The Dream That is America

Some see us as decadent, oppressive, willfully ignorant of the world. Others see us as strong, economically vibrant and possessing a rich, unique cultural heritage. But, to the rest of the world, America is still largely a dream, a dream that we seem to have forgotten.

September 11, 2001

On the morning of September 11, 2001, my wife sent me an e-mail and told me that a plane had just crashed into the World Trade Center. Like so many other Americans on that September morning, I thought it was an accident. What person, what kind of people, would do such a thing intentionally?

But, then I turned on the TV just in time to see the second plane hit the Towers and I knew it was no accident. It was a deliberate act of terror, designed to frighten and belittle us. This was something that no single nation state could hope to do; it was only something that we could be pushed into doing to ourselves.

Yet, what that act of terror could have gone a different way. You see, what they did on that day was try and destroy a dream. A dream that is something we here in the United States take for granted, but that the rest of the world sees quite clearly.

The Dream

The United States is many things to many people. Some see us as a cultural invader, breaking down traditional values with our movies, our products and our arrogance. But, that cultural invasion is also, perhaps, our enduring legacy. From the windswept Tibetan Plateau to the Siberian Taiga and from the vast plains of the Serengeti to the Amazonian rainforest, the dream that is America exists. Bantu tribesmen in Africa wear Coca-Cola t-shirts while never having tasted that wonderful, decadent drink. Poor fishermen in Indonesia listen to American music while they fish in a way that would be recognizable a thousand years ago. Vietnamese sit in poorly ventilated theatres to watch American movies with sub-titles, while they drink Pepsi-Cola and wish upon a star.

For all of these people and more, America is a dream. For millions, if not billions, of people around the world, cowboys still ride the vast American West. For them, if they can make it in New York, they can make it anywhere. For them, America is a land of vast spaces, unimaginable wealth, peace, prosperity and where the streets are paved with gold. It's a land of freedom, the rule of law, justice, and equality. Where, if a person is willing to work, anything can be dreamed and anything can be achieved.

Out greatest gift to the world is not our military. It is not the concept of freedom, justice and the rule of law. To most people on Earth, those concepts are simply without context. They are meaningless. But to dream? Ah that, that is our greatest gift to the world and that is something that I think, perhaps, we have lost sight of in the years since 9-11. That hope to dream was what the terrorists were trying to destroy.

Hope

You see, America is ultimately about hope. It is ultimately about being able to dream impossible dreams and see them realized. We luxuriate in our vast wealth and power, forgetting that America itself is not the envy of the world, but its hope. We forget that America is the realization of that overwhelming human need to be free to hope. That is what America is to the world. But, that isn't what the United States means to the world. The United States is a country that oppresses people, tells people what to do and then doesn't follow through on those things itself. The United States flag is the flag that the people of Iran burn, not the flag of America. The flag of America is not the Stars and Stripes. The flag of America is Coca-Cola red, Ford blue and IBM computer white, laid in full upon a field of hopes, dreams and the realization that in America, anything, anything at all, is possible.

I wonder why we Americans seem to have forgotten that?