"Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike...."

Oscar winner?

When Pat and I visited the cinema last week to see “Les Mis” we saw the trailer for the new film “Lincoln”. Since we both studied American history at college many, many years ago, and since a book I often return to is Carl Sandburg’s great trilogy "Lincoln", the film is  a huge attraction for us. I’m sure that we will be popping along for a matinee performance and paying our senior citizen prices for a view! I thought about this a few days later as I watched the 44^th American President Barack Obama being sworn in and using the Lincoln Bible.

The political analysts have, in the past few days, picked over Obama’s 2nd Inauguration speech to glean some insight into his plans for the USA during the next four years. Clearly, much of that will be of more moment to Americans than to me sitting in my little house in the middle of England. But, as we know, such is the power and influence of America in the global world that it has never been more true to say that when America sneezes everyone else catches a cold – or, as has often been said, what America does today, we in the UK (and I guess many other parts of the world), will be doing tomorrow. What Obama plans and works towards will inevitably have an impact, sooner or later on the wider world.

The power and influence of the USA throughout the world is indisputable – from McDonalds and Starbucks on every street corner  to the huge sponsorship and influence of companies such as Coca Cola.  From the might of the American military machine to the wielding of vast political power ensuring that in every area of the world American interests are powerfully represented.  From the vast economic wealth that can, with one flick of a computer switch, bring an economy to its knees or alternatively make stock markets across the world rise or fall.  From the depiction of the “good life”, the American dream, as described by Hollywood to the increasingly worrying trend identified by American film critic Michael Medved  when he protested at Hollywood's relentless overt (and at the same time subliminal message), "that violence offers an effective solution for all human problems".

I could go on – and on – sufficient to say that the USA not only is a super power but has an influence that overtly and covertly spreads its tentacles in a myriad of ways. The American life style, consumerism, free markets, celebrity culture, “Americanisms” in language and the rest have become part of our lives for good or ill.  For many they are the way forward, the future, for others a thing to be viewed with some concern. 

I have absolutely no doubt that one of the very great problems facing the world is that no matter how well meaning are the intentions of American politicians and no matter how  enticingly  desirable the American dream is, many countries and cultures might fear the onslaught of the Americanisation of their culture. We in the UK, on the other hand, seem to want to grab American culture at any cost. Not only do many often see us as the 51st  State but  our politicians clamber for the approval and the crumbs of goodwill from the Washington political table by lusting after something they term a “special relationship”. I'm not too sure that Washington sees it in the same way and  I have no doubt that many, like me, view Washington and US influence across the world  with some anxiety. Indeed, I would far prefer a special relationship with Europe - our cultural, historical, political and geographical neighbours - than a country on the far side of the world. Even allowing for the barriers of language!  As I have blogged before, if I was an Afghan or an Iraqi. I can’t help thinking that if I lived in a remote village I might look at my TV set and see the violence portrayed from Hollywood, I might look at the bull necked US soldiers with their skinhead hair cuts and guns walking down my street and be very afraid, I might see my children being influenced by the ‘attractions’ of McDonalds or Coke, I might see the mass shootings that seem to increasingly occur in American schools, I might question what I perceive as a shallowness in American life as depicted on my TV screen,  I might worry that my long held religious beliefs might not be followed by my children when they see the glitzy and superficially exciting society portrayed  on my little TV set, I might be concerned that my daughters might give up the role and position that women have traditionally occupied in my society for many thousands of years...........yes, I think I might have anxieties. Many may well dispute my view, but my anxieties and misgivings are real and I cannot believe that I am the only person in the world who feels them!

The 44th President presents his vision of what might be.

There is, however, another side – and I was reminded of this on Monday as I watched Barack Obama. Whilst recognising all these concerns, it seemed to me that Oscar Wilde’s judgement of a century ago that America is the only nation to have gone from barbarism to decadence without a civilization in between is a little harsh. Whatever its faults – real or perceived – the USA has been a world beacon (maybe, sometimes, illusionary!) of freedom, democracy, aspiration, enterprise, culture, ambition, good will and resolution. In its short life as a nation, whilst it has had its darker periods – I think for example of the George W Bush years – it has also provided some of the world’s very great leaders who would stand scrutiny with any from past ages and other continents – Lincoln, Roosevelt, Carter (a man, much vilified at the time, but now recognised as a world statesman), Kennedy  – and now, maybe, Obama.  Whilst I might rail against what appears to me to be the superficiality of the "have a nice day" aspect of American life and the dumbing down of culture I cannot deny that  America has produced some of the very great names and ideas that have moulded our world. Whilst I might become angry when I think of the excesses of the free market and Wall Street I cannot but remember spending two nights some years ago enjoying a drink with the kindest of men in a bar in New Jersey. He worked in the twin towers as a senior financial worker for Morgan Stanley and was a delight to talk to – he died, I think, on 9/11. I cannot forget when I first visited New York and sat on a bus, stood in Tiffany’s jewellers or reached the top of the Empire State building – having an overwhelming and quite new feeling - that in this land anything was possible. But, secondly, and for a staid, grey suited, middle aged, prejudiced English man something that I found quite unnerving. As I stood in Tiffany’s, humming "Moon River" whilst gazing at the jewellery and  in my mind's eye dreaming of Audrey Hepburn in that "little black dress", or as I stood on the Staton Island Ferry going out to see the Statue of Liberty, or as I sat on the bus going back to my hotel  the same feeling came into my mind - I had no idea who the person at the side of me was. I could not “pigeon hole” him or her. I couldn’t listen to him speak, look at the cut of his clothes or tell by his mannerisms and immediately categorise him as well I might in the UK. He could have been a millionaire, a celebrity (ugh!) or a penniless drop out – there was no apparent distinction as there so often is in the still stratified society of England. I’m sure that any American reading this blog may disabuse me of this - maybe it was simply because I didn't know what to look for and maybe I was just naive -  but at the time these feelings were, and still are, very real. As I have blogged before when my wife and I stepped out of the air port at New Jersey, totally lost in this vast country, our taxi driver swept us along – and despite my grumpy old man viewpoint I suddenly felt more than a tinge of emotion – we were racing along the New Jersey Turnpike! – a road in a song that spoke to generations:

Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike
They've all come to look for America
All come to look for America

Simon and Garfunkel’s “America” – within the words the hopes and dreams of a whole generation – not just Americans. And when we got to our hotel our cabbie – a huge black man - insisted on coming inside checking that our room was ready and that we would be well cared for – “and if you folks need help give me a call”  he said as he left – leaving us his card. We were immediately captivated by this great land and its people.

"Counting the cars on the NJT........they've
all come to look for America"

So a balance has to be struck. At a personal level, I can, in my prejudiced Brit’s way, accept that for every George Bush or Ronald Regan there has been a Jimmy Carter or a Roosevelt or of course, a Kennedy and a Lincoln – now maybe there is an Obama; for every violent movie coming out of Hollywood there has been an uplifting offering; for every bit of dumbed down culture there has been an incredible bit of research, technological breakthrough or a John Steinbeck - that has changed the world. The huge generosity of America and Americans is well known and although I might rail against what appears, from this side of the Atlantic to be the gross inequalities in American life and the willingness of the Republican Party, in particular, to rob the poor to reward the rich I also know that another fact of American life is the nation’s capacity to throw up great writers, thinkers, politicians and protesters to challenge the establishment and to change not only America but the world – John Steinbeck, Bob Dylan, Rosa Parks, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Gore Vidal, Noam Chomsky, Martin Luther King....... 

As I write this I am taken back to my childhood. My dad was a lorry driver and for many years in the 1950s one of his regular trips was to an American Air Force base about 40 miles away – Burtonwood. It had long been an RAF base but in those years was American – I can still remember the sign outside: “USAAF station 590”. If dad went during the school holiday I would sit beside him in  his cab and have a day out – always looked forward to because I knew I would come back with sweets (or “candy” as the GIs mysteriously called them!). We would arrive at the gate and be greeted by a huge armed soldier who would wave us through when dad’s papers had been checked. Invariably, as he checked the papers he would thrust a bar of chocolate or a packet of sweets through the lorry window. When my dad’s lorry was unloaded we would be taken off by one of the soldiers to the camp cafe and a huge hot dog put in my hand usually accompanied with a soft drink of some kind.  These were the days when the UK was still subject to post war rationing so this was a real treat – and by the time we left the camp, the delivery made, we would be taking other things with us – tins of corn on the cob (to my eyes a really exotic food and something I would boast to my friends about!),  doughnuts, American magazines. I can remember one called, I think, “Coronet” which was rather like Readers’ Digest and I would sit and devour it on the way home looking at the photographs of sky scrapers, American presidents, gangsters, film stars and baseball.......... . It all seemed, to my eyes, very exotic – and above all friendly and reassuring – just like the soldier with “candy” on the gate of the camp! And, yes, it spread American influence – I might today view that with a certain amount of cynicism - but then it was a very real and magical. I never knew whether these gifts were "legal" - certainly dad could not have afforded to pay for them but they were given freely and with affection. When we returned to the drab back street where we lived I felt I had been somewhere very special, an exciting place of jet aeroplanes, soldiers, smiles, sweets (candy!) and hot dogs! When we walked in and dad put two or three tins of corn on the cob or tinned meat on the table, when he unwrapped two or three doughnuts for us to enjoy in the evening, I often thought, how soon can I get to this wonderland!

Fifty years ago he had  an idealistic
vision that changed the world.
He looked forward to the time when....

And of course this is what America has offered to the world since the day of its birth – the promise of something better. It is why millions travelled there in the nineteenth century – and, of course, still do. Now via the internet, TV, Hollywood and the multibilllion dollar global economy it makes its promise to people in far of places – Starbucks, Coca Cola and the rest pass their subliminal messages about the desirability of the American dream to Asia, South America, Europe!

And as I watched and listened to Obama it occurred to me, all these considerations apart, that there was another message –and one that had not occurred to me before until I listened to him. 

Firstly, as we all know, Obama is the first African-American President of the USA and second, as the American Chief Justice swore Obama in he said “Barack H Obama” – the “H” standing for “Hussein”. All this, of course, is well known but it suddenly hit me that this is what democracy is, or should be all about. Here is a man who both by his name and his colour had everything stacked against him in contemporary America – and yet he can still end up President and his wife “the first lady” - and judging by reports, a very popular first lady.  In the end, of course,  Obama is a hard nosed politician - you don't become President  by just being a nice guy and someone who is quite photogenic and has a good line in sound bites - but none the less there he is, at the top! And added to this, I can’t help thinking that there is something inherently good and forward looking in the whole inauguration thing. It is something that we do not get in the same way in the UK. Every four years America looks to the future sometimes with a new leader - and certainly every eight years with a new leader. Unlike in the UK change, the future, is implicit in the system.

And at the Inauguration the President, whoever he is, presents a vision. Obama did just that and to my ears did it very well. All great speakers (Oh! for someone like him in the UK) present a vision, something to inspire the audience, an ideal to reach out for - that is what orators do - and it is what leaders should do. All right, it can all be taken with a pinch of salt – but there is an inherent forward looking inspiration: “...........what makes us American – is our allegiance to an idea, articulated in a declaration made more than two centuries ago...... Today we continue a never-ending journey, to bridge the meaning of those words with the realities of our time...Through blood drawn by lash and blood drawn by sword, we learned that no union founded on the principles of liberty and equality could survive half-slave and half-free. We made ourselves anew, and vowed to move forward together....... we have always understood that when times change, so must we; that fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges; that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action........ My fellow Americans, we are made for this moment, and we will seize it – so long as we seize it together.......For we, the people, understand that our country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it...... We are true to our creed when a little girl born into the bleakest poverty knows that she has the same chance to succeed as anybody else, because she is an American, she is free, and she is equal, not just in the eyes of God but also in our own........We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths – that all of us are created equal – is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth......It is now our generation’s task to carry on what those pioneers began...... That is our generation’s task – to make these words, these rights, these values – of Life, and Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness – real for every American. Being true to our founding documents does not require us to agree on every contour of life; it does not mean we will all define liberty in exactly the same way, or follow the same precise path to happiness. Progress does not compel us to settle centuries-long debates about the role of government for all time – but it does require us to act in our time........For now decisions are upon us, and we cannot afford delay. We cannot mistake absolutism for principle, or substitute spectacle for politics, or treat name-calling as reasoned debate. We must act, knowing that our work will be imperfect. We must act, knowing that today’s victories will be only partial, and that it will be up to those who stand here in four years, and forty years, and four hundred years hence to advance the timeless spirit .......You and I, as citizens, have the power to set this country’s course.......

His dream inspired whole generations

Yes, and I accept that much oratory is no more than idealised dreaming and probably not worth the paper it is printed on when the hard business of politics gets going. But it is a dream and vision of what the future might be – and this is what aspirations and ambitions are made of. Fifty years ago JFK offered America  and the wider world a dream, eighty years ago FDR offered depressed America and the world a dream – something to work and to hope for. In the UK our visions are too often rooted in the past – our glorious past - but a glorious past does not guarantee a successful future. We, too often, celebrate the past  but fail to aspire to the future. Year after year we reward and choose as leaders those with a vested interest in preserving the past – people who have gone from the quadrangles of Eton, to the dreaming spires of Oxbridge to the corridors of power in Westminster - a self perpetuating reaffirmation of the establishment and the past. We need only look at the policies of the current government - all hark back restoring a society of days past. Sadly this is just as true of the Labour party as it is of the Conservatives. We sing a national anthem that does not recognise the continual rebirth and regeneration of a nation and its millions of citizens but rather celebrates a monarch based upon accident of birth and asks God to save her (or him) and preserve her/him for even longer!

God save our gracious Queen,
Long live our noble Queen,
God save the Queen:
Send her victorious,
Happy and glorious,
Long to reign over us:
God save the Queen.

For virtually all of my life we have celebrated and sung about the same person – during that time America has had many changes of leader – and many opportunities to rise again, to start afresh, to have a new dream and ambition, to look to the future. Of course the Queen’s role is quite different from that of the President but that is irrelevant – she is the figurehead just as Obama is, and it is through the figurehead that nations aspire. We, of course, have a Prime Minister - but that is not the same - he leads a political party who happen to be the government - he is not the figurehead of the nation. 

In the final analysis who would I follow into battle: a monarch who is there by accident of birth and who represents the country’s great heritage and past and who begins her annual speech with “My husband and I........”  and then, gently and warmly, pats us on the head for being good “subjects” over whom she can "long reign". Or a man elected by the nation, who has some experience of life other than “the establishment”, who addresses us as fellow citizens, who knows he only has four years to impress his fellow citizens, put his stamp on history  and who begins his speech:  Vice President Biden, Mr. Chief Justice, Members of the United States Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow citizens......” . There is no question for me – it is the latter.

The other day I happened to see a news clip of Obama and his vice president saluting a wreath draped in the American flag, hands on heart while a band played the American national anthem. I assume they were saluting America’s soldiers and war dead. As they stood there proud and solemn I thought, yes, I could do that, salute the nation – for the nation is something to be proud of. Sadly, when the flag is hoisted up the pole in this country and we listen to or sing the national anthem we are not saluting the nation as such but bowing a knee to an unelected 80 year old lady, asking God to save her (from what?), we are ascribing all sorts of doubtful qualities upon her – nobility, graciousness – and we are asking that she be victorious (over what?) and that she be glorious (why?) and that she be happy (well, I’ll allow her that, at 80 she is like anyone of us, entitled to be happy.). And all this could go on for another few years yet. And, when at the end she hands on the crown, we will go through the whole thing again for another lifetime – where is the forward looking in that?

Rosa Parks - could she have dreamed that
things could change so much - the power of
dreaming and looking forward 

In writing this I have a mental picture of the Scottish comedian Billy Connelly. Many years ago he did a hugely funny and damning satirical sketch about National Anthems. He made this very point about how good or depressed they can make one feel and how they can make you more or less proud of your nation. He was particularly scathing about God save the Queen – partly because one of its versions many  years ago was scathing about the Scottish (and the French). But the main point he made was in suggesting that a more inspiring melody should be chosen – something light hearted and jaunty. He suggested the theme tune to the BBC radio programme “The Archers!” This he suggested would make people smile, walk with a spring in their step, look upwards – quite unlike our current dirge. It was all good knock about fun and quietly seditious but he undoubtedly had a point. Nations and national anthems need to look upwards and look forward to raise the “vision” both physical and metaphorical of the citizens to the ideal they are aiming for. And, I would suggest, make people  feel good about their nation and their fellow citizens - not pray for the life of an individual who happens to be born to a particular station on life - and not to celebrate and regurgitate the past. Indeed, singing a song to extol the greatness or the graciousness of a leader seems a bit to me like what happens in a dictatorship - huge crowds sing of the wisdom and virtue of Mao Zedong or Saddam Hussein or Joseph Stalin! For example, 

The east is red, the sun rises.

From China arises Mao Zedong.

He strives for the people's happiness,

Hurrah, he is the people's great saviour!

Chairman Mao loves the people.

He is our guide

to building a new China 

Hurrah, lead us forward!

It all sounds pretty much like God save the Queen! Why is it any different just because we are in the UK and the Queen is quite a nice old lady? Would we still sing that song if some successor to the Queen happened to be a rather unpleasant individual - who, of course, unlike Obama we could not get rid of in four years time? 

And this, for me is what happens on a January day in Washington every four years - a whole nation has its batteries recharged and looks anew. And, at the most every eight years there is a new figurehead to look up to (or to challenge) – it is all self regenerating  and looking to the future. It is quite unlike the dead hand that runs through our own political and social life – unchanging, backwards looking, preserving the status quo.

Obama's hand rests on the Lincoln Bible - honouring the
past but using it to inspire the future. We in the
UK have much to learn

In the great scheme of things the Queen has been honourable and wise in doing an almost impossible and totally anachronistic job in the modern world. But, the whole notion of royalty and the manner in which our country is rooted in the past by the dead hand of the establishment means that as I watched Obama at his inauguration I felt a great deal of envy for the forward looking world that Americans inhabit. Fifty years ago in 1963 Martin Luther King stood in Washington and “had a dream” - an idealistic vision of what could and should be. But America took that dream and made hard choices, they had a plan to make the dream a reality, followers of the dream have struggled and fought to make it a reality Could King ever have believed that fifty years later his dream would have put an African American in the White House. Could Rosa Parks have ever believed on that day when she boarded that bus that within the life time of her children another  black woman and her daughters would be the first lady, respected and style icons for the whole nation when she, Rosa Parks, was not even allowed to sit down on that Alabama bus. 

That is the power of dreaming and looking forward. And in the years since, we in the UK are still asking God to “save” the same Queen, still reminding her that she is "gracious" and "noble" as we did then. Where is the future in that? Yes, despite a myriad of problems and questionable behaviours the USA can teach us all something.