January 31: The Identity Entry (There apparently always has to be one.)

I am sitting in a western restaurant for breakfast. CNN is on TV and I am watching a report on the Iraqi elections. People are saying things like "We've been waiting for this day for years" and "I feel like I'm being reborn." There are stories of people who made sure to vote despite insurgent threats, since family members were killed by insurgents and stories of others who died attempting to get to the polls due to suicide bombers. It's nice to see such a piece -- nice to get a simple -- "You know what? Democracy is, dammit, a good thing" story. I have a variety of emphatic and occasionally contradictory opinions on to what lengths one should go to encourage freedom in other countries, but I am not remotely ambivalent on the basic subject of whether it's a good thing. It's exciting to see it take root in a new place.

This awareness -- and indeed, the pride I feel -- upon watching the news this morning, comes on the heels of something that has been hovering in the back of my head the last few days in Japan. When did it become part of the U.S. intellectual liberal's ethos that it is unacceptable to have pride in your nation? When I was younger I saw many examples of people who weren't hesitant to criticize their government -- but who wouldn't tolerate it from a foreigner. Now there seems to be a sense in which U.S. citizens just take it, trying to distance themselves from policies they don't embrace. . . from people who would never tolerate the same. I mean just try to say something contra France to the French.

I am especially aware of this here, since Japan is, of course, a fiercely nationalistic country. And while that has led at times to everything from sealing off the islands from outside influence to world war, this is hardly the case now. There are other issues with that nationalism, of course. It's hard to be extremely proud without being exclusive. The Japanese are notorious for refusing to fully accept third and fourth generation Korean or Chinese Japanese citizens. I have been intrigued, in fact, to hear echoes of some of the prejudices found in my bible, Shogun, here. The characters in the book disparagingly refer to Koreans as "garlic eaters"; the disparaging tone has been absent, but I have nevertheless repeatedly heard Koreans referred to as "eating spicy food."

Einstein, as it happens, was adamant that nationalism was one of the main evils plaguing the world -- a fairly understandable position for a Jew who lived in Germany under the beginnings of Nazi antisemitism. But I have to believe there is a middle ground. I have to believe you can sing your national anthem with pride even as you make suggestions for reforms in government, that you can live in the Italian or Greek or Jewish part of town embracing your culture while not ostracizing another ethnicity, that you can try to encourage democracy in the world without forcing all your opinions on it, and that you can criticize your country without being accused of hating it.

The U.S. is a tough place to have opinions these days, as few people listen long before assuming you must be in some extreme camp that they then rally against in their own extreme way. I would like very much for the left-hand side to stop telling me that the only intellectual response to what's going on in our country is to disavow all association with it (I mean have you read Vanity Fair lately? It's appalling how unthinkingly one-sided it is.) And I would like the right-hand side to stop telling me that to offer any criticism at all is to be against America.

Um, I'm not sure when this entry turned into a rant. I think it probably started yesterday when I admitted that I didn't like Japanese food and had to convince myself that it was ok for me to be an unabashed Westerner. Maybe I'm just working out my own issues. I can be American and prefer American food and still love other cultures, ok? Ok??