LISTENING TO OTHER VOICES
by Cliff DuRand, Center for Global Justice 

I am an American, that is, a citizen of the United States.  But beyond citizenship, my culture, my values, my very identity is American.  I was born and raised in the heartland, in the state of North Dakota.  Although my ancestors were French Canadian, I have no particular ethnic heritage that shaped me.  Thus my identity is simply American, without any hyphenation. 

I went through my adolescent years in the 1950´s when I naively internalized an idealized image of what America was: a generous nation, willing to help those peoples less fortunate, a democratic nation committed to brotherhood and equality for all, in sum, a force for good in the world.  I was proud to be an American, and I still am.  After all, that is who I am, my identity.

But today I am also ashamed to be an American.  Ashamed of what my country is doing in the world.  Ashamed of the wars it has inflicted on others.  Ashamed of how its corporations have impoverished peoples elsewhere and despoiled the environment.  Ashamed of how my people, the American people, have allowed our government to inflict such misery on so much of the world and destroyed democracy at home.  I am ashamed that my America has gone from being the most admired country in the world, to being the most hated and feared. 

It pains me to hear what so many are saying about America today: that we are the new Rome, that we are a terrorist state, that America has become a militarized society, that the abundance of our consumer economy is based on the super-exploitation of Chinese and Mexican workers, that we torture our suspected enemies, that we bully even our friends.  That is not the America that I grew up to know and believe in and to love.  That is not MY America.  And so I cry out, “Not in my name!” 

And yet, it IS my America.  When the world points an angry finger (or gun) at it, it is pointing at me. And I MUST LISTEN.  To save my life, to save my soul, I must listen.  I must listen to those voices that attack my country even though I feel they are attacking me, who I am.  I must listen and try to understand and even be prepared to change that identity in the face of criticism.

This is a lesson that most of America began to learn from the civil rights movement.  We learned to listen to Black voices who called our society racist, who called whites racist.  It was painful to listen to such attacks because they were attacks on our very identity.  But listen we must.  And we became a better people for that listening --  America became better.

Now we face the challenge of listening to angry Islamic voices, even those who have attacked us with more than words.  But again, listen we must.  We must listen to their pained cries, without defensiveness, even though it pains us to do so.  We must be prepared to search our souls, prepared to change, if there is to be any chance of living in a humane world with Others.

These are difficult times we live in.  Difficult not just for Americans, but especially for Jewish Americans.  For those whose identity is Jewish feel themselves under attack when the state of Israel is criticized.  I understand how it must pain them to hear such criticisms.  I can understand the impulse to dispute what has been said, even the desire to not have to hear such voices.  An attack on Zionism, an attack on Israel, is perceived as an attack on Jews, on Jewishness, on my Jewishness.  Nevertheless, I must try to listen without defensiveness, I must try to understand the Other and where their anger comes from.  Only then is there a possibility of reconciliation and of redemption. 

These are times that call for a profound soul searching by all those who enjoy privileged positions in the world.  We cannot answer the question “why do they hate us?” with a simplistic “they hate us for our freedom.”  Instead we have to listen to their cries and understand their complaints against us.  We need to look into what “we” have done -- or more exactly what our government has done and what our leaders have done in our name.  We have to look at those who have misled us.  But beyond that, we have to look within, at who we are and what the core enduring values are that define our identity.  By and large, those values are drawn from the Judeo-Christian ethical tradition.  We have to ask ourselves whether they are consistent with the values of a powerful, militaristic, wealthy state?  And we have to ask ourselves, what kind of a people have we become under such a state?  That is the soul searching that should have begun with 9/11.  It is now long overdue.

The question of the identity we accept for ourselves becomes germane in a special way for those of us Americans, whether gentile or Jew, who live in Mexico.  We live among people whose lives have been severely impacted, often in very negative ways, by the U.S.  Indeed, our very presence here in San Miguel de Allende has a serious impact.  No matter how modest our individual economic situation, we are privileged. 

Thus it is incumbent on us to listen carefully to our Mexican neighbors, lest we come to be seen as an occupying force in their land.  We may even have to broaden our identity as Americans to include some of the values of the larger culture that surrounds us, lest we be seen as aliens in their land.  If we can open ourselves to that, we can reach for a new American identity that might even embrace all Americans, including those of Latin America. 

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Cliff DuRand is a founder of the Center for Global Justice.  Before comning to San Miguel, for 40 years he taught philosophy at MorganStateUniversity, a Black college in Baltimore, Maryland.  He may be contacted at cliff@globaljusticecenter.org