Coming to terms with Old Glory

It was not out of any hatred for the United States that I had this reaction. It was simply that this symbolic hegemony signaled to me something far more sinister than patriotism. I sensed a rising wave of militarism and unquestioning complicity behind that red, white, and blue fabric. I saw anger without thought, solidarity without question. To me, the American flag was an icon of command and control, a standard to be held above marching armies and fist-waving warmongers. I no longer feel this way.

I have come to realize that the American flag is a symbol far greater than any government or army. It holds within it an ideal stronger than any propaganda. Sure, some will use the flag to rally for violence and hatred. It will be plastered above cries to "Get the bastards" and "Kill the Arabs." George W. Bush, DC '68, will stand behind it as he carries on about the American government's moral righteousness. But just as bin Laden's fundamentalism is a perversion of Islam, these uses of the flag are a perversion of the American ideal. It is an ideal that values freedom, equality, and the dignity of the individual. Unfortunately, it is an ideal often betrayed in this country. Some strive toward it, some travel under the cover of lies and rhetoric in an attempt to destroy it. But the ideal itself will always remain.

America itself was born out of rebellion. And so the flag too is a symbol of rebellion—rebellion against everything that stands against this ideal. It is a useful symbol for those who oppose the American government's policies. If the flag is used as a symbol of protest, it will be understood for what it is—a symbol of a specific kind of morality, rather than a symbol of blind complicity with the state. For how does the passive observer dismiss protesters as anti-patriotic when they rally under the same flag as the American establishment? The same flag as the brave men and women digging through the rubble in lower Manhattan and Washington? The same flag that is waved by millions of mourning people across the country and across the globe? Suddenly, there is something more to their dissent than elitism and anti-patriotic cynicism.

Using the flag as a symbol of protest is far more than PR move for anti-government protesters. It is a call for reform. Without question, the American government has far greater moral legitimacy than the murderous Taliban or any other authoritarian Islamic theocracy in the Middle East. Yet that does not give it complete moral authority. The American government continues a fatal economic stranglehold on the people of Iraq. It has carried out illegal wars and invasions in Serbia and Latin America. The United States stands as the largest single exporter of lethal weapons around the globe, often to regimes or groups that carry out crimes against humanity that we claim to condemn.

Yes, the flag is a symbol of solidarity with the suffering of our countrymen in this torturous time of national healing. But it can also act as a demand on our government to come to terms with its own history and its own crimes. Only then can we carry forth a battle against global terrorism with true moral conviction—not the hollow, rhetorical morality crafted by President Bush's speech writers, but a true conviction that will allow all Americans to see the flag as a symbol of the high morals of our political and military leadership—a symbol that stands in direct opposition to the barbarity that is Islamic terrorism.

Until the American government lives up to the high ideals of the stars and stripes, our righteousness will only extend so far on the path to war.

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