In the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, there emerged the appearance of an American cohesion, a coming together, a uniting, a sense of oneness. It was palpable. Bumper stickers proclaimed it: "United We Stand" "God Bless America." US flags appeared everywhere: on cars, front porches, buildings, bridges, toys, clothing, commercials, churches. It was typical to hear people proclaim, "we are all Americans." "We are one people!" We witnessed a president who, one year after the most highly contested presidential election in U.S. history, enjoyed public approval ratings as high as 90%. We witnessed a tightly divided legislature passing bipartisan legislation in a way that seems impossible today. A centerpiece of that legislation was the Patriot Act, the legal support for a new concept in American life, the war on terror. We witnessed a rapid military build-up in the Arabian Sea and the commencement of war in Afghanistan with barely a hint of public resistance. That war against the Taliban, the war in search of Osama Bin Laden, which is ongoing, was followed in March of 2003 by the Iraq war-the war in search of weapons of mass destruction-now the war against the Iraqi insurgency. These military campaigns represent a new American definition of war, for it is not war waged against another nation, but against elusive individuals and their organizations. Engaging in these wars has surfaced a new set of tactical and ethical questions we haven't yet fully processed as a nation: question about the civil liberties of US citizens and prisoners of war; questions about military methods and structures. Despite these open questions, and despite what appears to be a slowly increasing public disenchantment with the Iraq War, a majority of US citizens seem to have accepted the necessity of the war on terror and its publicly stated objectives of wiping out the evil-doers and building democratic nations.
I know the war objectives are more complex than this, but when I hear them stated this way, by people like the President, whom I expect to present a slightly more sophisticated understanding of world politics, I feel at best ambivalent, and more typically angry and resistant. I've heard many of you express these same feelings. The ambivalence and anger tell me the nation was never really united in the wake of 9/11, as much as we might have wanted unity. The ambivalence and anger say to me people want more options. One of President Bush's greatest successes has been limiting public discussion of plausible options in waging the war on terror.
When I say options I mean I want to hear about more than wiping out the evil-doers. I want to see my political leaders wrestling with long-term solutions to the problems that breed terrorism. Maybe it is necessary to capture Osama Bin Laden and continue hostilities in Afghanistan and Iraq in order to destroy terrorist organizations, hopefully killing as few innocents as possible, and committing ourselves to aiding in the rebuilding of their demolished infrastructures. But tell me, how do these efforts actually stop terrorism in the long run, a generation from now? I understand how they prevent terrorism in the near future-killing is a very effective quick fix. How does it prevent more people-even people unborn at this point-from being socialized into communities filled with rage at the memory of American atrocities committed against their parents and grandparents and then, finally, becoming actual terrorists and repeating the cycle of violence in which we are currently enmeshed? What about this war assures me my children will not be victims of terrorism years from now? I don't hear answers to these questions. I see us fighting a war to end terrorism yet failing to address the conditions that breed terrorism. I'm ambivalent and angry.
What about this war effort addresses the legitimate grievances of the Muslim world? For example, what is the status of US efforts to remove troops from Muslim holy land? Are we taking steps to help establish a real and viable peace between Israel and Palestine? These are two foreign policy options that, if pursued and publicized with the same amount of energy and money we put into war-making, I believe would reduce terrorism in the long run. Yet the administration's primary mode of discourse is one-way, 'dead or alive' cowboy rhetoric. I'm ambivalent and angry.
I don't like being handed an all-or-nothing agenda. If you're not with us, you're against us; good vs. evil; Christian vs. Muslim; freedom vs. tyranny. Unitarian Universalism rejects this kind of thinking, rejects this way of interpreting human struggle, rejects this way of categorizing the world. It's dehumanizing. When we divide humanity into sweeping categories, we damage our potential to relate fully to others. We limit our own perception, cut ourselves off from the fullness of reality, isolate ourselves from the interdependent web of all life of which we are a part. We forget our principles which call us to love and compassion. We become spiritually ungrounded. In this state, we have limited options for creating peace, love and justice. We make it much easier to wage war.
Being Unitarian Universalist does not call any of us to oppose the war on terror, but it does call us to expect not only a sophisticated understanding of world events on the part of our leaders, but also a compassionate response to the real suffering that is one of the primary root causes of terrorism. Being UU does not call any of us to oppose the war on terror, but it does demand that we critically examine the war effort and its underlying rationale. We are spiritual searchers and questioners. We do not accept any notion as true or right or sacred simply because it comes from on high. We examine it. We test it. We run it through the lens of our deepest values and our striving for justice and love. If we find it lacking, problematic, oppressive, we proclaim what we have found, and we offer alternatives. That is our spiritual tradition. We shouldn't be afraid to raise questions about this war on terror. Some may say we don't care about the victims of September 11th. That's ludicrous. Of course we care! That's exactly why we're raising questions!
This brings me to patriotism. I am ambivalent and angry because the very notion of patriotism has been hijacked. Patriotism has been rigidly defined in recent years as unswerving loyalty to and trust in our leaders, as uncritical acceptance of the war on terror. It has been associated with anti-Muslim sentiment and a failure to understand the intricacies of Islam and the Arab Middle East. It has been associated with a false sense of unity in the United States. It ignores the reality of racism and homophobia and sexism. I do not accept this view of patriotism. It is hostile to the principles of Unitarian Universalism; it does a vast disservice to the deeper obligations of true patriotism.
Love of country does not mean 'follow without question!" Yes, the true patriot always stands with one foot firmly grounded in the soil of the nation's history and traditions, but the other foot steps forward into the soil of critique and change. The true patriot discerns the nation's wounds of pride and arrogance and works to heal them. The true patriot admits the nation's mistakes and works to correct them. The true patriot cries out for national transformation. The true patriot sings every verse of America the Beautiful, "Ameriac! America! God mend thine every flaw, confirm thy soul in self control, thy liberty in law." What passes for patriotism in this country these days is not true patriotism. Rather, I see a search for catharsis, which is not the same as a search for solutions. I see a political search for quick fixes. I see pain unaddressed. I see power unchecked. I see greed. And I see a government driven by an eerie, underlying, apocalyptic desperation, clinging to the belief it has the power to wipe out evil. War constructed on these grounds will not end terrorism. And worse, it will not end ever.
I consider myself a patriot, but I haven't always been. In the weeks preceding the July 4th holiday in 1991 I was angry. I was angry because in the beginning of that year the US had led the international war against Iraq: the Persian Gulf War; the first televised war; the war of smart bombs and Patriot Missiles; a war that, in the end, provided the shallow opportunity to proclaim a "new world order." I was angry because I, like many Unitarian Universalists, didn't believe in that war. I opposed the tyrannical methods of Saddam Hussein: I understood he was a ruthless dictator. But I could not condone this multi-billion dollar military spectacle. In my heart I believed this war was a gross overstatement of power, an ultimately meaningless destruction of life and property, and, plain and simple, a denial of the spirit of life and love which I hold dear. So I was having difficulty feeling patriotic. I would not claim to love my country.
On July 4th the war was already over. I didn't want to celebrate. I didn't want to be counted among the patriots. So I went with my brother and some friends to Canada, to Montreal. We drove up-just for the day-a personal, symbolic gesture of non-patriotism. The journey to Canada had some history behind it. Draft dodgers had gone to Canada during the Vietnam era thirty years earlier. Escaped slaves had gone to Canada as the final destination on the underground railroad 150 years earlier.
I look back on this memory with some embarrassment but mostly affection. When escaped slaves went to Canada, when draft dodgers went to Canada, they did so because their lives were at stake. I was in no danger. My journey to Canada was a low-stakes protest. It was easy. It did not require me to risk anything. Thinking about it now helps me reflect on what it means to be a patriot, because that was the journey of a non-patriot-the journey of someone who did not feel strongly enough about himself to speak aloud his vision for the country. I was not only angry; I was afraid. Afraid of the unbridled heart. Afraid to seek out the public opportunity to say "I am against this war because I love my country!" And that, it seems to me, is what the true patriot is called to do: not to fall in line with the status quo, not to believe in the dominant propaganda, but to speak from the heart, to speak one's convictions precisely because the country matters-precisely because what the country does in the world matters.
During times of conflict, it is easy for those in favor of war to link the patriotic spirit with militarism. It is common for those who oppose military solutions to be labeled non-patriotic. But I know of no natural law that human beings must fight others for the sake of their country if they disagree with the fighting. The true patriot answers not to those in power, but to the vision of the country which is in the heart. The true patriot is not concerned with the petty transgressions of other nations, but rather names the atrocities in this nation. The true patriot does not fear the aggressions of other nations, but fears the inner malaise and spiritual drift of this nation. The true patriot is concerned that the reality of this nation is consistent with its stated principles of freedom and justice. In 1990, as our first troops began their journey to the Persian Gulf, the nation was still reeling from the Los Angeles Police beating of Rodney King, which had happened some months earlier. Our leaders claimed to be sending troops against a threat to democracy in the Persian Gulf, yet ironically we all sat in our living rooms staring at televisions, watching the failure of democracy in our own country.
It's hard to look at our own contradictions. Yet, if you want to understand the soul of a nation, get to know its critics. Not the critics who complain for the sake of complaining, but the critics who, for love of their country, call us to face our national contradictions. Octavio Paz' essay suggests that the role of the patriot is to do just this, and thereby struggle for the soul of the nation. In no other nation on earth are people as free to enter into this struggle as in the United States of America. As Paz points out, ours was the first nation to be founded wholly within the western moral tradition of criticism. The patriot-critic harnesses this tradition to illuminate the inconsistencies in the nation. Those who speak and act as if the nation is perfectly established, free from contradiction, deny the truth that no nation is in monolithic agreement with itself. No nation is entirely coherent. The apparent coherence in the wake of September 11th should've been a warning sign, not a cause to celebrate. It could not possibly have been real. The soul of a nation resides not in its founding documents, not in its institutions, but amidst the competing visions its people express for it. And that is where we find the true patriots-in the unresolved places, in the unfashioned spaces, on the contested cultural ground.
What about Unitarian Universalists? Are we patriots? We have the capacity for beautiful, compelling patriotism, but we must vigilantly claim it. Do we not have a vision for this country? Does our tradition and our spiritual life not inform us of deep contradictions in society that we are called to face, called to heal? We struggle against racism and other forms of oppression. We struggle against homelessness and poverty; we struggle for human dignity, and it hurts us when we see people stripped of their dignity-whether it is the victims of the September 11th terror attacks or the victims of abuse in US military prisons. We struggle because it is a matter of spirit, and when we bring this spirit to bear on the nation, we are patriots. As patriots we contest the unexamined misuses of power; as patriots we contest even the law. For we answer ultimately not to the law, not to our leaders, not to our institutions, but to our spiritual call. The soul of a nation can never be contained because it comprises the spiritual yearnings of its people. The life of the spirit is always in tension with the current organization of power in any nation. When we live a committed life of the spirit, the soul of the nation cannot help but be transformed.
The United States of America was organized around the tradition, the right, and the responsibility of criticism. The great wisdom of our founders lay in their acknowledgement that political arrangements would inevitably change-that no solution, no truth is final-that the nation could err-that the nation could be mistaken. In the broad sweep of history, no leader, no institution, no government, indeed, no nation is permanent. Change is in the nature of all things. New people with new visions arise. Laws are transgressed, lines crossed. The true patriot may celebrate tradition, as we do here in this congregation, but will not cling defiantly to the past. The true patriot seeks the nation not as it is, but as it can be: a nation where love, justice, and peace are not mere liberal rhetoric, but the lived experience of all citizens. Amen, Blessed be.