Opinion

Of guns and delusions

By Roger Pulvers

The most striking thing about growing up in America is the exposure to rhetoric.

Americans are constantly reminded of how "great" their country is: according to leaders both liberal and conservative, "the greatest country in the history of the earth." Most of my teachers at school assured us pupils that we were living in "the world's only true democracy." England didn't have a written constitution, so it was out. Sweden was"socialistic"... One by one, all of the other countries of the world were eliminated, making us deeply grateful that only America remained to be counted as truly free.

This rhetoric waxes and wanes in intensity. When the country enters short eras of introspection, as it did in the years following its defeat in the war in Vietnam, it turns to whispers and nods; when its power is bolstered, as it was after the collapse of communism in East-Central Europe, the rhetoric returns, repeating its pat, xenophobic messages with an ever greater volume and unyielding insistence.

The aftermath of the tragedy of Sept. 11 has taken America to a new level of rhetorical self-exaltation. The present government has turned the country's history into a mission. It will not rest until all others around the world acknowledge and accept both America's unique greatness and its punishing goodness. Not to do so is to court irrelevancy (the United Nations) or worse, invasion (the Middle East).

After its defeat in World War II, Japan turned to the United States, both of its own volition and otherwise, for guidance in democratization. The Meiji reforms had left much unfinished business, with the status of farmers, blue-collar workers and women remaining largely in the grips of feudalism.

Young people in this country naturally turned to America for inspiration, just as the two generations preceding them had looked to Germany, France and England for the same. The impact of American culture on Japan - in music, film, literature and later, dress and food - has been widespread and continual.

Americans enjoy telling Japanese people how they should live. But I feel quite strongly that America in 2002 has neither qualification nor right to preach to anyone. Let Americans look to the evils in their own society first. Let the Japanese seek to find answers to their society's ills in their own traditions and in those of countries with more genuine social equality than that in the United States of America.

Deluding others is a game that all states play. This is part and parcel of the robust give-and-take of diplomacy. Deluding yourself, however, is an action that may bring on unimaginable disasters. America has been listening so long to its self-aggrandizing rhetoric of "freedom, liberty and the American way" that it is now preparing to act on it no matter what havoc is wreaked on others in its name.

Whatever the immediate strategic result, America will find people around the world gradually turning away from it. You cannot make friends and influence people armed only with your guns and your delusions.

Shukan ST: Oct. 25, 2002

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