A Message from the Green Isles

Áine on May 31st, 2004 filed in General

I wondered what being American might have represented just then; but earnestly I was told - again and again - “No, I love America. We love America here. God, most of the books of poetry on my shelves are by Americans. Your music, your energy: we love this. I am not anti-American, I’m anti-Bush! I’m anti-Bush and his horrible war!” In separate conversations, with deep emotion, distinguished men begged me to carry this message back to the States:

The demonstrations across the United Kingdom are not anti-American, and we are not anti-American. We are against Bush and against this war. Please, tell this to your fellow citizens.

[Source: Archipelago | Incoming by Katherine MacNamara]

The above is only a very small part of a very well-written article about Ireland, about the Gaels, about the arts, about publishing, about the freedom of the press, and about the world we live in now. I highly recommend it. It’s given me much to think about over the coming days.

2 Responses to “A Message from the Green Isles”

Afonso Says:
June 1st, 2004 at 4:01 am
Long, long text, that surely deserves to be read more than once.
Well, I am closer to Ireland than to US, so in theory I should know more about the first, but I only know that Ireland is a catholic country, with a modern economy. I also know that the MS software I use is made there. And there’s the beer…hehe.
More serious. You talk about anti-americanism. Well, that’s a very interesting subject that could lead to endless discussions. Unfortunately, I don’t think that all this anti-american protests are just against Mr. Bush. Maybe in UK, but not in many other countries. The anti-american sentiment is growing every day, and it would be very simplistic to just blame Bush. Yes, he is the visible face, but I think that most og the hate comes from Bush’s attitude of openly doing what others have done privately. Do you know what I mean? It’s not new that the US secret services always have manipulated the world. Even Bush’s father seems to have been involved in the assassination of a portuguese PM because he was going to denounce in the UN that in 1980 Portugal was being used by US to traffic weapons to Iran. I am sure that most world countries have their own cases…What’s really new with Mr. Bush is his lack of diplomacy. But who needs diplomacy when you’re the only superpower?

As a side note, I couldn’t even believe when a few days I registered again at Orkut and noticed an open war between US and brazilian users. To me personally it’s not new, because I know how they hate US, but still I was surprised. Even more when a brazilian teacher who happens to teach english, wrote a message to the Brazilian community inciting hate againast US users, and asking brazilian users to send the most possible number of invitations so that Brazilians could take over Orkut. Sure this person must be very stupid, but notice the details. He is a teacher. He teaches english. It would be reasonable to expect that he at least was a better informed person because it must be easy for him to read the US media.

In another note, my childhood idea of the US was completely diferent from nowadays. I had a poetic idea of a country devoted to freedom and where people could prosper and live happily. It was also the country of National Geographic, the magazine that my father received every month from a country with huge buildings and beautiful skyscrapers. It was kind of poetic and exciting to receive every month a magazine full of beautiful photos from a distant place in alanguage that I barely knew. All this to say, that although I still prefer to think of US in a poetic sense, I am fully conscious of how US is.

It’s very hard to like of a country that lies, that causes unjustice, that provokes wars, that invades other countries, whose citizens like to think they’re better not because they are, but because they were born in the US…the list would be endless. Of course it must be very hard as well to know that most world citizens hate US citizens. Must be a very hard burden.

Sorry the long comment, I always forget time…
Aine Says:
June 1st, 2004 at 11:11 am
Inciting hatred is easy to do. Inciting peace is a much harder thing to do. I know that many people in the world don’t like Americans, but I also know that there are many Americans that are completely unaware of the things their government does in their names. This is one of the reasons I write about those things in my blog.