Genre: Personal Essay, Opinion, Editorial
Painting by Andrew Graham
As a teenager I traveled through France with a group of students in the months following 9/11. As we traveled we learned the dangers of being American. Whether it was as small as the jeering of schoolboys on the street or distain from a waitress in a café – we did not feel welcomed as Americans. It did not occur to us to explore the question of why. We did not evaluate ourselves. We did not evaluate our country. We were young, but we knew. We decided from then on to declare ourselves Canadian as we interacted with strangers along the way. In the time after we were welcomed and could quickly forget the hesitance with which we were first greeted. As I look back, I regret the compliant nature of our actions. It was too easy to escape the hostility merely by disassociating ourselves with our country.
I am a still a young person. There are many places I have yet to see. And while there is much I wish to see of this earth, I am reluctant. Essentially, this is because it is uncomfortable for me to know I am hated for being American. It can even be scary, but more than anything – it is because I do not feel very American and therefore do not feel I deserve it. This is a dangerous sentiment – perhaps more so than the Anti-American sentiments I experienced abroad.
Still today, it is easy for me to excuse myself from being part of the America I so quickly abandoned as a teenager in France. Sadly, this notion of not belonging to America is only strengthened in light of current politics. With my age I see myself taking on new identities. When I became of age to take on the role of a voter – my only reward was to exit the voting booth to find that my country does not favor many parts of my identity – and with this my distance grows. Because I did not feel particularly American before the election, I was unaffected when the outcome favored the Republican Party. At the time it was easier to disassociate myself with this current America than to face its negative policies head on.
I stand and witness the great many atrocities this distant America creates. And still, from the Left, I shake my head and return to my separate life. I do not agree with these actions and therefore do not take ownership of them. Consequently, I do not feel the threats of terrorism on America to be threats to me, but to a larger being that refuses to apologize for its errors. And with lack of apology, this America continues to invade, attack, torture, and claim to be greater than. I am young, but I know this is not my America. I am young, but I am separate.
While the events of recent years have been a source of my distance, they are still the source of a great despair. This despair is only amplified when I realize that my own distance and that of many others has led to further atrocities. Like myself, America is young. Acknowledgement of our brief history as a nation and evaluation of the killing caused by our actions has made our immaturity obvious – to all but ourselves.
Because of these great successes so early on in our history, a great American egotism has developed within our infrastructure. This ego has grown from our young country’s many great successes. Our accomplishments in mere formation, in liberation, and in economic independence are immense. They should not go without recognition. However, only those within our iron core, also the core of our ego, own these successes. The rest, many individuals feeling separate from their egotistical core, do not claim these larger victories. I, still seeing myself as separate, do not claim pride or pleasure in remembering the short, studded history of America. Instead I evaluate our many errors. My despair and my distance grow. I am young, but I am aware and concerned for this widespread distance from our core. In evaluating and understanding my developmental process as a born member of my country to one that has matured and distanced myself from my geographical origins and the subsequent history therein – will possibly shed light on my country’s major errors.
Because we, as a country, are young, we are highly malleable. We are influenced not only by our own interior developers, but also by our adversaries. After the events of September 11th, terrorism has become normalized within our political and social sphere. We have accepted it because of its frequency and normalized its severe nature. So far has this normalization stretched that the term itself has become overused. Because of September 11th and the severe and public nature of the attacks on American society, terrorism has become synonymous with Anti-American sentiments. Terrorism is ironically unsuccessful in eliciting terror from me. Again, this is because I have grown to feel separate from my administrators. However, because there are so many unmoved by these distant attacks, those committing them are moved to increase their fatality. It is the only method they have left to gain my attention.
Therein a scale has formed. Each attack against America is measured in comparison to those before. Lesser attacks are ineffective. Greater attacks go to the top of the scale and from there the bar is raised. 9/11 has the unfortunate characteristic of the attack that has gained the most attention – even from those distanced American’s like myself. Currently, the bar is held very high. America’s response to this attack has not lowered this bar in the least. Rather, we have responded with actions that have only spilled more blood and taken the lives of civilians in other countries. Effectively we have accepted the terms of war today and pronounced to our adversaries that these are terms we are willing to fight by. Lowering this bar is nearly impossible. Because America is part of the violence and will continue to be, all sentiments thought to be Anti-American will also be considered linked to terrorism.
The danger in this lays in the vastness of this Anti-American sentiment. It is dangerous and self-detrimental to be threatened by every criticism. My experience in youth was merely to deny acknowledgement of the criticism and adapt a safer identity. Independently, I could do this as I traveled. But the hostilities I encountered were merely by association with my country and my ability to separate myself from my country was easy. America cannot separate itself from its actions. It is impossible now for America to deny our errors. They are on display in the harshest lights of the world stage. As we continue this political dance, we fumble, we blunder and step to on the toes of our partners – our ego is what keeps us dancing. If we stop now we will be deafened by the silence – there will be no applause. Our once innovative steps will be forgotten. Instead we impose upon others our tired routine. We are unable to recognize anything outside of it.
Having established America is young – our formation should not be so distant that we are unable to learn from it. Our formation came from a desire to escape the imposition of British rule. Why now have we imposed upon others what we strove to escape from? Furthermore, why are counter insurgencies considered extreme? Our participation in the Revolutionary War stands as an example of how hard we will fight for our definition of freedom. But it is just that, our definition. Others define freedom differently. Imposing upon them our own definition is to now reverse our role to that of tyrants. We ignore this notion, this hypocritical action – because if acknowledged there will be guilt. Our ego will be bruised. It is confusing to be young. Your mistakes are often placed visibly before you. Your enthusiasm and your unwavering sense of entitlement sometimes do not let you see them. And when you do, there is embarrassment, there is guilt, but there is a moment waiting to be filled by an apology.
I learned in my youth the savior of an apology. In its essence, an apology is merely acknowledgement of one’s errors. An apology is acknowledging you accept your actions as wrong in full. It does not offer defense. In youth I often tried to defend my mistakes. I did not realize that my youth came with an inability to articulate. This inability is inherent to youth as it stems from a mere lack of experience. There is only room to apologize. I am young and I must apologize.
As a teenager I traveled through France with a group of students in the months following 9/11. As we traveled we learned the dangers of being American. Whether it was as small as the jeering of schoolboys on the street or distain from a waitress in a café – we did not feel welcomed as Americans. It did not occur to us to explore the question of why. We did not evaluate ourselves. We did not evaluate our country. We were young, but we knew. We decided from then on to declare ourselves Canadian as we interacted with strangers along the way. In the time after we were welcomed and could quickly forget the hesitance with which we were first greeted. As I look back, I regret the compliant nature of our actions. It was too easy to escape the hostility merely by disassociating ourselves with our country.
I am a still a young person. There are many places I have yet to see. And while there is much I wish to see of this earth, I am reluctant. Essentially, this is because it is uncomfortable for me to know I am hated for being American. It can even be scary, but more than anything – it is because I do not feel very American and therefore do not feel I deserve it. This is a dangerous sentiment – perhaps more so than the Anti-American sentiments I experienced abroad.
Still today, it is easy for me to excuse myself from being part of the America I so quickly abandoned as a teenager in France. Sadly, this notion of not belonging to America is only strengthened in light of current politics. With my age I see myself taking on new identities. When I became of age to take on the role of a voter – my only reward was to exit the voting booth to find that my country does not favor many parts of my identity – and with this my distance grows. Because I did not feel particularly American before the election, I was unaffected when the outcome favored the Republican Party. At the time it was easier to disassociate myself with this current America than to face its negative policies head on.
I stand and witness the great many atrocities this distant America creates. And still, from the Left, I shake my head and return to my separate life. I do not agree with these actions and therefore do not take ownership of them. Consequently, I do not feel the threats of terrorism on America to be threats to me, but to a larger being that refuses to apologize for its errors. And with lack of apology, this America continues to invade, attack, torture, and claim to be greater than. I am young, but I know this is not my America. I am young, but I am separate.
While the events of recent years have been a source of my distance, they are still the source of a great despair. This despair is only amplified when I realize that my own distance and that of many others has led to further atrocities. Like myself, America is young. Acknowledgement of our brief history as a nation and evaluation of the killing caused by our actions has made our immaturity obvious – to all but ourselves.
Because of these great successes so early on in our history, a great American egotism has developed within our infrastructure. This ego has grown from our young country’s many great successes. Our accomplishments in mere formation, in liberation, and in economic independence are immense. They should not go without recognition. However, only those within our iron core, also the core of our ego, own these successes. The rest, many individuals feeling separate from their egotistical core, do not claim these larger victories. I, still seeing myself as separate, do not claim pride or pleasure in remembering the short, studded history of America. Instead I evaluate our many errors. My despair and my distance grow. I am young, but I am aware and concerned for this widespread distance from our core. In evaluating and understanding my developmental process as a born member of my country to one that has matured and distanced myself from my geographical origins and the subsequent history therein – will possibly shed light on my country’s major errors.
Because we, as a country, are young, we are highly malleable. We are influenced not only by our own interior developers, but also by our adversaries. After the events of September 11th, terrorism has become normalized within our political and social sphere. We have accepted it because of its frequency and normalized its severe nature. So far has this normalization stretched that the term itself has become overused. Because of September 11th and the severe and public nature of the attacks on American society, terrorism has become synonymous with Anti-American sentiments. Terrorism is ironically unsuccessful in eliciting terror from me. Again, this is because I have grown to feel separate from my administrators. However, because there are so many unmoved by these distant attacks, those committing them are moved to increase their fatality. It is the only method they have left to gain my attention.
Therein a scale has formed. Each attack against America is measured in comparison to those before. Lesser attacks are ineffective. Greater attacks go to the top of the scale and from there the bar is raised. 9/11 has the unfortunate characteristic of the attack that has gained the most attention – even from those distanced American’s like myself. Currently, the bar is held very high. America’s response to this attack has not lowered this bar in the least. Rather, we have responded with actions that have only spilled more blood and taken the lives of civilians in other countries. Effectively we have accepted the terms of war today and pronounced to our adversaries that these are terms we are willing to fight by. Lowering this bar is nearly impossible. Because America is part of the violence and will continue to be, all sentiments thought to be Anti-American will also be considered linked to terrorism.
The danger in this lays in the vastness of this Anti-American sentiment. It is dangerous and self-detrimental to be threatened by every criticism. My experience in youth was merely to deny acknowledgement of the criticism and adapt a safer identity. Independently, I could do this as I traveled. But the hostilities I encountered were merely by association with my country and my ability to separate myself from my country was easy. America cannot separate itself from its actions. It is impossible now for America to deny our errors. They are on display in the harshest lights of the world stage. As we continue this political dance, we fumble, we blunder and step to on the toes of our partners – our ego is what keeps us dancing. If we stop now we will be deafened by the silence – there will be no applause. Our once innovative steps will be forgotten. Instead we impose upon others our tired routine. We are unable to recognize anything outside of it.
Having established America is young – our formation should not be so distant that we are unable to learn from it. Our formation came from a desire to escape the imposition of British rule. Why now have we imposed upon others what we strove to escape from? Furthermore, why are counter insurgencies considered extreme? Our participation in the Revolutionary War stands as an example of how hard we will fight for our definition of freedom. But it is just that, our definition. Others define freedom differently. Imposing upon them our own definition is to now reverse our role to that of tyrants. We ignore this notion, this hypocritical action – because if acknowledged there will be guilt. Our ego will be bruised. It is confusing to be young. Your mistakes are often placed visibly before you. Your enthusiasm and your unwavering sense of entitlement sometimes do not let you see them. And when you do, there is embarrassment, there is guilt, but there is a moment waiting to be filled by an apology.
I learned in my youth the savior of an apology. In its essence, an apology is merely acknowledgement of one’s errors. An apology is acknowledging you accept your actions as wrong in full. It does not offer defense. In youth I often tried to defend my mistakes. I did not realize that my youth came with an inability to articulate. This inability is inherent to youth as it stems from a mere lack of experience. There is only room to apologize. I am young and I must apologize.
I apologize for separating myself from my country. I apologize for being blind to the freedoms offered to me, which let me do so. I apologize for not taking ownership of the actions my country has taken against terrorism. My indifference to terrorism has allowed them to engage in this exchange of violence. I apologize for only being interested in the news when the killing reaches a new climax. I apologize for being unmoved by all other deaths.