Every 4th of July delivers a burst of patriotism across the USA. Flags fly, bands march, fireworks and speeches compete to hit new heights celebrating the glory that is America.
Remarkably, the mood is reflected beyond the USA. What other country has so many applicants on its would-be immigrant list?
But …
… But something else is happening.
It’s important and it’s growing. People in a host of countries are starting to feel sorry for Americans. They see beyond its bluster and bragging to the weakness deep within. Here we focus on three examples that may not make the nightly news but are, collectively, game-changers in our global reality. To these I add a personal statement. If you find anything in this blog surprising or interesting or mistaken or provocative, your response will be more than welcome.
To Strangers, with Love
When the Choctaw people, living in Alabama, Florida, Mississippi and Louisiana were hit with the Coronvirus, people in far-off Ireland thought of three things:
Their own crisis, the Great Hunger of 1845-1849, that starved an estimated one million of their own people and forced others to emigrate …
How the Choctaws sacrificed to share food with people they would never meet…
That the Choctaw, like people of color generally in the United States, must be suffering more than most citizens.
Irish citizens join a Choctaw chief in a dance as they dedicate the Kindred Spirits monument in County Cork, Ireland. Three years later Irish expressed that solidarity by supporting the Choctaw in the struggle against COVID-19 and ethnic injustice. (Photo courtesy The Choctaw Nation).
So in a great act of generosity, people of the Emerald Isle, already struggling for their lives against COVID-19, sent help to people they identified as in special need. For whom they felt sorry, with whom they shared bonds of suffering and loss.
Some Irish went beyond pity to analysis, finding a surprising similarity: in the 1800s their British overlords continued to export food, reaping profits even as their own subjects starved; in 2020 it was not a foreign power but the Americans’ own government that by ignoring the inconvenient reality of a threat to people’s health meant that the United States would suffer more than most countries….
In the Fast-Food World, Signs of Empathy
Like the rest of us, Denmark is taking a whammy from COVID-19, both in people’s health and its economy. It has managed the crisis differently from the United States, however, and the sharply different outcomes are worth a look.
For that we turn to Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times, who did an onsite analysis from the early days of the crisis. Kristof reports that Danes have a lower infection rate and have kept the pandemic death rate, per every million residents, at just a third that of the USA. This, despite Denmark’s vulnerabilities: its high population density and its location.
Why this surprisingly better outcome? Kristof – along with other analysts – points to the way Danish decision-makers heeded early warnings of the coming crisis even while U.S. leaders tended to rely on American exceptionalism – “it can’t happen here.”
Coupled with its proactive approach to health, Denmark takes a strikingly different stance on financial security. For example, as McDonald’s restaurants closed in both countries, in one country employees lost their jobs, their income and their health care … in the other, they lost their jobs temporarily but kept 90 percent of their income and full health care coverage.
Pushed to the brink of poverty vs. living a next-to-normal life! Can you guess which country is facing a crisis of unemployment, homelessness and despair?
Any wonder that Danes “pity” (a term they use) Americans? One country acts pre-emptively, the other after the fact. One tries to minimize the problem, the other, to hope the problem won’t hit the most powerful, most prosperous nation in the world… then, when it creates chaos and untold damage, improvises and struggles to clean up the mess.
Still, there is no magic to this. One useful way to look at this is, Americans may be “first” in many things, but can be terribly slow to respond to social needs. Do they distrust whatever seems like inching toward socialism? (Denmark, often labelled socialist from an American point of view, regularly rejects that term for its system.) Do Americans have a built-in fear of whatever might raise taxes? Or simply a reluctance to go with anything that might promote “justice”? What’s your answer?
Skepticism Grows in Canada
How many Canadians are there? About 37 million. And they all hold opinions of the U.S.A. They may not have well defined impressions of St. Pierre-Miquelon or Russia (their other near neighbors) but they do of the United States, their third neighbor.
Opinions of their southern neighbor are changing. Along with long-term admiration and a touch of envy, a current of sadness and sorrow is growing by the day.
I lay no claim to this being a definitive scientific analysis. Yet as one with deep roots and active associations in both countries, I offer my impressions in the hope you will broaden, correct or encourage them.
Canadians respect Americans as
world leaders in technology, as in space exploration and possibly developing a vaccine for Coronavirus
militarily powerful at a dangerous time
influential in complex global relations
ready to act on principle. When Europe was flat on its back after World War II, they translated empathy into action, sending life-saving aid
personally friendly and likeable
Over against its valued background of leadership, America is dragging its feet –
in respecting others’ views, as seen in its political brawls
socially, as in same-sex and abortion rights
to support human life. Prime example: Americans have a shorter lifespan than Canadians
to build a safe society: people living south of the border are 23 times more likely to be murdered than those north of the line, and the rape rate is 16 times higher
to respect the worth of every person, leading to acceptance of a vast – and growing! -- rich/poor gap
to embrace peace, so making violent riots infinitely more common in the U.S. than in Canada
In a global context
Below are two ways to visualize the world’s wealth by country. The map shows size of countries not by area but by how much money their people control; compare, for example, the size of the USA and South America, or the size of Europe and Africa. The other sets out the wealth of countries by the size of their patch on a basketball. When Americans complain it would be costly to extend health care to all, how come less wealthy nations do it?
(World Map by GDP size courtesy European Environment Agency)
(Total Wealth by Country courtesy HowMuch.net)
Holding a high opinion of the USA makes its shortcomings especially troubling. Landings on the moon and Mars, impressive as they are, can never mask the injustice America tolerates on Earth.
Recently I read what I thought was a wise and good presentation… until the writer turned to America’s class divisions. “What are they bitching about, anyway?” he asked. “They should be down on their knees thanking all those white soldiers who gave their lives to free them! Weren’t they given 40 acres and a mule to get them started? How much more do they expect?”
Some of us would label such remarks white supremacist ignorance even when they come from a friend.
Leaders as well as the rest of us can be blind to needs around them. The prominent, highly respected priest and Levite in the New Testament parable walked away from suffering, preoccupied with their own (important) concerns. Does that remind you of some power-figures today? Talking at length about all the “bad” things China is doing, never acknowledging our own too-obvious failings … or, mindful of the 100,000++ lives lost and the uncounted more left to mourn, turning away without a word of empathy and comfort for a suffering nation… Is that not callous? Unfeeling? Beyond comprehension?
Can we understand why Canadians, along with people of other lands, sometimes join the chorus,
We feel sorry for the people of the United States!
A Word to non-Americans
Start with the shape the world is in these days. If you see America as a key player in the drama (as victim or at least partly responsible), first set aside your lingering sense of guilt. You don’t need confession; you deserve comfort. And comfort is nothing like a pillow; it derives from “fort,” meaning strength. Find that strength wherever you can. And remember that you come from a long line of people – your ancestors – who faced hardship and challenge beyond anything we now know, and came through. So can we! They found a better world; so can we!
A Word to Americans
Can you adapt to the world’s diminishing regard for the country you know and love? Can you work on America’s need to show empathy and justice and leadership rather than domination and strength? Can you begin to see the millions upon millions of George Floyds in the world, when we think of “huddled masses yearning to breathe free”?
Are we the police officers standing by while masses are choking?
Can you accept this as your role at a critical time in history, never giving up until to be American is understood not as a wall to keep the unworthy out but as a privilege to help build the ideal “city set on a hill”?
The call has never been more urgent.