Response #843 (bon-evans) Friday, September 14, 2001

 I have been struggling for the past few days with the need to say
 something here about how some of us in the rest of the world feel about
 what happened in New York. (That's pretty arrogant. how I and the
 people I talk to feel.) Or somehow put this into a perspective that
 isn't swept up in the growing American hysteria. I hesitated because it
 seemed like this was a mourning time, a time of waiting and watching
 and offering help and support. People here have felt an overwhelming
 need to do something - lines at blood banks in Vancouver are around the
 block - people are leaving flowers at the US consulate, school
 children are sending teddy bears to children in NY schools - the malls
 are virtually deserted - our TV filled almost exclusively with coverage
 of the tragedy. We of course are mourning too. Many Canadians, Brits,
 Australians, Japanese are also missing and presumed dead. So please
 understand that what I have to say doesn't in any way negate the grief
 or the sympathy that we feel for those families who have suffered such
 terrible terrible losses.
 
 But I notice that so much of what seems to be going on as people try
 to understand is a kind of "this isn't supposed to happen here"
 mentality. And I can't help asking, "Why not?" You are not unique. You
 may be the most powerful, indeed you are. You may have the most money.
 But that doesn't mean that you are somehow immune from the tragedies of
 mess we have all made of this world. I find it mildly irritating every
 time I hear some commentator saying something about how Americans are
 pulling together and will survive because of their unique spirit. It's
 not the american spirit, it's the human spirit and it lives everywhere.
 Certainly if those planes had plowed into the CN tower in Toronto, or
 the Parliament buildings in Ottawa, Canadians would be responding
 exactly as Americans are. The difference would be that Americans
 wouldn't be watching 24 hour coverage of the incident on their
 television networks. When the Air India flight out of Toronto was blown
 out of the sky by terrorists ten years ago, and more than 500 people
 died, I wonder if there was more than a one minute news story on any
 American network.
 
 Unfortunately the rest of the world understands America through the
 export of the worst part of its culture - movies, tv, fast food, guns.
 And what we see is a nation utterly unable to comprehend itself as part
 of the world community. As a partner, an equal among equals. The rest
 of the world is pretty much invisible to you except as a backdrop
 against which to play out your interests. Canada, for example, is your
 biggest trading partner, shares with you the world's longest undefended
 border, but we are virtually unknown to you. I wonder how many
 Americans gave a shit about what's happening to the people of
 Afghanistan before all this happened. Or give a shit now - or recognize
 America's role in creating that horror. 
 
 Terrible tragedies happen all over the world all the time. This is
 not, as Bush said, the first war of the 21st century. There have
 already been several. They just didn't happen there so for him, they
 don't count.
 
 Are there people in the US who do care about the rest of the world? Of
 course - thoughtful, informed, caring people - many of them here in
 this forum. But that's not the image we have. That's not what we see in
 the cultural barrage flowing out from your borders every day. Our
 images are of violence - school shootings, executions, invasions - and
 of mindless consumption - bigger cars, bigger malls, bigger dumps.
 
 America wants to be the biggest, the toughest - and it is. That's its
 strength, but it's also its weakness. The guy who swaggers around the
 school yard, occasionally giving some poor squirt who annoyed him a
 bloody nose is inevitably going to be challenged. And somebody will,
 sooner or later, give him a bloody nose back. And the poor squirt who
 got beat up last week, will probably be glad it happened. 
 
 You can blow Afghanistan up, probably will - you can put armed guards
 on airplanes, and seal the borders and impose economic sanctions. But
 it won't solve the problem. We are all vulnerable because, like it or
 not, we all live in the same world.

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