File spoon-archives/postcolonial.archive/postcolonial_2001/postcolonial.0109, message 158


From: "Margaret Trawick" <trawick-AT-clear.net.nz>
Subject: dumb query
Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 21:18:47 +1200


Post-thises and thatses are into interrogations of this or that text.  So I
am just wondering, has anybody interrogated the last sentence of our
national anthem, which is in itself a kind of interrogation, viz:

"O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?"

?

No doubt the flag still flies.  But does it fly over the land of the free
and the home of the brave?  Or more specifically, are the people who live
under the dominion of that flag both free and brave?  My concern is that the
free are not brave and the brave are not free.  This is perhaps the
weakness, the "center of gravity," that the Vietnamese discovered in the
Americans, and that the new "Enemy" is now exploiting.

This is not an indictment of the United States, or of its culture.  People
who have grown up free, who have a lot to lose in dying, will understandably
not want to risk their lives for some ill-defined, or even well-defined,
cause.  People whose lives have been reduced to rubble will be more willing
to give up those lives for something they perceive as more important than
their own individual survival.  Or so I imagine.  Does this make sense?

If the "Enemy" understands this weakness, which I expect "he" (or she) does,
then the coming war, if there is one, will be one in which the Enemy takes
as many American lives as possible.  Killing the erstwhile President will
not do it, as the US can easily deal with that.  So we are looking at the
possibility of many secure Americans becoming less secure in their lives.
Somehow I feel that NYC dwellers can deal with this.  Not so sure about the
rest.

imho, the best (most prudent, intelligent, and humane) thing that anybody
can do at this time is to provide heaps of humanitarian aid to the people of
Afghanistan, with no strings attached.

Waiting (not so) bravely, in flame-resistant suit,

MT




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