Looking for America

“Airplanes were used on [9/11] as the weapon to kill thousands of people and to inflict terror on our country. There wasn’t a conversation about banning airplanes,”. Thus spoke a senior US congressman yesterday.

Guns, guns, guns. Guns in schools, hospitals, supermarkets, on the streets, in people’s homes. To the point that in cop shows the phrase “armed police!” will soon be meaningless, because before long just about everyone will be armed. Photos abounding of proud citizens posing in front of arrays of weapons that would be enough to defend a small town. Other photos of wealthy tourists with sniper rifles posing proudly next to some fearsome African animal they’ve just shot. Parents giving their kids their first gun as a rite of passage, when once it was their first mobile phone and before that their first bicycle.

I doubt if American gun owners care much about foreigners like me pointing out the false equivalence of comparing airplanes, and cars for that matter, with guns. Nor will they care that it’s becoming increasingly obvious that people like me are unlikely to visit the United States again for the simple reason that the country is becoming unacceptably dangerous, and a large proportion of its population is becoming seriously unhinged, like the congressman I quoted above.

I suggest to my American friends that the habit of sheltering under the Second Amendment of the Constitution is corroding their society, a kind of juvenile response along the lines of “Daddy said I could do it”. Likewise, to use the First Amendment to suggest with impunity that gun control activists should be tried for treason and executed. Or, for that matter, that gays should be rounded up and shot in the back of the head “because the bible says so”. Views freely expressed and promulgated through the social media.

Much as I admire America, (most of) its values, (most of) its people and all of its glorious natural resources, the nation’s dark side is becoming darker than a black hole. And like a black hole, it’s devouring all who stray into its gravitational pull.

I’ve been a frequent visitor to the US over many decades. That stopped when Trump was elected. Much as I’d love to visit again, I can’t see it happening for the foreseeable future. Witnessing at first hand the hatred, paranoia and fear would be unbearable. And I come from a country that’s not without its own divisions.

I shall continue to watch from afar, with emotions ranging from sadness to horror. A small hope, perhaps, that reconciliation and redemption, those ever-present strands in the American narrative, may yet break the vicious circle.

For what it’s worth, I shall always think of myself as a friend of America. That’s what makes it so painful.