Solomon West

essay

Letters to an American Friend

THIRD LETTER

So far, I have spoken to you of ‘my country,’ and I can see how you may have thought at the beginning that my language had changed. In reality, that wasn’t so. It’s just that we didn’t give the same meaning to the same words. I remember talking with you and it getting to the point where it felt like we weren’t even speaking the same language anymore. And this was never more so than when you talked about patriotism. I used to cringe every time you used the word; I almost came to hate it: ‘patriotism.’ When spoken from your lips it always took on a blind and violent tone, which made it forever foreign to me.  

You talked about being patriotic as though one should be proud of the spot on the globe where he or she happened to be born, and that’s that, rather than demanding that your country earn your respect, and do so continually, day after day until the day you die. It was like you didn’t understand that pride can’t be given or taken; it has to be earned. You talked about patriotism as if the most important aspect of a country were its government, whereas when I speak of ‘my country,’ when I speak of America, I am thinking of the land, the mountains and plains, the rivers, lakes, and beaches, I am thinking of the people, gathered in cities, suburbs, and towns, collected from all over the world, driven to this land more than any other on the face of the earth because of the opportunities available here. You think of America as a derivative of its government and associate patriotism with a respect for that government, or at least a respect for the institutions of democracy on which that government is founded, whereas I cherish America in spite of its government. Hopefully now, though, you understand finally that my language has never really changed. The one I used with you before I was arrested, before I was imprisoned, is the same one I am using today. 

“You’re damn right I’m patriotic!” you told me. I remember the fire in your eyes when you said it. However, too often it seemed that when you spoke of patriotism the ideas you were actually expressing were those of American Exceptionalism. “America is the best country,” you said to me as if it were a competition, winner take all, and like every other country should acknowledge it and admit their inferiority. You were always very quick to place America above countries you had never been to and people you had never met, and in doing so you have given the world a version of America that is ridiculous and obnoxious. Whereas I saw America as a land and people situated in a global community made up of other lands and other peoples, and just like the rest, it deserved to be judged on its actions, which is to say the actions of its people. 

You speak of America, but the difference is that America, for you, is an entity in and of itself, with its own separate existence, while for me it is simply the encapsulation of everything that every American is and does, on this soil and abroad. You hold up this idea of America, you venerate and worship this ideal, and you don’t ever think you have to reconcile it with the truth. It never occurs to you that this oversimplified image of America that you so proudly promote — the land of the free and the home of the brave — might, in fact, be irreconcilable with the complicated and painstaking truth. As I mentioned in my previous letter, and which I’m sure we can both agree on, the actions of Americans have not always been in favor of freedom nor exemplified bravery. Now, that does not mean that we can’t try to change this, that we shouldn’t try to change this. No, we certainly can, and certainly should. But first, we have to acknowledge that something is wrong, we have to see America for what it is, from its praiseworthy feats to its blameworthy flaws — for keeping the wrong at arm’s length only ensures that you never have a hand in making it right. 

Remember, you said to me, one day when you were mocking my indignation: “If you hate America so much, leave!” I told you then that I didn’t hate America, because to me America was more than just its government, and that my problem was not with the location and that leaving it was therefore not necessarily the most logical solution. “My problem is with some of the people here,” I said, “and if I could have nothing to do with them, believe me, I would. I’m doing my best to leave them alone; if only they’d do the same to me.” You countered that the people in question were in control of the location in question. “That’s the way it is,” you said, “and if you don’t like it, leave!” I was surprised by your insistence. I pointed out that just because these people were physically in control, just because they were physically controlling others, did not mean that they had a legitimate right to do so, and that equating one with the other — physical force with legitimacy — as you seemed so quick to do, had you endorsing a morality of ‘might makes right,’ which then opens the door for the sanctioning of just about every crime imaginable, provided it’s performed by the strongest around. You argued that the government’s legitimacy did not arise from physical force but from the fact that it was supported by the majority, and that it was therefore not only the government that I had a problem with, but also all the people who supported the government, including yourself. “Opposing the government and questioning its legitimacy,” you argued, “is the same as opposing all of us.” 

My question to you now, though, is whether or not it’s in accordance with your idea of morality to fight against someone like me. Am I the type of person you honestly feel a moral duty to oppose? Do you really feel I should be penalized simply because I do not think ensuring my safety warrants killing innocent civilians, killing children and pregnant women? Do you honestly feel morally compelled to punish me because I do not think my safety, nor the safety of my family and friends, is worth imprisoning people who have done nothing wrong according to my moral code, not to mention subjecting them to cruel and unusual punishment? Do you honestly see me as your enemy because of this? If you do, then by all means oppose me, penalize me. If you truly see me as your enemy, it becomes your moral duty to try to fight me and punish me. But I know you, at least I used to and hope to again. And the man I knew, the man I was friends with and sincerely wish to be friends with once more, I don’t think he could honestly see me as his enemy, at least not for the reasons mentioned above. 

That’s why I was so surprised that this was the logic and mentality you fell back on: If you don’t like it, leave. As though those were the only two options, either like it or leave. As if the proper reaction to dissatisfaction were weakness, rather than strength, as if it were flight, avoidance, abandonment, rather than moral outrage, righteous indignation, concentrated anger, focused fury, a desire to change things, the courage to fight for what you believe in, the passion that has propelled people through the ages to fight for the change they want to see in the world. I was surprised that you felt defending your country required you to dismiss dissension. I was surprised that you had taken the notions of government and democracy and tied them so tightly to your idea of America that you felt it your duty to ignore your own morality. And I was shocked at how easy and natural a thing it seemed for you to do. This is what urges me to say that your America is not the right one. Your country shouldn’t do that to you. It shouldn’t twist you up like that and turn you against yourself. It shouldn’t make demands of you that make you mutilate and debase yourself. No, your country should inspire you. It should give you hope, and make you truly believe that your best is attainable. 

I will not go much further. Sometimes when I’m out in the yard, I catch myself enjoying brief respites from my sentence here, and I find myself thinking about all the places in America that I know so well. It’s a magnificent land made of pain and history, but also carrying with it such promise for the future. I relive the various pilgrimages I made over the years. The crowded sidewalks of New York, slicing their way through the dramatic architecture; a sweaty afternoon trek from Harlem down to the East Village. The bone-chilling winds of Chicago, pelting the face with snow; a crowded early-morning train ride from Elmhurst into downtown, before a long day of St. Patrick’s Day drinking. The gray haze of San Francisco, ever breaking into fits of rain; a walk out onto the pier curving out into the bay, with views of Alcatraz to the north, the Golden Gate Bridge to the west, and Ghirardelli Square at the head of the city, as seagulls swoop around. The streams and waterfalls of Big Sur, which come pouring out of the forest right onto the sandy beaches and meet the cold, turquoise waters of the Pacific; a shady hike along a poison oak–edged trail, until the redwood canopy is left behind, then through the thickets up to Buzzard’s Roost, looking out over Sycamore Canyon all the way to the ocean. The coniferous evergreens of Colorado’s Front Range, lodgepole pines, ponderosa pines, Douglas-firs; a road trip from LA to Evergreen, 1,000 miles, 20 hours, 12 people, 1 van. My memory has melded these superimposed images into a single face that is that of my great country. And I feel a tightness in my chest when I think about how you and your concrete results have kept all of this from me, for nine months now, and how your attack — “If you don’t like it, leave!” — would seek to bar it from me for the remainder of my life. Some of these places, however, are places that you and I saw together. I had no idea at the time that one day you would try to banish me from them. And even now, at certain moments of rage and despair, I sometimes regret that we went to these places together, and that you will forever be a part of my memories of them. 

But at other times, and these are the only ones that truly count, I am delighted that it is so. For I know that each adventure we embarked on has helped you to better appreciate and understand this great country of ours, just as it has helped me, and I know that it is by truly appreciating and understanding our own country that we get our first glimpse of what the world actually is: an immensely large and diverse group of people, unfathomably interconnected, all somewhat uncertain, but still hoping for the best. This is the image I’d like to close on. And maybe now you finally see how ridiculous you sounded when you used to talk about America being the best country in the world, when all you should have been concerned with was it being the best country it could be, expecting nothing more from it, demanding nothing less. Maybe now you finally see that it makes no sense to talk about America being better than the rest, only better than its past. Maybe now you finally see.

April 2013