Land of the free, home of the brave
IT'S easy to laugh at Americans. We often find their politics naive, their patriotism quaint, their firm belief that they live in the greatest country in the world rather amusing. They are apparently paranoid and ignorant of the rest of the world, yet the rest of the world comes running to them at the first sign of a problem.
Take The West Wing. Those of us who watch The West Wing on Tuesday nights do so with a healthy dose of irony, an indulgent sneer at the show's folksy American values of patriotism, tradition, old-fashioned moral integrity and a belief, above all, that America is great, greater than the sum of its parts and ideas.
Last Tuesday night, instead of watching the regular episode of The West Wing, we were watching the unfolding story of a country in shock. Terrorism had struck at the very heart of the very idea of America. The incredible vulnerability of New York, the capital of the world, had been exposed. Twin edifices of America's greatness, of its ability to reach up and touch the sky, had been destroyed. And it was then that we saw what is really, truly great about America.
It was in the little things. The fact that people stopped as they ran from the meltdown to talk to the cameras, to bear witness, a sense of civic duty even at this time of crisis. There was the paramedic with a camera strapped to him, who watched the cloud of dust rush at him, sheltered behind a car, and then, on finding that he was not hurt, walked back into hell again to see if he could help anyone else.
It was in the bigger things too. Who could not be touched by the dozens of Congress members from both parties who stood side by side on the East Front of the Capitol on Tuesday evening and pledged that they were united behind the president and the country? There was applause as they vowed that Congress would be in session on Wednesday. "As representatives of the people, we are here to declare that our resolve has not been weakened by these horrific and cowardly acts. Congress will convene tomorrow," said Senator Tom Daschle, the Democratic majority leader.
The determination to remain free despite everything was admirable. "They win when we are not seen," said Senator Joseph R Biden from Delaware. "They win when they do anything to change the way this great nation runs."
George Bush echoed these sentiments: "These acts of mass murder were intended to frighten our nation into chaos and retreat. But they have failed. Our country is strong. A great people has been moved to defend a great nation ... These acts can shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve. America was targeted for attack because we're the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world. And no one will keep that light from shining." You can be cynical or you can choose to see that this kind of patriotic bravado could be what keeps America going for the next while.
We have all shared in the freedom and opportunity of which Bush spoke. We have all holidayed, summered or lived in America. Practically all of us have relations in New York. Everyone in this country knows someone who was living or holidaying in New York last week. Most of us at least know a friend of a friend who worked in the Twin Towers.
A NEIGHBOUR and old schoolmate of mine narrowly escaped death. Another friend and neighbour took last week off work in the Trade Centre at the last minute after his girlfriend, who was visiting from London, talked him into it. When another friend spoke to him on Tuesday he thought that all of the people he worked with were probably dead.
And so we share their grief and their shock too. But not everyone did. A media need to have dissenting voices could explain it. Old-fashioned leftwing Schadenfreude at America's misfortune is probably a more accurate diagnosis. It started on RTE news the very night of the bomb, where some academic was dredged up in an interview in which he basically pointed out that if he lived in despair in the Middle East he'd bomb America too. This was the first of many voices in the Irish media trotted on to give the line that America was "reaping the thorns of its foreign policy". It was neither the time nor the place to parade these views. But it didn't stop there.
Bob Fisk was trotted out more than once on RTE last week. He was at pains to explain to Pat Kenny what a deeply religious man Osama bin Laden is. In the English and Irish Independents Fisk criticised the use of the "pejorative and sometimes racist word 'terrorism"'. While Yasser Arafat symbolically gave Palestinian blood for America, Fisk too was using the line that America was reaping the thorns of its foreign policy or, as Fisk put it, "America has bankrolled Israel's wars for so many years that it believed this would be cost-free. No longer so." The most cynical kind of "I told you so".
On Marian Finucane on Wednesday morning we were treated to The Irish Voice's Patrick Farrelly, suggesting that because of the despair that was developing in the Middle East this kind of thing was bound to happen.
While even Iran was commiserating with the US, Helena Sheehan, an American former communist was there too. She admitted that her first thought when she heard about the tragedy was that America would now become even more dangerous in the world than it is already. And then, later, she thought of the human scale of it.
Farrelly batted back that you had to think something like this was going to "come down", given how close Bush's administration was to Ariel Sharon. Sheehan hit out at Bush for exercising power in a naked way, for Kyoto. They were the classic anti-social socialists. Ideology seemed to smother their humanity.
It was inappropriate and quite outrageous. A woman called Patricia, who was down at the American Embassy, came on air to say that she was passing on her way home from work and she thought she'd just get a bunch of flowers and put them down there. "Sorry doesn't say enough," she said. She didn't seem to know too much about American foreign policy but she knew something far more important at a time like this. Her humanity was in sharp contrast to the point-scoring "we told you so" attitude in the studio.
By Friday things were clearly out of control out in RTE. As we all know, the nation loves nothing better than to express its grief through a variety show, and having toyed with the idea of having no Late Late Show, RTE decided in the end to have a US special. Generally it was a mawkish outing, with Paul Brady songs set to pictures of buildings collapsing. The politically astute Pat Kenny seemed embarrassed at times by what his team had come up with. The new US Ambassador, Richard Egan, turned in perhaps the most dignified performance towards the end of the show but one could only feel embarrassed for him as he spouted gratitude to the Irish at the end of a show that included the by now requisite RTE amount of America-bashing.
For a show that was not overtly political, the Late Late came off like a John and Yoko bed-in. Between impassioned pleas for sanity and peacenik platitude heaped upon peacenik platitude, we were treated to the usual 'Should America now change its foreign policy?' line. Pat Kenny asked it, and several panellists in a shockingly one-sided selection seemed to endorse the idea that America should give in to terrorism. It was left to Kathryn Holmquist, an American who works with The Irish Times, to insist, quietly and admirably, that the idea that America was being punished for its past sins was an outrageous one. That Holmquist was the only one in touch with the hearts and minds of the Irish people became clear when she got one of the few spontaneous rounds of applause in the night for pointing this out. She was one of the only people to make this point on RTE all week and she had to fight to slip it in.
She was in stark contrast to other guests. Tim Pat Coogan had the bad taste to suggest that the attacks represented American foreign policy "coming home to roost". He rambled on about the Irish first going to America in conditions in which you wouldn't put black slaves. He managed shamelessly to annexe the discussion to bring in the three Irish men in Colombia. The old man concluded by pointing out that terrorism was global, just like global warming. Indeed.
Not everyone in The Irish Times was as in touch as Holmquist. The paper's editorial suggested that questions now need to be asked about Bush's diplomatic handling of the Middle East. In other words, they seemed to be suggesting that Bush should give in to terrorism and rethink his foreign policy.
Patrick Farrelly had suggested the same thing on Marian Finucane. Give in to terrorism. Back at the Times, Fintan O'Toole was next door to the editorial taking a pop at an America "that has always been wedded to a sense of power" which has made it "so arrogant and merciless". Kick em while they're down.
There is only one noble response this weekend. Just as we have shared in America's freedom and opportunity we should share their grief and shock. We should also support their outrage and their determination that their great nation will overcome. Let's try and forget the churlish words of our own cynics this weekend as we think of our friends and relations and their friends and relations who make up that great nation. Instead let us remember the words of Patricia, stopping off at the embassy with her bunch of flowers. "Sorry doesn't say enough." In the words of The New York Times, "There is a world of consoling to be done," but America will survive.
