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An Englishman in New York
I stumbled into the blog of Brit P.D. Berger today, and read his comments on how he felt following 9/11 and the recent bombing in London. He's admitting that his world view has shifted. He has realized that the BBC may be the finest news organization in the world--but the people running it have biases, very strong ones. And the BBC has given him a biased view of the world that is not good and not fair.
"So, after 12 months of living in New York is it any surprise that Israel starts to look a little less evil? And that Europe starts to look a little more parochial? That the US starts to look a little more like it is trying to solve some of the world’s problems, and that it is doing so despite the sometimes unfair criticism of its allies? If in England it always looked like the US was the playground bully. Then from the US it looks a lot more like an embattled headteacher in a problem school."
If you read all of it, keep going to the end, because he does say something unflattering about "The sooner Americans detach themselves from the delusion that they are the sole arbiters of freedom and democracy in the world the better." He later admits in the letters section that he should have said "American government or governments". But he goes on to say "But by the same token, Europe and the rest of the world must accept that far from being playground bullies, Americans are actually do-gooders with very heavy hands."
That's pretty accurate, on the whole. We are who we are--but no one is more generous when trouble is pointed out to them. I still remember reading about the surprise of the Hungarian families when Habitat For Humanity showed up there, and started building--and tried to teach them about the "working down payment" and helping to build each other's homes. They'd forgotten how to build a community that wasn't family based. We taught them all over again--and now they are teaching others in their homeland.
That's the part of America we want to export. The best of who we are.
"So, after 12 months of living in New York is it any surprise that Israel starts to look a little less evil? And that Europe starts to look a little more parochial? That the US starts to look a little more like it is trying to solve some of the world’s problems, and that it is doing so despite the sometimes unfair criticism of its allies? If in England it always looked like the US was the playground bully. Then from the US it looks a lot more like an embattled headteacher in a problem school."
If you read all of it, keep going to the end, because he does say something unflattering about "The sooner Americans detach themselves from the delusion that they are the sole arbiters of freedom and democracy in the world the better." He later admits in the letters section that he should have said "American government or governments". But he goes on to say "But by the same token, Europe and the rest of the world must accept that far from being playground bullies, Americans are actually do-gooders with very heavy hands."
That's pretty accurate, on the whole. We are who we are--but no one is more generous when trouble is pointed out to them. I still remember reading about the surprise of the Hungarian families when Habitat For Humanity showed up there, and started building--and tried to teach them about the "working down payment" and helping to build each other's homes. They'd forgotten how to build a community that wasn't family based. We taught them all over again--and now they are teaching others in their homeland.
That's the part of America we want to export. The best of who we are.