Thoughts on Europe
Jan. 12th, 2007 11:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bktheirregularOne thing I noticed when I was in Greece was how ... defensive I had to be about my home country. Taxi drivers telling me that the President was the vilest terrorist operating in the world today. Co-workers asking me whether my fellow countrymen had lost their minds. Being asked to account for actions of my country (such as Guantanamo Bay) that I found flat-out indefensible.
And just the other day I read about a rocket attack on the American embassy in Athens - which is a short walk from the apartment I'm going to be living in starting in a couple of weeks.
Deep down, beneath it all, I'm an American - I refused to take dual citizenship, even knowing that it'd be harder to get this job without it. When the various branches of my family pressed me on why I was resisting, I brought up the problem of army conscription - I'm well south of 45 years old, and I'd be legally bound to a year's service in the Greek army - but if I'm going to be honest, that was the justification, not the reason.
This country, for all its myriad flaws, is my home, my heritage. I haven't traced all the branches of my family, but my paternal line's been on this continent since the colonial times. I was brought up to believe in the American dream, brought up to believe that aristocracy was a foreign concept, that there were no limits to what any one person could accomplish, from any creed or class.
I was also brought up in a way that taught me to challenge authority. And I was taught that was the American way, too.
In these times, I'm told that dissent is treason, that those who challenge the authorities either hate America or are "enemies of the state". Maybe I'm dreaming an idealist's dream, but woe to any who challenge my birthright to call myself an American, wherever my journeys take me.
Because I will be back.
And just the other day I read about a rocket attack on the American embassy in Athens - which is a short walk from the apartment I'm going to be living in starting in a couple of weeks.
Deep down, beneath it all, I'm an American - I refused to take dual citizenship, even knowing that it'd be harder to get this job without it. When the various branches of my family pressed me on why I was resisting, I brought up the problem of army conscription - I'm well south of 45 years old, and I'd be legally bound to a year's service in the Greek army - but if I'm going to be honest, that was the justification, not the reason.
This country, for all its myriad flaws, is my home, my heritage. I haven't traced all the branches of my family, but my paternal line's been on this continent since the colonial times. I was brought up to believe in the American dream, brought up to believe that aristocracy was a foreign concept, that there were no limits to what any one person could accomplish, from any creed or class.
I was also brought up in a way that taught me to challenge authority. And I was taught that was the American way, too.
In these times, I'm told that dissent is treason, that those who challenge the authorities either hate America or are "enemies of the state". Maybe I'm dreaming an idealist's dream, but woe to any who challenge my birthright to call myself an American, wherever my journeys take me.
Because I will be back.
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Date: 2007-01-13 02:19 pm (UTC)