Thursday, September 14, 2006

Remembering Five Years Ago


“If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties.”
--Sir Francis Bacon

It was about this time in 2001 when we started to see flags everywhere. You could buy one in the checkout lane of the grocery store. It was the oh-so-brief post-9/11 time when displaying the flag carried no political agenda beyond saying “I am an American.”

As Hendrik Hertzberg reminds us in the September 11th "New Yorker," this week five years ago the French newspaper "Le Monde" had a front-page headline “Nouse Sommes Tous Americains”--”we are all Americans.” He says, “Messages of solidarity and indignation came from Libya and Syria as well as from Germany and Israel; flowers and funeral wreaths piled up in front of American Embassies from London to Beijing; in Iran, a candlelight vigil expressed sympathy.”

Hertzberg points out that “no one realistically expected that the mood of fellow-feeling and cooperation would long persist.... What few expected was how comprehensively that initial spirit would be ruined by the policies and behavior of our government.”

He is talking about primarily America’s reputation elsewhere in the world. But I think our self-image and self-respect has taken a beating, too. Where have all the flags gone?

I did see a car with a flag just this afternoon. It was a flag for the San Diego Chargers.

No comments: