My Allegiance
July 4, 2005
We watched the fireworks from the north side of the Capitol, in a gap where the Washington Monument was plainly visible. A small group of perhaps forty or fifty people watched along with us, and probably for the same reason: to avoid the necessity of scrambling for a seat on the well-guarded and crowd-choked mall. We were a little distant from the explosions, but, on the other hand, our walk home was short.
The delight of the fireworks program was the non-stop commentary of some little girl standing right behind us. She instantly figured out the fireworks which exploded in shapes: a red heart, Saturn, or a smiley face. And she at one point whispered that fireworks are an art.. and opined that the white weeping style of fireworks are SO PRETTY! I never saw the little girl.. but it was a reminder that fireworks are indeed SO PRETTY, and the Washington display was the best I have ever seen.. simply in terms of spectacular explosions.. and what better foreground than the Washington Monument?
It has been five years since I was in the United States for the Fourth of July, and so the occasion was not only a chance to get re-familiar with fireworks, but also to think about my relation to America.. whose “birthday” and values we celebrate on this day.
For better or worse I am an American.. and I see the world through the eyes of an American raised on the West Coast. It did not take me long in my experiences abroad to feel my instinctive responses to ideas and situations.. and to measure how different those were from the people around me who came from another culture. Which is not to say I was better.. butI knew I was an American, and I have never tried to shake that feeling.
Last summer I walked into a religious bookstore in Damascus.. and a bearded young man walked up to help me. He first asked where I was from, and I told him America. He quickly looked away, and I could see that he was not happy with that answer. I told him that I did not choose my country. He responded quickly that the Iraqi children did not choose theirs either. I did not say anything. He breathed in, thought for a moment, and proceeded to tell me I was welcome. But there was a central truth to that short stalemate: we do not choose where we come from.. nor the outlook on the world that we will inherit.. nor our intuitive responses to ideas..
But somewhere along the line the neo-patriotism that has swept our country, and which even Democrats with an eye on the presidency pay fealty to, turned sour to me. It may have come from my disgust at Egyptian anger over the loss of life in Israel, but their willful blindness to it in Sudan.. a place where they could make a difference. But then what is so different from our constant worry about American casualties in Iraq or on 9/11, and our refusal to even try to count the Iraqi and Afghani casualties that tick higher and higher.
I spent the turn of the millennium in Death Valley.. camping out and jotting ideas in a notebook. My main idea, I remember, was that the challenge for America in the new century was integration.. not to demand American priority and dominance, but to sacrifice some of America’s power for the safety and promise of a broader order. The alternative is an insistence on our right to a greater standard of living and to military dominance.. and to unbridled development.. which is a formula for resentment and struggle, and for ecological disaster. It is that insistence.. supported by this emotional neo-patriotism.. that creates perhaps the greatest obstacle to peace in the next century.
So I will pass on that book, pictured below, which offers 365 heart-warming patriotic passages. I will also pass on almost anything else that smacks of patriotic pride.. at Emily’s last marathon I could not stand still during the singing of the Star-Spangled Banner, let alone put my hand over my heart. For now I pledge allegiance to this world, our earth, and all the people it supports.
