Let me tell you something of the joy of youth, of accepting that one has to leave a mother at some stage and find a daughter.
(I will also tell you this now - I am drunk to the point of eloquency on gin and tonic; a drink I shall return to later in this missive.)
My life is, ultimately, complex. I am not, as you may have guessed, a simple man. I am, in every respect, diverse and multi-layered. I can still surprise those who have known me for years.
It is perhaps not ironic, therefore, that I can surprise myself.
I watched today some television while embibing the said gin and tonic (slice of lime in it - works wonders. Never put lemon in a drink unless you have no other option - learn this if you learn nothing else). I watched some sort of MTV-clone, a kind of video jukebox sort of thing.
I watched a Bon Jovi video - the name escapes me, but it features a young man throwing himself off a skyscraper in an American city with his distraught girlfriend watching below. The video is a cut back and forth montage of funky stage shots of Mr. Bon-Jovi, Richie Sambora and cohorts strutting their 80's-exile stuff on stage, the man tumbling throught space and his shocked lover and witnesses gathered below, and the live they had lead until then - dates and arguements and silly stuff like that.
Near the end of the video, said man - tumbling through space, on a rendezvous with certain death at the end of his impact - pulls a cord and opens a parachute. One the white silk are emblazoned the words "Will you marry me?" He glides to a safe landing as she puts her hands to her mouth and smiles and the men and women - complete with obligatory US fireman off-duty (why do they always wear their hats?) - applaud.
And it struck me, and I cried.
That is America. A bloody stupid stunt that could have ended in death to do something a moment in a cafe would have achieved. Something that is damned illogical, and beyond European convention, and yet works.
Blink. And move on.
I am European - don't think of me as English, or even British. Those of you who are American ("citizens of the United States of America"); do you think of yourself as Dakotans, Chicagoans, Michiganders, New Yorkers . . . or American? Now consider the scale. Right . . .
You could loose England in Texas. Britain is geographically tiny. So, when presented within a North American context, in terms of geographical mores that you understand, I am European before British.
Let me tell you about European heroes, about the ones of us who made successes of ourselves.
Alexander the Great: Carved out a non-European empire and died outside of its borders, acting like a non-European
Christopher Columbus: Discovered America
Erik the Red: Actually discovered America
Cecil Rhodes: Made a name for himself in Africa
Look back on our history - and our history goes for centuries whereas yours goes for decades - our heroes and successes have made their name outside Europe. Damnit all, look at the Empire of Great Britain! None of the map of Europe was pink - it was outside there.
What am I trying to say?
Europe's heritage has been as a nest, as an incubation chamber for people to move outwards. Notwithstanding any suggestion of arrogance that I can be the next set of Pilgrim Fathers, but that there were individuals who have always struck out from Europe.
Why?
I do not know. But I know my own reasons for doing so.
I love my country, I love my continent. I will always consider myself European and British - just the same way the founding pilgrims and the Raj did. Consider the drink currently circling through my veins - gin and tonic. Tastes like juniper (first European to harvest the stuff was Alexander on the Hindu Kush) and contains quinine (to avoid malaria in our African and Indian colonies) and is spiked with lime (given to our sailors on foreign missions to stave off scury) . . . my nation cries out to expand!
I am British, and am very proud to be so, but recent events and news articles, not to mention my own experiences here, have shown that “Britishness” is really not a concept which is external to the people who are “British”. I have been brought up to be – and think I am – polite, charming, deferential, kind and decent. These are considered the world-over to be “British values”.
The values of the USA are similar – Americans are considered more adventurous and more self-reliant, but there are real similarities there. We are a people who are very similar in many ways.
However, and this is something I only really recently realised, the values of the USA are part of a national identity which everyone takes great pride in and goes to great pains to support and cherish and protect. I saw the parades when I was there – there was a real sense of national identity and camaraderie. The national anthem speaks of the symbol of that nation. Even those within your nation who are seen as a bad influence or not welcome – such as those criminals “in the hood” about how I had a discussion with a startlingly intelligent man while I was there – give the impression of being proud to be American.
In Britain, I am sorry to say, we have no such national identity. I don’t think we ever did.
We are a nation which has endured for centuries – simply because we have absorbed outside influences. Our days of Empire have left us with a very diverse nation, something which is a great source of pride and strength. But it has left us with a sense that one can be “British” and very different from other Brits.
I see nowadays – not a dilution of my culture by “foreigners”, because that would be racist and it would ignore what made my nation great – but a complete lack of the values I was brought up with. Today’s youth – only a few years younger than I, really! – appear to consist, in the main, of obnoxious children roaming around in packs who have no respect for adults or authority.
I told my father this - my father, a man more conservative than I, the darkness to my pale shadow. And he merely nodded and said, "Yes." My grandfather agreed - Britain is fading. Not drastically, not irrevocably - but there is something about us I no longer like.
My father has moved to the Outer Hebrides. My grandfather will be dead in a decade.
I am here and will live for the best part of the next century.
The values I was taught – the values I cherish – are no longer as prevalent as they once were. I look at children – some of them raised by people I would have thought would make “good parents” – and see them to be brats and yobbish and horrible. I wonder, “Where did they go wrong? And could I stop making the same mistake?”
Regardless of whatever is wrong with America – crime, drugs, guns, political corruption – I was in Detroit (which is supposed to be one of the “worst” cities in the nation for certain things) and saw no roving packs of children, saw no disrespect on the news, saw politeness and respect of authority from every child I met, was treated with courtesy and deference by everyone – even Homeland Security! – saw no litter and saw examples of civic pride everywhere.
I listen out of my window, and I can hear the children throwing tin cans in the street.
Don’t get me wrong – I love my nation and there is much that is wonderful and brilliant about it. There is a great deal about Britain which I consider to be better than the USA. But . . . those things are internal to the people, they are not part of a national identity.
The USA is great because she herself is great. She is one of the few nations in the world that can honestly be described as a person with ideals and dreams. Certainly, she is not perfect – but she is real and her people worship her.
Britain is great because individuals within her are great. And there are too few of us left. I can bring what I admire about England – her people (well, person – me!) and values with me. I can give these values to my children and those I meet. England is carried in the hearts of her people, no matter where they may be, whereas the USA is an entity all in itself. The identity of “American” is tied to those fifty States.
Something within me, now, tells me that I - like Alexander, like Rhodes, like all those Europeans who have done so before - need to strike out. We have lead the world for centuries. Europe is the mother of America, and I am still young.
Darknight
