America vs. The World

In case you live under a rock, or in a submarine, there is an upcoming election happening in America right now. If you don’t live under a rock, or in a submarine, or high on a mountain, in a village where there is no such thing as the internet, and the villagers still rely on a combination of smoke signals and carrier pigeons for communication with the outside world, then you’ll know what I’m talking about; you can’t escape the Romney vs Obama Presidential race going on right now, it’s everywhere. It’s even all over the BBC so I’m sure the rest of the world is watching in almost as much anticipation as the US is, to see who the next Prez is going to be. Personally, I’m rooting for Obama.

Barack is in the house!

This whole situation made me think about what it means to be American, to an American, and whether people from other countries feel as strongly towards their homeland as people from the US do. (Of course, I don’t have access to people from every country in order to question their feelings towards their country, so I’m going mainly off my own observations and viewpoint. It’s my blog.) American identity, and more importantly, ‘patriotism’ is important. Patriotism is defined as ‘love of and devotion to one's country.’ I totally understand the ‘love of’; I love England. I love that it’s my home, and that I can mostly identify with its culture, whatever that may be. I feel a sense of belonging when I think about it, although I would add that this feeling of pride in my country has definitely increased since living in the States. However, ‘devotion to’? I’m not devoted to my country. I moved to another country, for starters (although I am moving back I suppose). I wouldn’t die for my country. I’d die for certain people, or individuals, if it ever came down to it. But my country? I don’t know if it’s just the wording that bothers me, but how can you be so devoted to a place that you would die for it? I don’t know, maybe I’m not that much of a patriot. That doesn’t mean I don't love my country though, I still care about it, and its citizens, and its welfare. I want to make sure children get a great education; and the poor have access to healthcare and housing; I want to make sure that, when the time comes, I can have a decent job, to be able to support my family. I’ve never been accused of being ‘un-British’ for complaining about my country, or its people. Being ‘un-American’ however, is a whole new ball game. You do not want to ever be accused of being ‘un-American’ if you are from here.

To most Americans, there is no better country to live in, or be from, in the world. This is obviously very different to the UK; you would never hear a Brit assert our nation to be the greatest country on earth, a fairly regular declaration made on this side of the Atlantic. This is partially why, of the 308 million-plus citizens in the United States, only 30% have passports. The number is rising, and according to a recent survey, 78% of Americans have travelled to a foreign country, but an overwhelming majority of these trips were to Canada, or Mexico. Until 2007, you did not need a passport to travel to either of these countries, so to me, that’s like saying you’re from London, but you went to Scotland last summer. Of course, and I’ve said it before, America is the size of Europe (more or less) so if you live in Pennsylvania and you really want a week in the sunshine, why fly to Costa Brava when you can go to Miami? I do understand that. But what I suppose confuses me more, is there seems to be a huge lack of desire to go out and explore the world. It’s an exciting place, and there is so much to see, to uncover, and most importantly, to learn. Different cultures that you would never have dreamed of exist out there, and Wikipedia will only get you so far on learning about them all. I’ve been to 18 countries, which to an American sounds like a lot. To a British kid who did a gap year, 18 is nothing. To me, it’s no way near enough. The Traveler’s Century Club lists a total of 321 countries in the world, so by their terms, I’m at about 5%. I’ve got some work to do!

Coming back to the election, Obama said something during the final debate that made me think: he declared, ‘we will have the best education system in the world’. Why? Why not just aim to have the best education system for the children in your country? The USA currently sits in 17^th place in the world education ranking, judged on 15 year olds’ reading, maths and science levels. Finland is first; Japan 2^nd; the UK is 11^th. America wants to be the best in world at everything, but I don’t know why they can’t just strive to do what’s best for the children first. Try getting them up to grade level before graduating High School first, and then you can think about being the best of the bunch. Competition can be healthy, and can definitely lead people to improve in leaps and bounds in order to be considered ‘winners’. However, a lot of things need refining before competition becomes the reason behind further improvement.

Despite being a world player, sometimes the culture here can be very insular, with very little awareness of what is actually going on in the outside world. To use an example, I would say that nearly all English people have heard of the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers, and to hear the term ‘9/11’ would be an instant synonym for the event. In contrast, the terrorist attacks in London in 2005 are not widely known of here. This is not a criticism, or at least I’m not trying to spark a debate from that statement, but it is true. I mentioned ‘7/7’ to someone once, and got a blank look. I corrected myself, thinking that the term ‘7/7’ may not be widely used here, and just said 'the London terror attacks'. Still nothing. An apologetic shrug and a ‘I didn’t know that happened, sorry’. This may seem extreme, but the very fact that during the Olympic Opening Ceremony, the channel covering the ceremony in the US (NBC) chose to air an interview with Michael Phelps instead of showing the tribute to those lost during 7/7 because ‘it did not cater to the US audience’ is evidence in itself. Can you even begin to imagine the uproar if we cut out a 9/11 tribute to show an interview with Mo Farah?? No, because it would never happen. In the defense of many, many Americans, when they learned what NBC had done, they were outraged on behalf of the UK. But for a national news company to make a bold assumption that US citizens are not interested in events that take place outside their country is one that supports the international stereotype that Americans can sometimes consider themselves superior to the rest of the world. (This is also more amusingly portrayed in the baseball tournament, ‘The World Series’; a contest solely competed in by American teams!)

A final point about patriotism, or pride in your country, or whatever you want to call it, is one that always amuses me; so many people here hang American flags outside their houses! The flag is the most symbolic representation of America in all its glory, school children pledge allegiance to it every day, and to deface a flag, or to vandalize or misuse its image is a mortal sin. I know the Union Flag has been a popular icon this year, because of the Jubilee and the Olympics, but really, you don’t often see people hanging a flag outside their house in the UK. There’s really only one thing that excites patriotism in England and that’s sport. If you ever drive down a street and a lot of houses have England flags hanging in the windows, you can bet your ass that the World Cup is coming up! (Please note: the World Cup has more than one nation competing it in.)

Despite what you may think, or interpret from this, I am not condemning patriotism. If you want to be proud of your country, then I support and admire that in you. However, I personally believe that in order to have an esteemed opinion of which is the best country in the world, you firstly need to  have visited more nations than just your own.