A "word cloud" made from President Barack Obama's Nobel speech
Wordle.com
In the days following 9/11 I spent several evenings in Union Square, New York, where relatives of people who had died in the Twin Towers posted photos of the missing in the hope that they would still turn up, and others gathered in a collective embrace to offer comfort, condolence and, incidentally, to prove the indomitable spirit of the city and its people. I met families who had flown in from abroad to seek news of relatives who had worked in the Towers. Among them was a group of flight attendants from Virgin Atlantic who had lost a colleague.
A world of relationships all caught in the tragedy became established in the soft light of thousands of candles. I was deeply affected by the outpouring of affection and respect for the American people offered by those who had feared their own losses as they flew to New York.
A week or so later, with my wife, I was driving in County Kildare, Ireland, in a rental car. We stopped for gas in a village where the single pump was attached to a grocery store. The storekeeper, a jovial old guy, picked up my accent (British) and asked me where we were from. “New York” I said. He paused in the pumping. “Were you there for the troubles?” he asked.
“The Troubles”—as you may know—is a favorite Irish euphemism for the many internal conflicts that have plagued the country, happily now abated. It was strange to hear the term applied to 9/11.
We said yes, we were there for the troubles.
“Well,” he said, leaning closer in his attention, “I am sorry to hear that. It was a terrible thing.” He seemed almost on the verge of tears. “God Bless America” he said.
I felt inadequate to the gesture. We had lost no relatives. We were
expats in the United States. Nonetheless, we had a strong bond with New
Yorkers, among whom we had lived for 25 years, and that alone, I
reasoned, made it okay.
This incident brought home to me how close the bond with America is to millions of people who have never been here, who live thousands of miles away. The blood ties with Ireland are obvious, but the same holds good in the far reaches of eastern Europe. After Ireland, we drove through Austria, Slovakia and Hungary and everywhere the sentiment was the same: Europeans and the American people were one.
Within a year, that atmosphere had dissipated. The spirit of shared civility had not been based on the principle, declared by President Bush, “You are either for us or against us.” It was much more nuanced than that, as is life.
Nobody disputed our right to pursue Osama Bin Laden. But the escalation that followed, and the xenophobic tone of the policy makers, succeeded in dismaying many of our traditional friends and allies. Having other nations like us is not a threat to our manhood. Mocking people because they have sophisticated tastes in cheese just diminishes the mocker. Not being prepared to listen seriously to opposing viewpoints is likely to produce costly errors, not enduring judgments.
In the last few days there has been much criticism of President Obama for accepting the Nobel Peace Prize. He himself admitted that he felt he had not yet earned it. Yet it seemed to me, as I wrote in a previous blog, that—well before he was elected—his willingness to listen to as broad a range of opinion as he could find as he traveled widely had already changed the way America was regarded. I had hopes that we could get back to the extraordinary universal amity of those months after 9/11, a capital so witlessly squandered. And remember, once in office, The President had already made an historic speech to the Muslim world in Cairo that was truly transformative.
Those who have been carping about the Peace Prize seem to have missed something else. It carries a coercive edge. Once accepted, it really has to be lived up to. Also, it was as much an obligation placed on all Americans as on the President, in the hope that we become as collectively educated in the complexities of the world as he is.
International relationships should be like those that I found in Union Square in 2001—that kind of resolution to endure also included a clear-eyed appraisal of whom it was we really had to fear. And they are still at large.
This incident brought home to me how close the bond with America is to millions of people who have never been here, who live thousands of miles away. The blood ties with Ireland are obvious, but the same holds good in the far reaches of eastern Europe. After Ireland, we drove through Austria, Slovakia and Hungary and everywhere the sentiment was the same: Europeans and the American people were one.
Within a year, that atmosphere had dissipated. The spirit of shared civility had not been based on the principle, declared by President Bush, “You are either for us or against us.” It was much more nuanced than that, as is life.
Nobody disputed our right to pursue Osama Bin Laden. But the escalation that followed, and the xenophobic tone of the policy makers, succeeded in dismaying many of our traditional friends and allies. Having other nations like us is not a threat to our manhood. Mocking people because they have sophisticated tastes in cheese just diminishes the mocker. Not being prepared to listen seriously to opposing viewpoints is likely to produce costly errors, not enduring judgments.
In the last few days there has been much criticism of President Obama for accepting the Nobel Peace Prize. He himself admitted that he felt he had not yet earned it. Yet it seemed to me, as I wrote in a previous blog, that—well before he was elected—his willingness to listen to as broad a range of opinion as he could find as he traveled widely had already changed the way America was regarded. I had hopes that we could get back to the extraordinary universal amity of those months after 9/11, a capital so witlessly squandered. And remember, once in office, The President had already made an historic speech to the Muslim world in Cairo that was truly transformative.
Those who have been carping about the Peace Prize seem to have missed something else. It carries a coercive edge. Once accepted, it really has to be lived up to. Also, it was as much an obligation placed on all Americans as on the President, in the hope that we become as collectively educated in the complexities of the world as he is.
International relationships should be like those that I found in Union Square in 2001—that kind of resolution to endure also included a clear-eyed appraisal of whom it was we really had to fear. And they are still at large.
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