The American Way

Don't tread on us, said Buffalo Bill Clinton, and the Cruise missiles shot off at Baghdad. Hitting this and missing that, amassing what the Americans presumably see as acceptable "collateral damage", including six civilians. Non-partisan observers reckoned that the attack represented the most miserable version of the brave new world order that seemed to have emerged from the end of the Cold War. The world's policeman turns out to be a simple-minded bully.
Those who have been to America and have enjoyed either the social or employment hospitality of that great and vast country will know that this image, of a beefy bar-room thug, does scant justice to either the people or the society.
Yet, there's no escaping the deliberate quality of the action, and the lack of concern for the direct personal consequences. I suppose that it represent the current primacy of the narrow, prohibitionist tendency in the USA, over the liberal and convergent.
Certainly, anyone who visits there returns with a new appreciation of the European quality of Irish life. There are many strands to this, such as the checks and balances we build into our legal systems and their enforcement, or the different approach one finds in Europe to collective responsibility.
There is support for and within communities in Europe that seem somehow alien to American culture, with its emphasis on the absolute right of the individual.
Ironically, the exercise of these "inalienable rights" lead to the absolute abrogation of others. People are entitled to carry weapons and to use them in a way that is unheard of in Europe (except for gangsters and terrorists). And in response, both citizens and police regularly gun each other down, thus firmly moving the arena of discussion from rights to wrongs.
One senses that individual rights are often more ambiguous in Europe, but that they exist in a framework of liberal interpretation (like the concept of natural justice) that makes life easier to lead. I accept that Turks in Germany would not agree with this, but bear with the generality for the moment.
In the USA, on the other hand, people have unambiguous rights, but they are placed in a ruthlessly prohibitionist cultural and legal context that makes life very difficult indeed.
For example, a person who exceeds the speed limit in many states may have her/his car confiscated. Like, seized. For good. A person caught with (even small amounts of) drugs will, in addition to facing a substantial mandatory jail sentence, have his or her property seized and disposed of, partners and children's natural or legal rights notwithstanding. And the land, houses, cars and other goods and chattels become the property of the police.
In this, and many other aspects, the USA is effectively a police state. It is a sobering thought for the Irish hordes who are increasingly hopeful of World Cup qualification. While American culture will ensure impeccable organisation and spectacle, it will assume that everyone will get on the bus, as it were, that they will all be part of the World Cup package tour . . .
Which may not suit the green army, any more than it suits the swaying samba dancers from Brazil or the wonderfully plumed dancers from Cameroon, the Orange hordes of Holland, or the Mexicans (hah! If you thought the Irish were going to have visa difficulties, they'll be nothing compared to those of the Mexicans and other Latin Americans!!) or, dare one mention it, the Algerians, who may well qualify from Africa.
And how will they respond if Iraq quality from their pool?!? Or Iran??
The essentially anarchic and carnal concept of a group festival, a street carnival, a party of the masses, is difficult to square with the American way, with the single honourable exception of New Orleans. Americans like their parties in enclosed areas of one sort or another, and they get their anarchies out in sports . . . like ice hockey.
Anybody who doubts the American ability to respond to the most visceral emotions should check out a game of ice hockey or basketball.
But the largely European deal of having your festival in the streets all around you is rare: of course, European traditions have had rather longer to develop their frames of reference.
Consequently, among the most exuberant participants in the Running Of The Bulls, or Venice's carnival, or the Galway Arts Festival are . . . Americans!!
And their participative enthusiasm and energy stands in marked contrast to the tight arsed and prohibitionist side of their homeland's culture. More's the pity.
I have little doubt that the World Cup will throw up some interesting culture clashes. They will include the long-awaited encounter between Jack's Army and Laminate Officialdom. One hopes that this is as trying as it will get, and that the hosts are already training their police and security people in human relations and basic manners, and educating them to the joys of collective drinking and singing and dancing.
Like I said before, it will be very well run. But you could say the same for a Progressive Democrats rally. The real question is will it be fun?
Speaking of the Progressive Democrats, I feel a bit odd patting their spokesman on foreign affairs on the back, but Michael McDowell's comments on the US attack on Iraq were apposite.
Stating that the Government should indicate its displeasure at the US actions, he added that the missile attacks represented a victory for Islamic fundamentalists in Algeria, Egypt, and other Arab countries.
He pointed to the irony of using such force against one Islamic people (for, incidentally, an extremely clumsy attempt on the life of a former US president) while another Islamic people, the Muslims of Bosnia, was being butchered (by people who make Saddam Hussein look like . . . um . . . say, Bomber Harris).
Indeed.
Well, if everyone is a bit tippy toed about slagging off the Yanks for such blaring inconsistencies, the same can't be said for the present Government's achievement of its programme. Already, it has racked up a quite astonishing number of legislative developments.
One must unequivocally compliment both the leadership and the parties for passing the Sexual Offences Bill, by which homosexuals at last became legally indistinguishable from their fellow citizens. In particular, the clarity with which Maire Geoghegan-Quinn stated the case and shepherded the Bill through deserves the highest praise. My only reservation is to do with the possible victimisation of prostitutes, but even in this the Minister has agreed to take more liberal submissions on board.
All-in-all, a good day's work.
The same cannot be said for Clinton's strike on Baghdad. Not only for the definition it provides of world policing, but also because in its chill doublespeak of "collateral damage" it masks the human tragedy.
Specifically, among those killed was Laila al-Attar, founder and director of Iraq's national gallery of fine art, and a highly respected painter in her own right.
It has been forgotten that Iraqi painters and poets are among the best in the Arab world. Indeed, we have forgotten the vigour of Arab intellectual life, which stretches back beyond Europe's dark ages on a time scale that Bill Clinton and his gunner's would find difficult to contemplate.
The things which make us bearable as a species are the very things that are obliterated by the things which make us unbearable.
It was ever thus. Must it always be so?