When I was a child I loved my country and all the symbols of my country like
the American flag, the Marine Corps and the police. As I grew into
adulthood I began to understand that the nation's leaders did not always
make noble decisions and that the President might not even be a very nice
man. As a young adult threatened by the Vietnam War my heart hardened
toward all those patriotic symbols I once loved without reservations or
doubts. My childhood playmates and I once marched down the block waving the
star and stripes and singing, "we won the war of 1954". At 21 my comrades
and I marched in the streets and chanted "hell no, we won't go". In the
subsequent 30 years I encountered more and more shameful evidence against
the government that claims to represent all of us, and I developed a
reflexive reaction to the sight of the flag, a reaction that sharpened
exponentially as the number of flags displayed increased.
When confronted with large public demonstrations of flag-waving I have
snarled when I though it save to do so. When I didn't feel safe I simply
shut down in defense of my essential self. That behavior changed early this
week. Over the weekend folks in Seattle created a floral memorial to the
victims of the September 11th tragedy. Official estimates reported that
75,000 people left a million flowers in and around the large central
fountain at the Seattle Center. For those of you who are not familiar with
the fountain, the water sprouting apparatus sits at the bottom of a large
bowl that is several hundred feet across. Spiraling ramps lead from the
level of the surrounding ground down into the bowl.
I visited the memorial on Monday evening because my heart ached, and I
desperately need solace and hope. In the memorial I saw flowers of all
kinds laid out everywhere. I also saw written messages that spoke of sorrow
and loss and a longing for a time and place when all would be right with the
world. I also saw many American flags and flag variants. I never thought
of speaking harshly, but upon seeing the flags, I began to shut my heart
down. I did not fear for my safety if I spoke out against the patriotic
display; I kept silent out of respect for the other, much more wholesome
sentiments present and the people who made them. I began to shut my heart,
but I stopped because the other expressions touched me deeply. It made
little sense for me to willingly cut myself off from them. Besides, I came
to the memorial in order to open my heart and weep. So at first I tolerated
the flags in order to fulfill my emotional needs, and toleration led to new
understanding.
I came to the Seattle Center believing that the vast majority of the
American people want peace and need to express many feeling like sorrow,
loss and many beliefs like faith in the future rather than anger turning to
revenge. Consequently, I looked for evidence to support that belief as I
immersed myself in the memorial. I found lots of that real evidence. I also
found that the combination of the many expressions of love and my
willingness to perceive the world outside of my own box allowed me to see
the flags in a different light.
The flags came to represent love of country in a new/old way. For me that
love reminds me of the innocent love I once felt as a child only now I make
a necessary distinction between the current government, whose actions I do
not love and decency of the people, which I do. I want to love my country
rather than feel ashamed of it because of how its government acts. In order
to do so I need to redefine and reappropriate the country, capture it back
from those who have stolen it from me and from the rest of us. Today I can
employ a linguistic trick that allows me to say and mean that the Bush
Administration is not the nations. Doing so makes more possible that
tomorrow or the next day or some day we can bring about the change in the
material world.
I should have know to make this distinction already because I already had
all the facts I needed. I have often told friends who inquire about our
family trips to foreign countries that Cubans or Vietnamese or Nicaraguans
do not hate American people despite the destruction American foreign policy
has visited upon them. I've often reported that most people overseas make a
clear distinction between the American people and the US government. Yet
until Monday I hadn't been able to truly make that separation myself.
I have a copy of a recording Paul Robeson, the great Black Activist and
Internationalist made in 1953. That's the heyday of Joe McCarthy and the
House Un-American Activities Committee. That's the first year the
Republicans in the form of Dwight Eisenhower held the White House in nearly
a generation. That's six years after the American Legion rioted in
Peekskill, New York to block Robeson's recital in that small city. The song
he recorded was "The House I Live In", a patriotic song expressing a love of
country. The apparent contradiction used to confuse me. Now I realize that
the country he loved was the one he perceived below the ugliness.
As I write the elected thieves and their minions try to stoke up the
ugliness machine. In so doing they try to maintain their grip on my
country. They try to make me believe that only they have the power and the
right to define what my country is and does. But I have seen the flowers,
and I know better.
Yen Chin does educational work in Seattle.
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