The rockets' red glare - an appropriate symbol for the beginning of the USA
I can be cranky about really miniscule things. For example, Americans generally refer to yesterday’s celebration as “The Fourth of July,” as if the calender date were explanation enough for the holiday. I’ve been rather obstinate in calling the holiday by its proper name, “Independence Day.”
So, in reflecting upon my own crankiness, I stumbled upon something I’d never seen before.
I thought, if I were a Russian, for example, or an Egyptian, or a Chinese person, I would not have a foundation date of my nation to celebrate. My patriotism would be rooted in some vague confluence of ethnicity, geography, and language. As an American, however, my nationality is based in a very distinct and deliberate confluence of political and military action. As one historian I heard on the radio put it, our nation was founded by an ideological movement. America began in a war of rebellion.
And suddenly it made sense to me why patriotism in America is synonymous with some kind of militarism: because we were founded as a nation at war. We have continued to define our responses to change both within and without in military terms and often with military action. The Civil War stands, next to the Revolutionary War itself, as the most significant defining event for America.
For other nations, sure, wars and battles are important parts of their history; but only rarely do military engagements define what it is to be a citizen, a patriot. The Spanish, for example, did not fight the Moors in order to become Spanish, but because they already were Spanish; the Moors were seen as foreign invaders.
Now, I’m not sure what conclusions to draw from this. I’m neither a warmonger nor a pacifist; I believe war must be conducted according to the principles generally known as Just War Theory. With regard to ethic or cultural heritage, I’m ambivalent: it gives individuals a concrete community to belong to, but it also gives rise to us-versus-them ways of thought. I see pluses and minuses to the way America has defined itself as a nation, and to the ways other nations have done so throughout history.
But it is clear to me, in a way it never has been before, that the American Revolution really did start something new in the world. And this insight is helping me to see my nation and my own cultural heritage more fully.
