amywithlemon

Oh.

And yeah, still adorable.

My lungs could burst.

I am not used to this.

He died 3 years ago this April. And what no one really can explain to you when someone dies suddenly, is that it never gets better. It gets different. But never better. As the song says, “and it keeps coming, and it keeps coming, and it keeps coming, and it keeps coming til the day it stops.” Life just keeps moving, and each year, I’m reminded, it’s moving forward without him.

I really need to run in the rain. When I run in the rain, my tears wash away. It’s easier. The adrenaline pushes all the ache out of my heart. And my once-heavy lungs become light.

This year, I’m going to visit his grave. It’s been 3 years. I couldn’t say good-bye last time. I felt like the 5 year old I was when I met him. I wanted to throw a tantrum right there. I did.

What no one tells you is that no matter how you soothe the wounds, the holes stay. And each year that it comes around, it’s like going through the shock, the grief, the anger, the disbelief, the frustrations… all over again.

I just want to be able to say “good-bye”.

But I don’t know how.

пенис

He was adorable.

And it rained, but the kind of rain that made me want to go for a run in the wet and cold rain.

Which probably explains my frequent bouts of pneumonia.

Also, I can read Russian now. I have no clue what I’m reading 98% of the time. But пенис? I totally understand пенис.

OH MY GOD.

EVERYBODY STOP!

I JUST FOUND A SHORT CHAPTER IN A HISTORY BOOK!

I know, I know. I think we’ll be ok.

We’re all going to be ok.

The Land of Milk and Honey

[My only regrets are not catching various minor errors before I submitted it, and not being able to submit more examples to support my thesis (as I was limited to a certain number of pages).]

As the United States has struggled to create an identity of its own out if the many races and nationalities living between its shores, it has become easier for it to define who the United States is in terms to who it is not. This is similar to the way the Israelites became “God’s chosen” by referring to all other tribes as immoral idolaters. In the story of the Israelite and the Canaanites, God promises the Israelites “a land of milk and honey,” and when they arrive in their new land, it is inhabited by the Canaanites. Only the Israelites are privy to the divine revelation that the land of the Canaanites belongs to them. By calling the Canaanites “enemies of God,” Israel justifies the complete destruction of the Canaanite’s nation. Following in the designs of the Israelites, the United States justifies its foreign policies in the Middle East by viewing the people of the Middle East as “backward, decadent, and untrustworthy.”[1] In creating their foreign policies, American Leadership viewed the Middle East “in such a way as to dominate it”.[2] Orientalism, the outside interpretations of the Middle East by the West, provided the framework for the United States to justify subjugation in order to secure its vital interests and exploitation to maintain its economic superiority. Similarly to the Israelites, the United States could point to its wealth as exemplary evidence for the support of its foreign policies. The Israelites invasion of Cana was predestined in God’s promise to give Joshua, the leader of the Israelites, every place where he set his foot. Like the Israelites, the Americans also believed in their own divinely appointed expansion, called “Manifest Destiny.”

The rapid expansion of the United States during the 1800s was an outward expression of Manifest Destiny that defined American nationalism. Expansion that was manifested by the amount of land to be claimed by the Americans and destined because of divine favor that appeared to uphold their endeavors. This physical expansion provided the means for Christianity to expand as well. Following the Second Great Awakening, Americans were fervent in their desire to bring salvation to the nations. Democracy, a system of government held by free people in a free land, coexisted with the freedom experienced by Christians through their Christ. Expanding the land claimed by the United States was literally expanding the ideals their freedom, both in spirit and in government.

During the 1800s, American missionaries and tourists began to head towards the Middle East. This would continue into the next century. Missionaries were “amazed by the Christian relics and biblical landscapes but appalled by the despotic governments and decadent societies that they encountered.”[3] Most Americans knowledge of the Middle East was limited to their bibles. The Middle East was the land of Moses and Abraham. Jerusalem was where their messiah had risen and where he would return. By visiting the Middle East, Christian tourists and missionaries authenticated the foundations of their faith. Visiting the Middle East made real what had been only a story for the American Christians before.  Like the Israelites, Christians would claim the land as their own. One tourist, an Episcopal Bishop, explained his home-coming by saying: “This is the first country where I have felt at home…this strange country seems natural. Its customs, sights, sounds, and localities were those I lived among in that early time, as shown to me by pictures, explained by word, and funding as part of my undying property.”[4] He took his childhood stories, such as David and Goliath, and found himself immersed in their setting. To him and other Christians, the Middle East had “changed little in the nineteen centuries since the time of Jesus.”[5] They felt they knew “far more about the land of the Jews than the degraded Arabs who [held] it.”[6] American Christians believed they possessed the “historical consciousness” that the uncivilized Arabs lacked. This justified the American’s preservation of “their” heritage.[7]

Not all visitors to the Middle East found themselves feeling at home. Many American tourists came to the Middle East intent on seeing the exotic landscapes and decadence that pervaded accounts from books and exhibits back in the United States. However, the Holy Land “was a different place  from the one of [their] imaginations.”.[8] Upon arriving in the desert and finding it lacking the drama of their romanticized biblical accounts and exhibits, the tourist’s disappointment in the Arabs and the Middle East only served to reinforce the superiority felt by the Americans.[9] America was a civilized, modern nation. The Middle East was uncivilized and “prehistoric.”[10] Instead of creating a vision of Zion that the American tourists could appropriate like the Christians, they created a culture that served as a “them” to their “us”.[11]

This “Us vs. Them” theme would become the prevailing view of America towards the Middle East, influencing every policy. Because of the multi-nationality makeup of the United States, the [12]American identity was secured and grounded in everything it was not: not communist, not savage, not backwards, not weak, not irrational.[13] The American identity as contrasted with the Middle East was part of the “politics of representation” and “nation-ness” that developed over time.[14] By the beginning of the twentieth century, most Americans understanding of the Middle East had been influenced by the idealised travelogues and books of the missionaries and tourists of the nineteenth century. American films and novels reinforced the exotic and indulgent appeal of the Orient. A new consumer society emerged as America became the leader in manufactured goods. [15]Manufacturing led to more jobs and Americans had money to spend. Shopping “became linked to the exotic pleasures of the Orient.”[16]

As American manufacturing led the world in production, worry settled in about over-production.[17] Expansion began to refer less to land and nations and more to international markets. Nations were “bound to the United States not so much by political institutions as by economic attachments.”[18] Before World War II, the “state policy and U.S. Businesses converged.” President Taft referred to this as “dollar diplomacy.”[19] American manufacturing would benefit from the sale of their manufactured goods to other countries, while the countries that bought the American products would experience increases in their standards of living at the expense of their exploitation. “America” was being sold politically to Africans, Asians, and Europeans in the form of machines, clothing, and foods. “America” was also sold through films. The American film industry was used to promote “Americanism” to the rest of the world. Following World War II, the Marshall Plan included film deals in exchange for aid.[20] Manufacturers gained new costumers as American films “[cultivated] foreign audiences for an American product.”[21] Thus, American manufacturing and film became part of the American foreign policy.

The end of World War II began the decades long battle between the capitalist United States and communist Russia. The Cold War played like a chess game on the globe. As Britain exited its colonies in Africa, the Middle East became the new American frontier.[22] Policy makers began to use American companies and government aid to gain strategic advantage in the Middle East and elsewhere. The U.S. military would be used to protect American interests and companies in countries throughout the world that were considered “pro-western” nations.[23]

The creation of the State of Israel in 1948 gave the United States a “strategic asset” in the Middle East. [24]Israel shared the American ideals of democracy and held a special place in the religious hearts of many American people. While the creation of Israel helped to alleviate the guilt felt in response to the murder of millions of Jews during the Holocaust, it was also supported by Christians in America believing it to be necessary for the return of their Christ.[25] Because of this connection, Arabs began to see America as “the special friend and protector of Israel.”[26] However, for everyday Americans the opinion of Arab nations mattered little because “with the creation of a Jewish state in the Holy Land, Anne Frank had not died in vain.”[27]

Israel was not the only strategic interest of the American government in the Middle East. Americans were no longer proud of having a car, they were proud of being a two car family. Those cars, the American goods being made and shipped around the world, and the American military had one desperate need in common: oil. As the United States and other nations became increasingly dependent on oil, the Middle East became a strategic battle ground for control of its most important commodity. In addition to Israel, Iran and Saudi Arabia began to serve “as proxies for the protection of American interests” in the Middle East.[28] America stepped in with aid and armament for these countries to protect them from falling to communism and becoming controlled by -or worse- allies with Russia. The policy of containment extended to these countries, protecting them from becoming “a clear path to Soviet expansion through the Persian Gulf to the oil-rich Middle East.”[29]

Iran became the first domino in the “domino theory” of the spread of communism in the Middle East.[30] As such, the United States stepped in with military advisors and materials for the nation of Iran.[31] President Truman’s “Point Four” plan called for greater aid to countries not just with money, but with the United States technical know-how. For Iran this meant improvements in agriculture and the  stimulation of Iran’s economy. More importantly, for the United States this meant securing its vital interests in Iran: oil and global position. [32]At this time, Iran was in negotiations with Britain for control of its oil and so far the United States had publicly held back its involvement. When the Soviets attempted to subvert the Americans by “promising a better return for alliance with Moscow,” the Americans stepped up their involvement in the negotiations.[33] America’s interest in helping Iran negotiate with the British was primarily self-interest. By keeping control of the Iranian oil out of the hands of the Soviets they were protecting their access to oil in the Middle East and in the words of US Ambassador to Iran Henry F. Grady, keeping Iran from “becoming another satellite of Russia.”[34] Russia’s sphere of influence spreading to the Middle East is what kept America involved in the negotiations between the British and Iran.

By lumping any opposition to American influence and interests under the umbrella of “the threat of communism,” the United States continued to create an identity of its own, “which [came] out of the representation of [others].”[35] The constant threat of the spread of communism into the Middle East “[provided] support for the power of the state” but perhaps more importantly, it “[provided] the groundwork for securing [the United States] as a cultural and social entity.”[36] Orientalism as a means of defining the people of the Middle East as “them” continues to shape the foreign policy of the United States. Often, the qualities you find most irritating in someone else are the qualities you find most irritating in your character. We create in others a “[repository] of [the] characteristics we cannot abide in ourselves.”[37] If this is true, then this example of American Orientalism from the American novelist Leon Uris speaks volumes about the character of the United States:

“The Arabs ‘have a deep, deep, deep resentment because you have jolted them from their delusions of grandeur and shown them for what they are—a decadent, savage people controlled by a religion that has stripped them of all human ambition…except for the few cruel enough and arrogant enough to command them as one commands a mob of sheep.’”[38]

Orientalising the nations of the Middle East helped to give the Americans their identity as the defenders of freedom, and reinforced their identity as the leaders of the free world. It was the continual subjugation and exploitation of the Arab nations throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that reinforced their highly subjective identity. Like the Israelites, America has expanded and grown in power by defining the culture and people around them. Over time, the Israelites became hated and viewed with suspicion by all other nations. Their temple would be ruined; their nation would fall. Perhaps the United States could learn from the lessons the Israelites have given history.

[1] Douglas Little, American Orientalism (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2008), 3.

[2] Andrew J. Rotter, “Saidism without Said: Orientalism and U.S. Diplomatic History,” The American Historical Review 104, Issue 4, http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/105.4/ah001205.html.

[3] Little, 9.

[4] Melani McAlister, Epic Ecounters (Los Angeles: The University of California Press, 2005), 14.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid., 13.

[7] Ibid.,1.

[8] Robert D. Kaplan, The Arabists (New York: The Free Press, Simon and Schuster, Inc, 1995), 20.

[9] McAlister, 14.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Ibid., 10.

[12] Ibid., 14.

[13] Ibid., 12.

[14] Ibid., 3, 5.

[15] Ibid., 20.

[16] Ibid., 22.

[17] Ibid., 20.

[18] Rotter.

[19] Ibid., 30.

[20] Ibid., 31.

[21] Ibid.

[22] Ibid., 34.

[23] Ibid., 35.

[24] Little, 4.

[25] Ibid., 29.

[26] Ibid., 28.

[27] Ibid., 29.

[28] McAlister, 35.

[29] Mary Ann Heiss, Empire and Nationhood (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), 9.

[30] Ibid.

[31] Ibid., 10.

[32] Ibid., 30.

[33] Ibid., 44.

[34] Ibid., 48.

[35] Rotter.

[36] McAlister, 6.

[37] Ibid.

[38] Little, 38.

Thesis

“Orientalism, the outside interpretations of the Middle East by the West, provided the framework for the United States to justify subjugation in order to secure its vital interests and exploitation in order to maintain its economic superiority.”

That thesis is so kickass I want to bone it.