Stop flag waving and start being a good American

Americans should reflect upon the value of freedom, says Benjamin Carr
I wonder if I'm failing as a good American these days.

No American flags hang from my front porch or car windows. I've not been wearing red, white and blue everywhere I go. I've not attended vigils, wept during the national anthem. I've not tied a ribbon around an old oak tree, or anywhere else for that matter.

Montages of sound bites from the disaster at the World Trade Centre, remixed with the latest pop song on the radio about angels, make me angry, not sad. And no amount of happy stories on the 11pm news is going to bring me, and many others, out of our state of shock and continued mourning.

I shudder when someone sends out a group email about the nation standing in unity against its enemies, then asks me personally who exactly this Osama bin Laden character is and why he would want to do this to America.

People keep saying the world has changed. Friends announce to me that they feel more national pride since September 11.

I don't see why either of these things is true.

Nor do I really see how momentarily plastering the nation with flags, symbols and other jingoism is going to heal the wounds opened that morning. This is, I think, the fifth national tragedy I've lived through. The flags that went up for each of those events came back down again.

Citizens here don't seem to realise that they never really forget or take for granted that they're Americans. I don't think that daily use, without acknowledgement, of our available freedoms means that we're spoiled or ungrateful.

The nature of freedom allows it to work best when it most often goes unrecognised. Such freedom liberates us from having to worry about it.

The attack should not necessarily serve as a wake-up call for us to value freedom and appreciate being Americans. The attack should not lead us to put God Bless America back on the radio or buy up all the gaudy stars-and-stripes merchandise at Wal-Mart.

The fact that planes were hijacked and flown into the World Trade Centre, killing thousands, should instead wake up Americans to the fact that we are not invincible. We are as much a part of this violent world as every other nation, and we cannot sit idly by and not know how the rest of the world perceives us.

As a populace, we have allowed a false sense of innocence and a continued ignorance towards world affairs to keep us from knowing the dangers around us. We did not take the threats of terrorism as seriously as necessary after the 1998 embassy bombings, and we have learned a terrible lesson.

The bookstore where I work put up a flag this weekend. Some of my co-workers told me that it was to "show our support". I asked when, as a place that promotes both reading and consumer culture, our support of America was ever in doubt. Although I saw its placement as a product of bandwagon thinking, they refused to take the flag down.

Meanwhile, my co-worker, a Muslim from Lebanon, returned to his house during his break. He did not feel safe conducting his prayers at the store, where anyone might see him.

He told me about how some customers have avoided him since that Tuesday, asking to be served by someone else. He showed me where someone had kicked in his car door. He told me many people blamed him personally for the attacks. His mosque even received a bomb threat.

I didn't feel like buying a flag this week. It didn't strike me as more American or more pressing than securing my friend a safe place to pray. In the wake of all this, that strikes me as a better memorial to the dead than flying a flag.

Helping him protect his freedom leads me to guard and appreciate my own.

Benjamin Carr is a freelance writer in Atlanta, Georgia.