Defiance

For the past week I haven't really known how to respond to the terrorist attacks in France, though I suppose it is kind of ridiculous to think that I should have to respond to them in any way, aside from being upset. No one, I am sure, has been waiting by the computer to see what I think about it.

But you may have been surprised to see that I didn't superimpose the Tricolor over my Facebook profile picture or anything like that.  I mean, it is true that I have eaten the brie and have sometimes walked out of the house with a scarf to go see paintings made by the great French artist's, including Renoir.

But that makes me no more a Frenchman than eating with chopsticks makes me Chinese.  John McCain may get up and say something like "today, we are all French," but the truth of the matter is I am not.  But I also felt bad about suddenly having a huge public display of grief for France when there have been very few similar lamentations for Syria over the past four years during its cataclysmic civil war.  I understand we are closer to France nationally and culturally, but the time to cover oneself in sackcloth and ashes is long since past.  

Still, this morning I finally came down off my high horse and watched video of French and British singing La Marseillaise before a France/England friendly and I found myself near tears.

It is such a defiant song, written in 1792 after volunteers were called on to rally to France's defense during the War of the First Coalition, when France's despotic neighbors sought to end the Revolution or at least keep it from spreading.  The troops from Marseilles sang the song as they marched through Paris on their way to war, and it was soon adopted as the French anthem.

Defiance is at the core of Liberty, and it is a heroic virtue not only in France but here as well.  Our country is the one where our forefathers defied the world's greatest military power over principles and a few pennies tax.  It is the country of Rosa Parks and so many like her who sat down and sat in and marched through the streets singing "we shall overcome" in defiance of institutionalized hatred.  It is the country whose flag Brig. General McAuliffe fought under, who when asked to surrender Bastogne to German forces during the Battle of the Bulge simply replied "Nuts!!", and held out until reinforcements arrived four days later.  These are all celebrated events in our nation's history, all great examples of the American "can-do" spirit.

Which makes our nation's response to these attacks all the more damning.  We're cashing in our principles for national security when we talk about watching certain mosques and creating databases of Muslim individuals.  If we are too scared to help others in need and would rather shut our doors to people trying to flee war, oppression, and tyranny, then the terrorists have already won. 

We make a big deal in this country about the bravery of our men and women in uniform, stationed all over the world defending our freedom.  I've often heard people say that they do what the rest of us could never do.  

Well, with all due respect to our military personnel (who are indeed extremely brave), I think that's bullshit.  The rest of us do and should have the courage to defy those who seek to do us harm and destroy our way of life.  We should start by not letting them stop us from doing what is right and taking in the 10,000 Syrian refugees our country has already pledged to take,  and then go further and take in even more.  

It should be done safely, of course, and carefully.  But it must be done, and we must boldly be our best selves if we are to continue to play a part in this world with any leadership and dignity at all.

Defiance.  Defiance of tyranny, Defiance of terror, Defiance of the tendency to be our worst selves.  This is what America should be on the world stage.  We should be, to borrow the Navy's latest recruitment phrase, "a force for good".  That takes all of us.  Don't be surprised to see me without a tricolor over my Facebook photo....but don't be surprised if you see me whistling La Marseillaise as I march into sunlight on my way to the cheese shop.