On American patriotism
As a good non-American, I watched Obama’s speech today, much like a good portion of the world, no doubt.
While it was by far the best English I’ve heard in politics in a few years (I felt like smiling every time he used “upon/with which” instead of sending the preposition to the end of a sentence as most people do nowadays), I feel sorry that patriotism still has such a massive role to play in American politics.
It might be linked to my knowledge of history, to my knowledge of Belgian politics and to my dislike of the GWBush era, but I see nationalism as only good in small doses.
Yet here was Barack Obama, the “world’s favourite American”, the President whom we believe shall reconcile the US with the world, using the “God bless America”, saying “we shall lead the world again”, and so on.
Why is patriotism so pervasive in the US, and why haven’t the Americans understood that their pride in America is not only their strength but also their greatest weakness?
It’s because of pride that America has been disliked, even hated, in many parts of the world for a long time.
The invasion of American culture and products does not attest of any kind of quality, but rather of the extreme pride of Americans. Outside of the US, people often watch Hollywood films as well. Not because of their quality, but because they are often the only thing showing (yes, I blame the cinemas as well). Therefore, why do these films always have to include a highly patriotic moment? Call me anti-American, but I cringe every time I watch a movie that starts showing US flags and plays the US national anthem.
Interestingly, the USA are probably the only nation of which I know that insist on linking their patriotism to religion.
While I was glad to hear Obama speak of the Muslim, Jewish and Hindu communities (and the “non-believers”… couldn’t he have said “atheist”? “non-believer” is the term used by believers, and implies that they should believe), I thought it slightly hypocritical when later on, the “God bless America” was used (whereupon the crowd rejoiced) and a Christian reverend came along to say a prayer. In Europe, tying religion to politics is seen as extremely dangerous (with reason – if you are unaware of how bloody the Protestant Church’s birth was, you don’t know a thing about the dangers of religion; even then, most of us in Europe are safe from the persecution that has been observed in some other countries).
Is it because America has yet to be ruled by non-Christians that this practice is perpetuated?
I am glad to see Obama become president, and his speech, while illustrating in great detail why some Americans consider him to be a socialist (and by extension a communist – why the USA still don’t understand the distinction, I don’t know), gave me confidence in him. Despite the use of religion and patriotism to make the crowd stir.
Welcome to the White House, sir. I hope Americans and terrorists won’t be stupid enough to kill you, and I hope you won’t let us all down. Just stop pretending the USA were created by God to save the world, and we’ll be happy.
Good luck.
21 January 2009 at 00:04
I was forced to watch the inauguration live (“Let me out! I have an English paper to write!”) and I nearly cried when I realized that he wasn’t saying really much of anything. I still don’t know how he’s going to solve foreign terrorist issues (and don’t pull that “I love you, you lone me” crap; I know you secretly want to cut my head off and put the video of it on Youtube) and the stuff he did propose solutions to was dumb, to say the least; his proposal of using renewable energy for our electricity needs is going to be out-of-sight expensive. I’m not sure if you’ve looked at the economy lately, Mr. President, but it’s bad. We don’t have nearly enough money to concentrate on renewable energy at this point in time.
No, he wasn’t saying anything constructive, it was just good rhetoric; he was telling the crowd in Washington, the mob chanting “Obama! Obama!” even after his official title would be “Mr. President” what they wanted to hear. And they went with it. No, our downfall will not be our pride, it will be our ignorance. Our focus on hearing only what we want to hear on the surface and ignoring what’s on the inside will become our downfall.
21 January 2009 at 08:49
Sorry Jaca, but that’s politics for you. One of the golden rules of politics is “never tell any details to the crowd”, because details might have to change, some might be criticised, and going into details simply bores most of those present.
He was talking to millions of Americans of all backgrounds, and the only ones who would have cared about details, let alone understood them, are the inquisitive of mind and those who actually know the field.
Re renewable energy, good point. However, when you look at the US Federal government’s budget, there’s a whole lot that could be simply re-allocated to make huge changes. An example would be to temporarily stop pouring so many millions into space programmes and to make most of those funds available for renewable energy research.
22 January 2009 at 00:41
I disagree. You say “re-allocate the budget” and I say “good luck.” There’s millions, perhaps even billions or trillions, of items to go through in the U.S. budget and to go through it one item at a time will take years. You say “stop pouring millions of dollars into such and such program” and I point to the 750 billion dollar bailout program we enacted in October (which worked for only about a couple weeks, by the by, and found its way into CEO pockets anyway) and the 800 billion dollar bailout program that is going to be shoved under Obama’s nose anytime now. NASA’s budget is going to be 21 billion dollars this year.
You’ve got to admit that that’s ridiculous, and if Obama passes the new bailout bill, then I may call him two-faced.
23 January 2009 at 10:18
Heh. Indeed, the bailout programme is one which is ludicrous, unless there can be a sufficiently powerful yet independent entity that ensures the good use of the funds.
The bailout programme actually reminds me of all the money sent to African countries without supervision. Where did it end up? Certainly not where it was supposed to go.
Interesting thing about NASA’s budget. I suppose it’s your defence then, no? Then again, I guess it would be hard for Obama to change defence spending…
28 January 2009 at 05:44
Pretty much. Obama’s plan is to cut funding to those “bridges to no where” that serve no use or have no point, and to end the war in Iraq, which will cut way down on the defense budget, as we are currently running at wartime levels. But like I pointed out, he has no explanations on where he’s going to get money for some of his other proposals, and his first act as president (shutting down Gitmo) went off half-cocked in my opinion.
We’ll see, but I personally think that the worst he could do is prove the republicans wrong.