ah, the birr of arrendments

Indonesian class has led me to conclude that America suffers from a catastrophic image problem. Now, before I come across as both oblivious and hackneyed, I fully expected this. However, I expected it to be couched in a general anti-imperialistic, pro-Palestine, anti- unilateralism, home of the stupid and obese rhetoric.

There is all of this, but what has shocked me the most is how little people know about the things that I identify as uniquely American. Every day I field a question from one of my teachers, educated people, along the lines of: ‘What is the state religion of America?’ or ‘What is this green statue doing in the middle of New York’ or ‘Which newspaper is the government newspaper?’ Stunned, and often on the urge of blurting out something along the lines of, ‘That is kind of the point of America;’ I find myself rattling on about the Bill of Rights (except for the second amendment; most of the world seems well informed of our national tradition of gun ownership) so often that I wish someone had made me take a refresher in civics with Mr. Flynn, his wife’s English, you know, before I left.

(It occurs to me that no one reading this blog will get that joke. I will leave it in.)

I just did not expect people to know absolutely nothing about all of the things that makes the American experiment so exceptional and the guiding principles that make it ultimately (as being away is helping me come to terms with) a force for good in the world. All of the freedoms that America embodies, and the core idea, one that at some point in history has touched every citizen, that anyone can make an American, are virtually unknown to everyone I meet here. Who knows how to fix this, but I cannot conceive of sprucing up our image around the world without addressing it.