Independence day--disjointed thoughts

Today is July 4th, Independence Day back in the US. I am meant to be at a barbecue at the moment but am finding it impossible to get my work done. Hmm. Blogging is not helping this issue, but so be it.

I find myself very conflicted about this day. This morning I couldn't decide whether or not to do the whole red-white-and-blue outfit thing.


We're talking about a country with which I have a very complicated relationship. Whenever I read the newspaper, I have panic attacks.....I want to undo it all, I want to fix all of the damage, I want to personally apologize to the widows and orphans and fathers of lost children, and I want to distance myself from what is happening (everywhere) all at once. I am Lady Macbeth...out damn spot; will these little hands ever be clean again. We were not listened to. I am at fault. And yet half of the population was screaming out against this most recent of egregious acts of violence, and we were ignored. It is a terrible feeling. I am a citizen of a country which, on a regular basis (in fact, more often than not), violates every belief and moral that I hold sacred. It is a violent, aggressive, murderous country that throws its weight around the world in a way that makes me cry.

But. But? I am from the US. That is my culture. I feel most comfortable within that society--the way people interact with each other. Particularly as a woman. I have issues with women's rights within the states, yes. However, it's the best I've found so far. Let's take a look at My Chilean Life, for instance. I am regularly spoken to by coworkers and students (at any one of my various gigs) in a way that could get you fired at home. And possibly sued. Even at its most harmless, everyone asks me about my marital status before anything else, even in professional circumstances. The fact that I am single is seen as a major problem, and I am constantly being told by students, coworkers, everyone, about eligible young men I might want to date/marry. It is seen as strange that I go out at night in the company of other women--this is often interpreted as a sure sign of being easy. Hmm. I thought it meant we wanted a drink, but hey, feel free to make assumptions about my level of promiscuity. And you know how I feel about the yelling in the streets.

Not to pick on Chile, though. I've lived in France and in New Zealand, and in both places I felt like my gender was a larger 'liability' than it was in the states.

However, this is a blog about Chile. And Chileans are a remarkably blunt group of people. This can be a benefit--you don't ever have to wonder what people think of you--and it can be incredibly frusturating. Politically, it can be awful. Generally, people here are incredibly nice about politics, more so than in other places. They have had personal (in the national sense) experience with a government that acted without the consent of its people. In this way they understand far better than others what it means when I say that I feel powerless against my country.

But, like everywhere, there is a widely held belief in Chile that US citizens know nothing about politics or the foreign actions of their country. People are liable to get rather agressive with you. One friend of mine was told that she needed to 'open her eyes' because of a difference in opinion (regarding the theory that the government initiated the September 11 attacks, something which I think one can see in different lights regardless of how open or closed ones eyes may be). Someone made me cry at a party awhile back by refusing to let up on personal accusations regarding my individual ignorance and culpability for Guantanamo. I almost slapped a student recently for pushing the button one too many times regarding the Kyoto Protocol.

The worst of all, for me, are the self-perceived Cassandras. They are usually older, and lived through the Pinochet years on the wrong end of the political spectrum. They corner me and tell me that my country is lapsing into authoritarianism, that the citizens are in danger, that they have seen this all before and we must stop it before it is too late. This is the most difficult situation for me. Because I agree with them, and I understand them, but they don't believe that I do. And because out of respect for what they've gone through I can't say anything. I just stand there while they run through a list of my greatest fears. They think they are initiating me. They don't understand that I've spent my formative adult years in a political climate of the type that has caused me, on a semi-regular basis, to give serious consideration to how I might get my loved ones out of the country if human rights abuses began to happen within our own borders. What if they start incarerating Arabs? I worry. What if there is a coup and I am far away from my family? What if they pull my name off of the list of attendees at one of the various protests where I was required to give my name to police? What if they take all of my friends for their political activities? What if all of this were to happen while I was overseas?

Chileans also tend to think that we have absolutely no internal issues whatsoever. I cannot even begin to explain how many people have been amazed that we have issues with poverty and violence just like anyone else. It's understandable. The films and tv shows and music that make it here from the US are not the ones that deal with these issues. They're the ones with muscled heroes, blond waifs, and California everything.

So. What does all of this add up to? I'm not sure. I have chosen Chile over the US, at least for the time being. But I can't condemn my country because of its politics. I still love the people, it is still my home. It is what is Normal for me. But it terrifies me. I am afraid of my country, and I am disgusted by my country, and I am a part of my country and always will be. And so I find myself in incredibly hard situations where I can't bring myself to defend the US, and yet I can't stand to hear it abused by people who know less about the issues than they think they do.

Finally, this morning (and here you see that you are dealing with a literature major), I did decide to wear the colors. I am wearing red and blue. Red for the blood that has touched oxygen when it never should have, all over the world, at the hands of the US or others bearing US-bought weapons. Blue for my blood, which is still safely indigo within my veins, which will always connect me to that country of my birth. Together because I understand that it is pure chance of birth that my blood has stayed blue while the blood of others has run red.

White. I could not bring myself to add white, the color that stands so frequently for purity and innocence. How could I? I thought about it. Finally I added my bone necklace, which I designed and made in New Zealand. It is meant to represent a fantail, a particular type of bird which taught me a lot in my time in that country. It is a cocky, unafraid, light-hearted little bird, and it always seemed to appear when I was going off into some spiralling mental tangent. In short, it would remind me not to take myself so seriously. In my post-NZ life, I wear the necklace to remind me of the same. So, in the interest of lightness against all of the unbearable weight that is my country, I am wearing my fantail white. Happy Fourth of July.