I had a class dinner tonight for my Latin American history. There was one girl who's Brazilian and grew up in Brazil and then moved to the US. She goes back every summer and I think she studied abroad there too.
So she pretty much dominated the entire dinner conversation of her experiences in Brazil. Now I understand how people might get annoyed by all of my talking about Israel- but the thing is... she doesn't get to the point or punch line as quickly as she should. For example, she went on for like good 15 minutes about anti-American/Bush rallies and how she had never been so frightened in her life.
While I was annoyed by all her dominance, I did learn quite a bit. What she had to share about Brazil made me think how SO different Israel is in terms of attitudes and foreign policy. In Israel, the Israelis love Americans and President Bush (much to my own disgust). I was indeed fortunate to be in a supportive environment as a Jew and as an American. Also how different America is from many countries.
The other thing is that when she talked about her reactions, her words basically bounced right off me. Partly because I can relate to some of the experiences, especially passionated rallies and demonstrations. But also I've gotten so used to it all that nothing in Israel shocks me. Suicide bombers? Instant racial profiling? Huge parties on the streets and it's not for New Years? All the garbage everywhere? Israelis living like millionaires abroad while frugal at home? No reaction -it's all part of the culture and society.
It's unbelievable to me, though, how passionate and nationalistic the citizens are compared to the Americans here. Democracy is so precious in Israel, Brazil, France, et cetera that when you look at the Americans, it's quite shocking how they take their freedom for complete granted. While I didn't get a chance to fill out my absentee ballot for the Democratic primaries, I am very much encouraging of everyone registering to vote and just VOTE. I'm making sure that every single one of my friends will vote in November- we've seen how close elections have gotten since 2000. I think our terrible presidency and the Democratic Congress turnover in 2006 really reminded Americans of how important it is not to take democracy for granted. You neglect your rights and freedom, you're hurting your own country. It is very hard for Americans to read about Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. and not understand how important freedom is to these people in these newly "democratic" countries because we've lived in it for too long and comfortably.
It's a real shame that Americans can't speak up any more than they can really potentially do. I mean, over 150,000 Israelis showed up at a rally in Tel Aviv for Olmert to resign and that's hellava a lot of people for a country of over 6 million versus if 50,000 showed up in New York City for Darfur in a country of over 30 million. Lame if you ask me.
And that's related to the "anti-intellectual" movement going on... Americans getting "Dumb and Dumber" as in a NYT article today. Just not politically or globally aware of what's happening. I still can't over how so few people can locate anything on a map.
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