Happy Fourth!

In the US, strangers wish each other with this greeting on this day as happened on a couple of occasions as I took my morning walk today in Washington, DC. In fact, I flew back from London two days ago to be in the nation’s capital for the 250th anniversary of the founding of the US. This is the day when American Founding Fathers adopted the Declaration of Independence, proclaiming:

These were revolutionary words because Europe was then ruled by monarchs. Yes, England had experienced a civil war and the rebels had chopped off the head of Charles I on January 30, 1649. Oliver Cromwell took charge and ruled the UK with an iron fist without a velvet glove. This humorless Puritan’s scorched-earth tactics in Catholic Ireland led to the death of 20% (one out of five) of the Irish population. Unsurprisingly, Cromwell’s Commonwealth did not last and the monarchy remounted the saddle of British power.

Notably, the UK adopted constitutional, not absolute, monarchy though. The British Declaration of the Right of 1689 was historic and inspired the American Declaration of Independence. To this day, the British Parliament remembers the Bill of Rights 1689 in the following words:

I mention 1689 because it is important to remember in this era of the “woke mind virus,” a term coined by Elon Musk, that the Declaration of Independence was rooted in the Anglo-Saxon tradition. Musk who coined this term also fails to realize this fact as demonstrated by his Nazi salute whilst speaking about the future of civilization.

Over the years, one man more than any other has shaped my understanding of America: my co-author Glenn Carle. He is a caricature of a stereotype and, in the words of Kent Jenkins Jr., “Glenn is straight out of Central Casting — we would have to invent him if he did not exist.” A Harvard Man and a Mayflower Descendant, Glenn is seeped in history and I see him as Mr. America.

Yet a fixation on American brutality by the woke mob forgets that the world was a pretty cruel place in the 17th century. In the 1618–48 Thirty Years’ War in Europe, Catholics and Protestants butchered each other with wanton delight. Between 15% and 30% of the entire German population died in this conflict, which is higher than the 8–10% figure for World War II.

The rest of the world was not much different. Africans were enslaving each other, Arabs were enslaving Africans, the Ottoman Turks were ruthlessly expanding their empire, the Manchu-led Qing dynasty were doing the same in East Asia and so were the Mughals in India. In a nutshell, the dismissal of the American experiment on the grounds that it had elements of brutality demonstrates both historical ignorance and lack of intellectual rigor.

Unlike say the Ottomans or the Mughals, the Founding Fathers came up with a profound animating idea. They imagined a society defined by equality, liberty and democracy, which is still a seductive one for billions around the world. The words of the Declaration of Independence still resonate with us today and have inspired other declarations around the world since.

In a nutshell, the Fourth of July has a historical continuity that is old even by Old World standards and millions of Americans still celebrate the day with gusto through parades, barbecues and fireworks.

Documentarian Ken Burns, historian Rick Atkinson and my dear friend Glenn Carle have all pointed out that the American Revolution divided communities and families. Neighbors turned on each other and, like many revolutions, the American Revolution caused a civil war. Yet the new country managed to survive and thrive.

I think of Rip Van Winkle, a sumptuously delightful tale by Washington Irving, that captures how America changed dramatically in the first two decades of its existence. My father introduced me to this tale when I was a young child, but it is only now that I appreciate Irving’s masterpiece. Irving tells us that good old Rip van Winkle flees his nagging wife to the Catskill Mountains, drinks some magic potion with some strange men and falls asleep for 20 years. After sleeping through the American Revolution, he wakes up to find a land transformed.

When I moved to America, I too could sense a transformation after the 2007–08 Great Financial Crisis. So, I wrote a rather gloomy piece titled “Happy Birthday America” in 2013 that a close friend’s mother disapproved of deeply. She felt that Happy Fourth was not an occasion to publish such a morose piece. In that piece, I fretted about increasing inequality, worsening education and decreasing liberty in America, calling for “honest conversations on uncomfortable issues.”

Barack Obama was president then and the hope he had promised had evaporated by the time I wrote my piece. Today, Donald Trump is president and has taken the US to yet another war in the Middle East despite promising not to do so repeatedly during his election campaigns. On the day the US is turning 250, American debt is close to $39.5 trillion and is rising at a record rate. A cost-of-living crisis is making the lives of ordinary Americans miserable but dysfunctional institutions are failing to ameliorate their situation. Americans are anxious and divided now just as they were in 1776 but lack animating ideas or inspiring leaders they had then.

Despite the grim realities we face today, unlike 2013, I will end on a hopeful note. As I mentioned earlier, I have just returned from London to be in Washington for the Fourth of July celebrations. These are my first as an American citizen and, for all its faults, I find America very special.

Culturally, London is still a magical city. My closest friends live there. The Brits continue to be well educated, witty and worldly. Hampstead Heath is probably the most pleasant neighbourhood I have encountered in the world. Yet Britain lacks the ambition, the energy and the chutzpah of America. It is for this reason that I moved across the pond.

In the summer of 2004, I flew from London to New York for my first American trip. I explored both the coasts and also drove around some of the most bewitchingly beautiful national parks of the country. This was the time of the Iraq War, which I found unnecessary and unwise. I had profound misgivings about the Global War on Terror and had critiqued George W. Bush’s Middle Eastern misadventure sharply. I found him a pale shadow of his much more impressive father. Despite not liking the politics of America, I fell in love with this continental country because more things seemed possible here than in Britain. I called America a grand and glorious country, and moved here in 2008 to chart a new future.

As I write this, I am well aware that a lot is wrong with America and my work as an editor-in-chief makes me realize on a daily basis that our “time is out of joint.” Rising debt and increasing inflation threaten economic pain in the near future. Political polarization and institutional dysfunction seem cast in stone. Yet all is not lost. In fact, all is never lost. America still has cheap energy, extraordinary innovation and cutting-edge technology. Americans have the can-do, will-do attitude along with the get up and go others lack. And 250 years after 1776, Americans continue to celebrate the idea of America. So, Happy Fourth!

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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