Now we can Love America

I am part of the first generation who could never love America.

Since Cleng Peerson sailed over on the “Restauration” in 1825, we dreamed of America. Our family trees are full of emigrants. In 1905 my own grandfather passed the immigration office on Ellis Island on his way to Iowa. He was one of those who came back, just a bit richer than when he left. But others stayed behind, and maintained their belief in America as the promised land.

My father never left, although he considered it. But he never liked it when someone talked bad about America, because America stood for all the good. America was the safe, strong big brother who stood fast against Nazis and communists. You were to be grateful to America, not talk badly about it.

In a lot of ways I was more Americanized than my father and my grandfather, even though the old one would say “bullshit” from time to time, if he thought there was too much silly talk. But I was part of a generation that had America around me every single day – in Norway. I grew up with the sound of Elvis, Chubby Checker and Jim Reeves from the radio, with Donald Duck comics, Wrigley’s Spearmint Gum, the old classic Coke bottles, and Bonanza.

Later Bob Dylan warned that a new time was coming. At Woodstock, Richie Havens called for freedom while Jimi Hendrix disemboweled the Star-Spangled Banner. Jack Nicholson opposed the Big Nurse, Tommie Smith and John Carlos clenched their fists at the podium in Mexico, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward toppled Nixon.

Oh yes, there were plenty of American heroes. And there were plenty of average everyday people easy to love. We found that out when we got there.

But they were always part of “the other America.” Firstly, the official America was Vietnam, the coup in Chile, and Watergate. Later it was the Iran-Contras scandal, Iraq and Guantanamo. What America did was too often arrogant, hypocritical, greedy and ignorant.

Sure there were exceptions. Jimmy Carter was a great idealist, but a useless politician. Bill Clinton was a likeable character who oversaw the good times – but did he actually do anything more?

And then there was a dark, twisted America that killed its best people. I will never forget how my teacher came into the locker room at Høyland school one day in June 1968, telling us that they had shot Robert Kennedy. Like they had done to Martin Luther King just two months before. And now John, the great president.

No, it was hard to love America, both for us and for the many who once did. “We who loved America,” wrote Jens Bjørneboe. “We dreamed of America, but not any longer” sang Odd Børretzen.

Until Barack Obama was on the podium in Chicago Tuesday night.

And I thought – how is this country able to find a great leader when it needs it the most, over and over again? Who can seem so hopelessly mismanaged, but can still learn from its mistakes? Who can be so deeply divided, but still manage to build bridges? Who is so full of fear, brutality and extremism, but in the end chooses the side of democracy, humanism and common sense?

I saw jubilant young people and black men with tears flowing down their cheeks, and I felt my eyes getting wet. And I heard Obama say that America’s strength is not in military force or money, but in the power of our ideals. After eight years of Bush it was an almost surreal experience. It was definitely not a time for cynicism and cool analysis.

The next day all the commentators were saying that Obama will have to disappoint many of those who voted for him. He does not have the means to fulfill his promises in these financial crisis-times.

No, of course he does not. No politician can keep all their promises and give the people everything they want. That is not what will decide whether Barack Obama becomes a great president. It is whether he is able, like Roosevelt in the 1930s, to give an America in crisis a new start, and not least, if he is able to restore America’s moral leadership in the world. The gods knows that it is needed – in the world economy, in the battle against climate change, and against poverty, war and injustice. America is no longer almighty. But it has to be in on the heavy lifting.

There has not been a shortage of malice over the steep downhill America has experienced under Bush. But I think that what is often expressed as anti-Americanism, is a surface phenomenon. A lot of us, whether we live in Norway, France, Russia or Kenya, have deep down inside always wanted America to once again be the lighthouse for freedom, prosperity and progressive politics that it once was for millions of people around the world.

Because we do want to love America. I might be naïve, but during my lifetime we have never had a better reason.