Tuesday, July 10,
An American in
The ANNOTICO Report
Gaither
Stewart grew up in the
So Gaither Stewart has
the credentials and credibility, and he makes critical observations and
poses probing questions.
And regardless of whether you
disagree, and/or it makes you angry, Is there ANY
merit to what he is saying, or a
He says:
"Beyond politics, beyond the questions of war and peace, I wonder about
Americans in general, so lonely in the universe. A whole people feeling the
loneliness you feel behind locked doors. Behind walls.
A kind of vacancy. What is it that other people have
and we Americans do not? Or what do Americans have that
others do not? Why are Americans different? I do not believe it was always that
way. But it is today. And it is a mystery."
Italians say that Americans
are spoiled; they have it too good; they haven’t suffered enough.
Europeans often think of Americans as children, difficult children, with a
childlike air of impregnability about them, whom real life has not yet touched.
Europeans really want to ask
what is wrong with
Have the
The
Lonely American
By Gaither Stewart
Online Journal Contributing Writer
June 19, 2007
Each day I watch
the TV news images of American soldiers on the streets of
The soldier in
dust-colored camouflage uniform and helmet, his
bullet-proof vest (not really bullet- proof and certainly not bomb-proof, as I
see each day: five of them died yesterday in Baghdad alone), brandishing his
automatic weapon, standing alone at a Baghdad checkpoint, an empty look on his
face (though he is terrified and wonders how he got into this chaos),
surrounded by a world he does not understand, by people speaking a language he
does not understand, in the middle of a war he does not understand, this
bewildered American seems to be the loneliest man in the world.
Because I am an
American, I watch this soldier sadly. I think that there stands the emblem of
Beyond politics,
beyond the questions of war and peace, I wonder about Americans in general,
so lonely in the universe. A whole people feeling the loneliness you feel
behind locked doors. Behind walls. A
kind of vacancy. What is it that other people have and we Americans do
not? Or what do Americans have that others do not? Why
are Americans different? I do not believe it was always that way. But it is
today. And it is a mystery.
Recently I began
asking friends in
But there is no
clear answer. Europeans do not understand my questions. I think my questions
are not clear. Few Europeans admit that they consider Americans
fundamentally different from other human beings. Few admit to
anti-Americanism. For most people in the world we all belong to the same
species. We are all just men. We all must aspire to feeling a
oneness with the world.
Still, old friends
in
Now, some Americans might believe my answers to such
questions are obvious: that of course I as a progressive favor
a national health service for
Still, that is not
my point, either. I believe Europeans really want to ask what is wrong with
What is missing in
Americans? For example, what do Mexican people have that Americans lack?
When I settled in
Europe in the sixties, Americans were still broadly well received throughout
the continent; America still had a lot of credit for its help in World War
II and for the Marshall Plan, although already then admiration was mixed with
envy and resentment at American success and arrogance. Here I should say
straight away that Americans were then well received except by part of the skeptical European Left that, as it turned out, was right
in its suspicions.
The pre-Vietnam years were still good years for
Americans.
Though as a rule
most governments lie to the governed, it was precisely the great Cold War
lie that poisoned
The most virulent
anti-Communist propaganda filled the eighties: nuclear warfare scares,
statistics and testimony showing that Communisms conquest of the world was
imminent; Soviet military-economic power was a terrible thing. What a surprise
then for the Soviet experts that at the end of that same decade the Berlin Wall
fell and overnight the whole shebang collapsed. It was a paper tiger.
Yet, by then more
Europeans had begun doubting the state of American democracy. The category of skeptics broadened.
In Europe today, it
is no longer a question of what reactionary
Though most
Americans believe in the myth of their democracy, European polls show an
Some Americans
reductively think anti-Americanism is a question of hate and envy of
Can any sane person
believe Europe is craving for fast
food joints and endless shopping malls and national flags and advertising
banners waving everywhere and God on the lips of its fundamentalist leaders? Is
this the progress
The truth is
Europeans see
Nor is it true, as
many Americans might like to think, that Europeans want to be like them. Italian emigration to the
Perhaps never
before have the differences between Americans and Europeans been greater. But why? What is it? Who is at fault? Why this gulf?
Politics and
economics and peace and war apart, I believe it is a question of Americans
uncertain place in the human race. When I write here Americans, I admit
I have in mind white conservative Americans of European heritage of the great
American heartland. And also those who spend so much time speaking of tolerance
and trying to decide which politically correct label to attach to Blacks and
Indians and Latinos -- as if African American and Indigenous
American and Hispanic American made things right. It is my
experience that the majority of these Americans are not on the same wavelength
as other people in the world.
Oh, the accused
will gasp and say how naove! How anti-American! How
narrow-minded! How prejudiced! The fact remains that as human beings Latin
Americans are on the same wavelength as other people in the world. Russians
are. Arabs are. Asians are. Most black Americans and Latinos and Indians are.
So why not most white Americans? Many will be surprised -- though they shouldnt be -- to hear that they are regarded in some
of Europe in the same way they are among the ghettos of blacks and browns in LA
or Miami or New York City.
And their government is largely at fault.
Their government, their society, and
their lonely culture.
American tourists
today cut pitiful figures traipsing curiously around Europe, seeing only
quaintness and cuteness and condescendingly trying to imitate. They make
countless digital snapshots but never quite get the real picture. As if living a
year in a Tuscan village were bridging the gap. The local people will drink
wine with you. They will reach out to you. They will try to love you. They
want to be able to feel the real you. To feel that you are like them.
But, I fear, they
will never understand you or even grasp why you are there. For Americans
are a people of many emotions and
sensations but embarrassed by feelings.
Even
more. Such false relationships are symbolic of the more profound differences,
the chasm separating Americans from the rest of the world. How, the European
wonders, how can a majority of voters in the land of freedom support a
system dedicated to crushing freedom?
How can citizens of
the land of democracy vote for a government that sponsors dictatorships around
the world and calls them democracy? How can a democratic nation
exist in a political system of two parties, which though they have different
points of departure and programs, in power are so similar as to form a
one-party system? How can a people ready to go to war to export democracy
sacrifice its own democracy in the process?
The mystery is why
a majority of Americans who bother to vote sustain a government that fears
and hates democracy and its own Constitution as ours does? Why are Americans as chained to their leaders as convicts are
chained to their guards? And why do they tolerate a government that needs a
wall around
Which leads
inevitably to the danger of the gradual but inevitable degeneration of an
enduring ideology based on anti-Communism, anti-Socialism, anti-terrorism, all
of course with Gods special blessing and protection, straight into Fascism.
One could think
that Americans are retiring from the world. That they
have forgotten the rest of the human species. That
they no longer even have the same weaknesses and strengths of other people.
That they stand outside even themselves. Outside, and alone.
People from the
prison of the former
I have not answered
my question. I still do not know if I have posed the question correctly. We
Americans want brief and concise answers to clear questions. Maybe that in
itself is part of my point.
I feel ill at ease
writing this. I am uncertain. I am sad....
Yet, Americans are
different. In a negative sense. My gut feeling is that
it is due to a lack of real connections with the rest. No wonder the national
paranoia. No wonder
Hopefully,
Americans will begin to search for their lost kinship with the rest...
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