4 July 08
Lapelgate
The opening scene of Schindler’s List features the main character getting ready to go out in the evening. Combed hair, pressed shirt, tie, handkerchief. The final touch? The Nazi lapel pin. This will function for him as a pass-card; it’s membership in the club of the powerful and terrifying. Industrialist Oskar Schindler is mostly interested in making money, and he makes a fortune thanks to the Nazis and their war. The lapel pin gets him places. Really nasty places, and his story of redemption is the story of a struggle with his conscience, of doing the right thing because it’s the right thing, and because you can: it’s a choice.
I grew up in Franco’s Spain near the northern Madrid Guardia Civil headquarters. We’d see them wandering, always in tricornered pairs, always with tommy guns; but when they drilled at the Quartel, they’d pass under the Spanish flag (in those days it said “Una, Grande, Libre” (one, great, free) unlike the confederate version so in evidence during the recent Eurocopa) and kiss it. Kiss the flag. Take it in their right hands and press their lips to it. The motto of the Guardia Civil was “Todo por la patria” — everything for the motherland. Everything: extreme suppression of dissent, torture, intimidation, wiretapping. Everything. No freedom of speech, no freedom of the press, no freedom to assemble, nada. Behave and we won’t hurt you. Everything. Por la patria.
My country, right or wrong, in other words.
One of the most striking things about the Declaration of Independence — and the U.S. Constitution, which I’ve only recently read for the first time — is how they both assume that citizens not only want to be, but are, in fact, grownups. They reject the model of the powerful parent, either monarch or state, and instead require that the government serve at the pleasure of the people.
Of course this requires that the “people” take their civic responsibilities seriously; that they engage; that they inform themselves; that they vote. It is not a model of blind obedience. It’s hard work, citizenship. It involves wrestling with the angel of democracy, as Susan Griffin says in her new book. Not for kids. Not for fearful adults or stupefied zombie-like drones (see Wall-E for an example of how frightening that could really be). Grownups.
Ever since 9/11 the flag-fetish has become a cudgel. Ever since I’ve been alive I’ve been aware that Americans hang flags more, much more, than Europeans; even in Fascist Spain, it was only the state and associated enforcers who engaged in it. Here, lots of people hang flags. It’s called “patriotism.”
So now they’re going after Obama for not wearing a flag lapel pin. The omission is somehow his entry into the club of world terrorism, a sign that he secretly hates America and wants to blow it up. He’s not “patriotic” enough.
It remains to be seen whether the damage inflicted on the citizenry by these crazed fearmongers will prevail in November.
I really hope not, because what was embodied in the Declaration of Independence — and later in the Constitution — is nothing less than faith in the ability of reasonable people to arrange their lives, reasonably. How civilized. And, on this Fourth of July, what a great gift to the world.
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Sigh. Well said. It’s a little less depressing when you realize that although, through an extraordinary set of flukes, the founding fathers were mostly grown-ups, a whole America full of grown-ups was at that time as much a wistful dream as it is now. Someday. I hope.
There is an understanding among Americans that cannot be explained to immigrants. It’s why we feel this country is being lost – too much immigration, legal or otherwise. There is a patriotism that is instilled from birth that I have not seen achieved by anyone not born in this country. That said, your post speaks eloquently of this very thing. Unfortunately, you will never understand why something as simple as not wearing the flag as a pin means so much. The omission makes a statement that you will probably never fully understand. Is that really defined in how you summed it up with such simplicity? No, not at all. It means much, much more. And I am sure all these things were taken into consideration when it was written that no person not born in this country could ever be President.
Actually, Kewill, I was born in this country. (I have the right to join the Mayflower Society and the DAR if I choose to, other lapel-pin-type attributes.) I just grew up outside the US, lived in Spain then Britain then France.
I guess what I should have made more clear is why a lapel pin is a poor indicator, in itself, of someone’s patriotism; it has become a cudgel, like the flag did after 9/11. It does mean a lot, like it meant pretty much everything in the Schindler example. Does it define a person’s worth? That’s where, I think, we differ.
Nice summation, pica.
We need to be really clear on precisely what our symbols are symbolizing.
For many years, beginning in the ’60s era, I guess, I thought that all those people who put their American flags out for holidays were conservative hawks who believed our involvement in Vietnam (and now Iraq) was right and proper and subscribed to “My country, right or wrong” and “If you don’t like it here, go someplace else.” But several years ago, I don’t recall exactly when, but I know it was during this execrable administration, I bought a flag. I did so because I got fed up with the idea that the right-wing conservatives had usurped a symbol that belongs to all Americans. All Americans, not just some. Not just the ones who drape themselves in self-righteousness and false patriotism. All Americans, including me, who loves this country fiercely, is profoundly grateful to be one of its citizens, and whose disappointment and dismay at its recent actions is all the more intense because of the realization that it can, and should, be so much more. So I fly my American flag on holidays, and when I put it into its holder I say a prayer for my country’s survival. Be it ever so flawed, it’s a grandly noble experiment that needs all the help—and love—I can give it.