Thanksgiving: Thank You �The Good Old USA �

By Tecola Worq Hagos

�Thanksgiving� is a day set aside for thanking God for helping us through a time of great tribulation. Such is my understanding of the significance of this great Holiday from all the literature I read and all the talks I had among friends about Thanksgiving. My thanksgiving (verbal) here in this essay is far modest than thanking the Almighty, for I am focusing my gratitude on the people around me. I have lived in this area of Washington DC for over thirty years except for a couple of years when I moved back to Ethiopia in 1991. Even having traveled that far, I was not really detached from some of the things I used to do here in DC like watching the Redskins, my favorite team, getting pulverized by the Cowboys, my second favorite team, because I was able to watch videos of the games.

There is no substitute for the wonderful feeling of fulfillment I had in the simple act of walking down to Lafayette Park, secure in my person without fear of any abuse by anyone, from my apartment a few blocks up 16^th Street NW near Scott Circle, walking around for few hours on Weekends reveling in the Red, Yellow, and White tulips in full bloom and admiring the majestic trees surrounding the great statue of Lafayette, the hero of the great revolutionary war for independence. Of course, there, in the distance, is the White House with its classic Greek fa�ade (front), even though I prefer the back fa�ade. I always thought of the White House not being grand enough for a President of a powerful and wealthy country like the United States . Other than that one discomfort of heat and humidity in the Summer, DC is a jewel for its art museums, its diversity of culture, its verity of international cuisine et cetera.

All these history and beauty of a place did not happen in a vacuum. Although it might be hard to believe now looking at the great power and wealth of the United States, once upon a time this same United States was a colony and a developing country too. All the great power and wealth that we live with now in the United States is the sum total of the work product of hundreds of millions of people over a period of four hundred years of history�a history checkered with atrocities against minority groups, and a birth of the nation itself soiled with the blood of indigenous people. I am not at all rehashing such past, but looking at the facts of the human condition universally in context of the history of nations in general, such past is no different than the history of other nations around the world, some with far worse blackened history. It is the story of humanity. What nation is clean of human suffering and spilt blood? Even if I had criticized in the past its foreign policy toward Ethiopia concerning the secession of Eritrea , the United States is still fully engaged to bring about peace and stability in a troubled world. What is important in life is whether one is progressing into something noble with profound continuity of change in the direction of freedom and scientific development whereby expanding the individual�s rights and capacity resulting in a truly civilized society. �The Good Old USA� is definitely heading in that direction better than any country in the World.

The fact that there is an economic recession at this point in the United States does not in any way diminish the great strength and wealth of this nation. I read/hear often these days people writing/talking about the decline and the inevitable doom of the United States . Such ideation is grossly premature and also acutely overlooks the fact that the core strength of this nation is based on its core values. The greatness of the United States is not rooted in material things that the rest of the World admires it for. The United States is a powerful and great nation because of its core foundational values. Often such values result in paradoxical situations: consider the paradox of liberation reflected in the election of Barak Obama as President and the coming into a formidable political force of the Tea Party in opposition to that same ideal. Unlike in my earlier years where I would have reacted with tremendous hate against the birth of a movement such as the Tea Party, I welcome such process now, for I see in such movement the power of the core values embedded in the American ethos manifesting and asserting itself thereby affirming the greatness of America . I might even switch party and vote for Mrs. Sarah Palin if she runs for President. Any such political outgrowth should not be conceived of as a problem for the root of the American experiment is solid and healthy and such opposition is the part of that healthy foundation.

Every time I board a connective bus from the Rockville Metro Station to reach my place of employment, I witness why the United States is a great nation. It is easy to reach such a conclusion by taking into account the number of nuclear weapon, the gross national product, the individual income index et cetera of the United States . However, such a way of witnessing is a superficial way of looking at the complex histories of nations. What I learned as the source of the great strength of the United States is not to be found in physical and material things, but is to be found in the spirituality and ethical core that  materialize in concrete simple acts of great significance by members of its communities around this vast nation; for example, it is to be found in the simple act of a bus driver kneeling our bus for an elderly person or extending the easy access extension for a person in wheelchair as a matter of course, and customers jumping up to accommodate the needs of the weakest member of the community. I see it every day at street crossings in downtown Washington DC , how drivers of vehicles yield to pedestrians the right of way. One can learn a lot about a nation from the way its drivers interact with pedestrians at street crossings.  I see it in the way people conduct their businesses, in the way people handle their work, their manner of conversations et cetera. There is much dignity and courtesy in all such processes of social interactions in the United States . By contrast I have witnessed in several of the nations of the World I visited how the local people were often agitated pushing and shoving each other with overly dramatic wailing and screaming et cetera and also were often rude  to each other violating each others privacy  or individual-space with very little or no dignity at all.  

Even in the work place, where there is intense competition, I find the discipline that Americans have to be impressive and memorable, in not accosting old or new immigrants and in simply allowing the normal atmosphere of business to prevail for all. This is not some mean achievement but a monumental one. In most Western nations and definitely in every developing nation, as reported in countless studies by serious news reporters and also by academic researchers, the treatment of immigrant workers is dismal with open and often hurtful discriminatory practices. We read often in newspapers or blogs how immigrants, who are often non-Muslims, working in Saudi Arabia, the Gulf nations et cetera were killed or raped, beaten and violently abused, made to work without pay or rest, and forced to live in miserable conditions by their employers, which at times had driven such workers to commit suicide. The savagery of such Islamic nations does not spare even their own local minority population with a different religion. The recent conviction (Nov 9, 2010) of Asia Bibi, a 45-year-old Pakistani mother-of-five, for frivolous offense of alleged badmouthing of the name of the Prophet Mohammed is one clear example of the violence and brutality of Moslem majorities in such countries. Such is the contrast with a democratic nation like the United States . 

My applause of the United States as a beacon of hope for the oppressed and the down trodden is not based on empty rhetoric. Such applause of mine does not need elaborate rhetorical argument, for the truth of the United States as a beacon of hope could be easily established by looking at how millions of people from every nation throng at US Embassies around the World trying to migrate to the United States. By last count this year (2010), eleven million people from all over the world applied for the Lottery to come to the United States as immigrants. I am reminded in articles or papers of my students, who are often immigrants, about their experience of freedom and the realization of their human dignity once they arrived here in the United States . For example, just before letting them go for their Thanksgiving break, we discussed in class the significance of Thanksgiving. I heard with fascination their stories and aspirations and their gratitude in being here in the United States . I realize that what I had on hand in these new immigrant students is a generation of patriotic new Americans. I feel no less patriotic and no less capable than the local population and all those who migrated over the centuries. Especially considering the continuous inundation of the fertile pool of new immigrants, one may rightly conclude that America in no way can be considered in decline or waning.

The personality of leaders is no less important than the policy they introduce in their administrations. I have witnessed right from the Nation�s Capital the coming and goings of six Presidents. When I arrived in 1976 Gerald Ford was President of the United States , but a year later left office defeated by President Jimmy Carter. I had the privilege of meeting in 1991 and also in 1993 President Carter and Mrs. Carter. My impression of them was that of a truly loving couple. As an individual, President Carter is the most spiritual and truly good person who stands on principle for �the little man� no matter who may be offend in the process. I thought of President Reagan as a �Chairman� of a �Board� of a corporation, with great charisma but average intelligence who delegated too much responsibilities and authority to his subordinates. I am not sure whether that is a good idea in running a government, for a government is not a business corporation. Both Father and Son Bushes seem to me Patricians, but they carry that privilege with great sense of reality and humor, especially the Son is the most humane of the presidents of our time. But that image contrasts drastically to their destructive overreaction to Saddam Hussein and the terrorist attacks against the United States . The military devastation of Iraq and Afghanistan was unnecessary and could have been handled with great wisdom and better outcome. The subsequent violations and narrowing of the rights of American citizens tells us also how fragile our hard-won-rights are, and how much they require our vigilance and jealous safeguard. These six Presidents of my time should have controlled the foreign policy and relations of this great nation far more effectively rather than allowing it to be wagged by its tail (several other nations). All future Presidents ought to heed this admonishment. Nevertheless, the ingenuity of the American people in choosing the right person at the right time is incredible, for each president thus elected fits the post and the time.

Now considering our present situation, I can say that President Barak Obama is undertaking the most difficult task of chief executive of any era second only to President Abraham Lincoln. But President Obama is also the most astute and the most intelligent President to grace the White House. On a daily basis I admire President Obama�s great capacity in digesting complex issues and presenting the same to the public with great clarity and in manageable scope. Although he won the election because most people thought that he will be a bridge builder and would bring people together, that hope seems to have faded away. He made some unforced errors especially in his appointments of officials, judges, et cetera that seems to reflect narrowness and elitism and even reverse discrimination. He seemed to have failed to bring in the civil�right era heroes to his side, as well as the opposition leaders. For example, there is no prominent African American within his inner circle.  He seems to have failed in having meaningful close contact with the African-American base. By being too much dependent on people who are in his inner circle, who seem to have narrow agendas not necessarily compatible with the vision Candidate Obama had painted during his campaign, he seems to have alienated some of his core supporters across all population groups. It would be a great loss to have such a brilliant and well intentioned man serve only a single term.

Thanksgiving might have far deeper significance to immigrants than it might have for the local population; I hope that is the case. In America, taking some clue from the history of immigrants coming to the United States, I might say with some authority what immigrants should be seeking is freedom and liberty. They should not simply continue their old habits, as some wrongly believe the meaning of America , but they ought to strive for rejuvenation and for new beginnings unencumbered and weighed down with destructive Old World habits religious or other wise. One need not traverse great Continents and great Oceans to end up shrouding oneself in veils or other items of human oppressions that are now defended as part of religious rights. If such were the case, why not introduce slavery since some religious texts speak of slavery and the institution of slavery as a way of life too. I believe that the United States is for those who want liberty and individual integrity, thus immigrants who practice their old suppressive culture in the guise of religion are here on false pretenses and defiling the spirit of liberty and freedom. The respect for liberty and freedom of the individual is embedded in the swearing in of immigrants into citizenship and in the Constitution and the many laws of the land. Thus, every such immigrant by law and morality must uphold that human commitment to human liberty and freedom. It is with that framework one ought to practices ones religion and culture and not in opposition to such foundational principles or undermining those fundamental American values.

In thanking America at this Thanksgiving celebration, what I am thanking is not some abstraction but my neighbors, my colleagues at work, my students, the many drivers of my connecting busses, the friendly officers who say hello as I pass by, the impeccably polite school kids who ask me directions to the Mall, on a chance meeting et cetera. I thank them all for their vitality, for their gentleness, for their benevolence, and for their generosity in sharing what is uniquely American�hope and liberty. I am glad that I am writing this note in my maturing years. I cannot imagine writing this even a few years back being filled up to the brim with my own ambition and frustration for I had forgotten that I was an immigrant after all and should have been a lot circumspect in my expectations and with no room for reflection and appreciation for my fellow Americans. Just for today, let me shade my Ethiopianess and be immersed in the moment as part of this great people and nation. No one should under estimate the fact that America gave me great chances, as it has done for millions all over the world. If I had not fully used those chances, it is my entire fault. If I am clumsy in handling my social interactions with the people in my life, that too is my fault. What I hear these days when young people say, �I can be anything I want to be,� I truly see the truth in such statement and I believe them; I hope that they would keep that sentiment alive for all of their lives.  

AMERICA , THANK YOU, AND HAPPY THANKSGIVING!   

Tecola W. Hagos

Washington DC

November 24, 2010