Last September, when it was becoming obvious that the U.S. military would make an appearance in Afghanistan and a handful of young men on the ship were itching to get themselves into the middle of it, one of my professors told me the following story.
At the height of World War II, a young man was making his way out of a London library laden with books when he was rudely walked into by a lady. The books flew everywhere thanks to her carelessness. Instead of helping him pick them up, though, the woman began to beat him over the shoulders with her cane as he struggled to gather his belongings.
\Why aren't you out defending civilization with the other young men?"" she demanded.
The man regained his grip on his stack of books and straightened.
""Madame,"" he replied. ""I am civilization.""
I don't know what it feels like to be in the United States after what happened last September.
Something happened that changed the course of many lives and the course of the country'and I missed it. Probably for that very reason, the war in Afghanistan makes about as much sense to me as it does to many of the people I met in Hong Kong or Brazil. It feels ambiguous'at least, more ambiguous than it is made out to be.
The little bits of rhetoric that filter through to those of us outside can be frightening. The fervent patriotism that has been described in the international media sounds eerily like religious fanaticism. The commercials caught on tapes sent from home are suddenly fascinating with their portrayals of a sentimental Wall Street and patriotic multinational corporations.
The idea of red, white and blue in high fashion still strikes me as a little forced. There was one thing in particular that caught me off guard and made me wonder what awaits at home. A news article I read a few days ago mentioned a flag that was being sent to U.S. troops in Afghanistan with messages from New Yorkers written over it. The most prominent of the quoted messages was, ""Payback time.""
If the military action in Afghanistan is fighting for anything, let's not let it be revenge. Let it be to neutralize the threat of further terrorism, not for the sake of some inarticulable hate or hurt. Let it be for reasons we understand in our heads as well as our hearts, which have stood up to criticism in our own communities and are thus prepared to stand up to criticism in the world community.
Madison has a long history of being a seat of social criticism in the United States. It is one of the reasons many of us choose to live and study there. I know it, along with many other universities, has been criticized for a certain lack of patriotism in recent weeks. But if Madison is only doing what I have always known it to do'namely, asking the difficult questions, debating to exhaustion and criticizing the weak points'then it is doing us all a service. It is doing exactly what we would be doing if this were not our war: demanding clarity of thought and action.
It is great to be outspoken about your patriotism; it is great to put out flags and wear the right-colored clothes and sport the rightcolored ribbon. But it is better to acknowledge the strengths of our country and point out the flaws, to sift and winnow and continue on stronger. It is better to refuse to stop thinking in deference to the status quo, else we sacrifice all that we are fighting for in our very efforts to protect it.
