I know. Being fairly
far to the left myself, the majority of the people
I know are of a similar disposition, and could not
even imagine the possibility of another Bush “victory”.
With the continuation of the Bush administration,
we are faced with the very real possibility of becoming
mired even deeper in a misguided Middle Eastern
policy, the possibility of Supreme Court appointments
that will further set back the causes of civil rights
and women’s rights, an economic policy that
will only increase the debt to benefit the richest
people in the country, a deepening of an already
draconian welfare policy, the continuation of a
foreign policy that will continue to alienate the
rest of the world, the possibility that our environment
will continue to be exploited to benefit corporate
interests, the continuation of policies that are
anti-gay, anti-black and anti any exploited and
stigmatized group drives most of us to distraction.
From the things I have read, and the few people
of the right that I have spoken to, they saw a Kerry
victory in the same cataclysmic terms.
So what do we do now that election is over, and
those of us who supported the Democratic Party find
that we have to live under a regime for the next
four years that we find to be reprehensible? What
are our options? Among the many left leaning people
I have spoken to the option that is most often raised
is moving to Canada. Since this is not an option
for most people I know, and reflects a stereotypical
American arrogance that other countries are there
to serve our needs, we have to look elsewhere. The
simplest answer is that we will have to keep up
the struggle, accept the outcome and move on. But
that answer doesn’t respond to the anger and
the fear that many of us are feeling. We still will
have to live within the same geographical borders
as the other side, and have a government that will
act in our name that we do not believe in or support.
How do we live together? To say that in the end
that “we are all one nation, all Americans”
(a phrase the losing side will most likely use in
their concession speech) doesn’t cut it either.
What are we saying when we make that claim that
“one is an American”, when being an
American means so many different things to so many
different people.
This all brings me back to a conversation I had
over two months ago on the way to lunch with a few
friends. We were discussing US policy in Iraq, when
one of our party made the comment that “aren’t
we so proud, we have created a whole new generation
of people that hate us.” At that point, one
of the other members of our lunch group jumped on
that remark, asking if the rest of us noticed what
was just said. He queried the person who made the
remark further, asking “do you specifically
align yourself with the actions of the government.”
When that person answered no, he asked if any of
the rest of us noticed that the term “we”
was used to refer to the actions of the government.
Indeed, were we (those five people walking to lunch
on that Saturday afternoon) the ones who had invaded
Iraq, were we the ones who had alienated a generation
of young men and women around the world, especially
given that every member of our party had not only
voted for Gore the last time around but would vote
for Kerry this time (or any other viable candidate
that had a chance to win).
He pointed out that this was a very “American”
thing to do. As someone who had lived most of his
adult life in the United States but was originally
from another country, he said that most of the people
he knew from other countries would never speak in
those terms, that people of other countries did
not identify so closely with the government and
its actions. While the rest of us tried to offer
up some explanations and excuses for this, he got
me thinking. This was especially relevant to so
many of the things I had studied and thought about
in my former life as a graduate student. My studies
looked into such topics as how national identity
is formed and how various actions and measures have
been taken to exclude and disenfranchise countless
populations and groups over the centuries.
I decided to take a very informal survey of those
people I knew who were either from another country
or were living in another country. Two of the answers
I received stand out. One was from a friend of Jewish
background who grew up in the Soviet Union. He said
that he never identified himself with the Soviet
government. As a Jew, a member of a stigmatized
group, he felt like an outsider. The other response
I received was from a friend who now resides in
Canada. She spent her formative years in the US
but was from another country. Given her background
as well as her being a social worker dealing with
issues of culture and identity, I was more than
interested in her perspective. She noted that when
someone aligns themselves with the government they
are doing so to align themselves with power. Don’t
we all, when given the opportunity, want to be part
of the dominant group. My other friend, being a
Jew in a country that has had a long tradition of
antisemitism in its different incarnations, would
always be treated as other. But given a chance to
be part of the majority, part of the favored class,
most people would probably jump at it.
Those of us who are citizens of the United States,
like it or not, are citizens of the dominant power
in the world at this stage of history. To align
ourselves with the government, whether we agree
with its actions or not, is to align ourselves with
power. To be an American, whether we are a Democrat
or Republican, Conservative or Green, Socialist
or Libertarian, when we choose our government it
affects not only the lives and futures of our citizens,
but the lives and futures of people all around the
world. This was brought home to me on a recent trip
to Canada where almost everyone I met had a strong
and vital interest in the decision that we citizens
of the United States have made this November 2,
2004.
And maybe that is where we need to go to find that
elusive point of commonality, to think beyond our
Americanism. To understand that to be an American
in the early twenty first century, is to be fixed
in a point of time in a world that is ever changing.
Even then the definition is never constant, meaning
one thing to someone in Idaho and something else
to someone from New York. The only constant is the
relation to power and that to understand that we
need to begin a process of understanding that our
actions, no matter which side of the divide we are
on, need to be viewed both globally and historically.
And that might mean having to take responsibility
for how that power is used, whether we agree with
it or not, making it necessary for each of us to
be moved to act when we believe that the power is
used unwisely. That might mean that we will strongly
and actively disagree with one another, that we
may be polarized and divided. To ignore the differences
often results into their being swept under the rug
until they emerge again. The problems and issues
we are facing now are partially a result of our
past demons that we have ignored, and they are not
going to go away. Instead, let us embrace the conflict,
accept it, and look for new and creative ways to
move beyond it – until we come to loggerheads
again and again and again.
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