Oh, how you have changed
The older ones of you may know what I mean: you love and admire someone for a long time and some day you realize that this beloved person changed completely through the years. And you wonder how this could happen.
It seems as if this does not only happen with beloved persons but also with beloved nations.
Long time ago when I was young I learned to admire and love the United States of America. America had liberated us from the Nazis and our new constitution based on the ideals of freedom and civil rights. Americans had shown us that sometimes it was necessary for you to fight for this freedom and for these rights and that they are worth to risk your life for them. During the cold war years I stood side by side with American soldiers to defend this freedom.
Then America was the ideal of all free countries. The US domination based even more on the American ideals and culture than on the economical and military strength. America sent us Coca Cola and Burgers, Chuck Berry and John Wayne , and we took all with enthusiasm. We caroled when the Americans landed on the moon and somehow it was also our triumph. We all seemed to be a bit American.
In every relationship there are resentments. Vietnam, of course. I never understood why America fought such a small underdeveloped country. America always a bit gun crazy, while it was easier to enforce her ideals with other arguments. McCarthy and Watergate were irritating, but they also showed that America had the strength to return to her ideals if she was on the wrong path.
Now, after a relationship of many decades, in which we won the cold war together and lived in wealth and freedom, I cannot prevent from recognizing that the US changed. What happened to the country I loved so long. What happened to the ideas of freedom and civil rights? What happened to our friendship? Are the Americans so scared from terror that they accept that the government or better said some obscure secret organizations control their personal lives? Is their security more important than their freedom and civil rights? How does it come that the secret services get all my personal data if I want to visit the country? That foreigners can be arrested for unlimited time without any trial? I am not talking about the USSR, but the USA, formally known as land of the free. How does it come that US administration spies on citizens in friendly countries? That they infract our constitution, which is still the one that is built on the (former) ideals of America?
Oh yeah, Baby, I got to tell you, you really changed.
Bookmarks