MY DAUGHTER came home from kindergarten and announced, "Tomorrow
we all have to wear red, white and blue." "Why?" I asked,
trying not to sound wary. "For all the people that died when the
airplanes hit the buildings." I fear the sound of saber-rattling,
dread that not just my taxes but even my children are being dragged to
the cause of death in the wake of death. I asked quietly, "Why not
wear black, then? Why the colors of the flag, what does that mean?" "It
means we're a country. Just all people together." So we sent her
to school in red, white and blue, because
it felt to her like something she could do to help people who are hurting.
And because my wise husband put a hand on my arm and said, "You
can't let hateful people steal the flag from us." He didn't mean
terrorists, he meant Americans. Like the man in a city near us who went
on a rampage crying
"I'm an American" as he shot at foreign-born neighbors, killing
a gentle Sikh man in a turban and terrifying every brown-skinned person
I know. Or the talk-radio hosts, who
are viciously bullying a handful of members of Congress for airing
sensible skepticism at a time when the White House was announcing preposterous
things in apparent self-interest, such as the "revelation" that
terrorists had aimed to hunt down Air Force One with a hijacked commercial
plane. Rep. Barbara Lee cast the House's only vote against handing
over virtually unlimited war powers to one man that a whole lot of
us didn't vote for. As a consequence, so many red-blooded Americans
have now threatened to kill her, she has to have additional bodyguards.
Patriotism seems to be falling to whoever claims it loudest, and we're
left struggling to find a definition in a clamor of reaction. This
is what I'm hearing:
Patriotism opposes the lone representative of democracy who was brave
enough to vote her conscience instead of following an angry mob. (Several
others have confessed they wanted to vote the same way, but chickened
out.) Patriotism threatens free speech with death. It is infuriated by
thoughtful hesitation, constructive criticism of our leaders and pleas
for peace. It despises people of foreign birth who've spent years learning
our culture and contributing their talents to our economy. It has specifically
blamed homosexuals, feminists and the American Civil Liberties Union.
In other words, the American flag stands for intimidation, censorship,
violence, bigotry, sexism, homophobia, and shoving the Constitution through
a paper shredder? Who are we calling terrorists here? Outsiders can destroy
airplanes and buildings, but it is only we, the people, who have the
power to demolish our own ideals. It's a fact of our culture that the
loudest mouths get the most airplay, and the loudmouths are saying now
that in times of crisis it is treasonous to question our leaders. Nonsense.
That kind of thinking let fascism grow out of the international depression
of the 1930s. In critical times, our leaders need most to be influenced
by the moderating force of dissent. That is the basis of democracy, in
sickness and in health, and especially when national choices are difficult,
and bear grave consequences. It occurs to me that my patriotic duty is
to recapture my flag from the men now waving it in the name of jingoism
and censorship. This isn't easy for me. The last time I looked at a flag
with unambiguous pride, I was 13. Right after that, Vietnam began teaching
me lessons in ambiguity, and the lessons have kept coming. I've learned
of things my government has done to the world that made me direly ashamed.
I've been further alienated from my flag by people who waved it at me
declaring I should love it or leave it. I search my soul and find I cannot
love killing for any reason.
When I look at the flag, I see it illuminated by the
rocket's red glare. This is why the warmongers so easily gain the upper
hand in the patriot game: Our nation was established with a fight for
independence, so our iconography grew out of war. Our national anthem
celebrates it; our language of patriotism is inseparable from a battle
cry. Our every military campaign is still launched with phrases about
men dying for the freedoms we hold dear, even when this is impossible
to square with reality. In the Persian Gulf War we rushed to the aid
of Kuwait, a monarchy in which women enjoyed approximately the same
rights as a 19th century American slave. The values we fought for and
won there are best understood, I think, by oil companies. Meanwhile,
a country of civilians was devastated, and remains destroyed. Stating
these realities does not violate the principles of liberty, equality,
and freedom of speech; it exercises them, and by exercise we grow stronger.
I would like to stand up for my flag and wave it over a few things
I believe in, including but not limited to the protection of dissenting
points of view. After 225 years, I vote to retire the rocket's red
glare and the bullet wound as obsolete symbols of Old Glory. We desperately
need a new iconography of patriotism. I propose we rip stripes of cloth
from the uniforms of public servants who rescued the injured and panic-stricken,
remaining at their post until it fell down on them. The red glare of
candles held in vigils everywhere as peace-loving people pray for the
bereaved, and plead for compassion and restraint. The blood donated
to the Red Cross. The stars of film and theater and music who are using
their influence to raise money for recovery. The small hands of schoolchildren
collecting pennies, toothpaste, teddy bears, anything they think might
help the kids who've lost their moms and dads. My town, Tucson, Ariz.,
has become famous for a simple gesture in which some 8,000 people wearing
red, white or blue T-shirts assembled themselves in the shape of a
flag on a baseball field and had their photograph taken from above.
That picture has begun to turn up everywhere, but we saw it first on
our newspaper's front page. Our family stood in silence for a minute
looking at that photo of a human flag, trying to know what to make
of it. Then my teenage daughter, who has a quick mind for numbers and
a sensitive heart, did an interesting thing. She laid her hand over
a quarter of the picture, leaving visible more or less 6,000 people,
and said, "That many
are dead." We stared at what that looked like -- all those innocent
souls, multi-colored and packed into a conjoined destiny -- and shuddered
at the one simple truth behind all the noise, which is that so many
beloved people have suddenly gone from us. That is my flag, and that's
that it means: We're all just people together.
Barbara Kingsolver is the author of nine books including"The Poisonwood
Bible," (Harperflamingo, 1999).