Editorial from a Romanian newspaper by Cornel Nistorescu
Why
are Americans so united? They don’t resemble one another even if you paint
them! They speak all the languages of the world and form an astonishing mixture
of civilizations. Some of them are nearly extinct, others are incompatible with
one another, and in matters of religious beliefs, not even God can count how
many they are.
Still,
the American tragedy turned three hundred million people into a hand put on the
heart. Nobody rushed to accuse the White House, the army, the secret services
that they are only a bunch of losers. Nobody rushed to empty their bank
accounts. Nobody rushed on the streets nearby to gape about.
The
Americans volunteered to donate blood and to give a helping hand. After the
first moments of panic, they raised the flag on the smoking ruins, putting on
T-shirts, caps and ties in the colours of the national flag. They placed flags
on buildings and cars as if in every place and on every car a minister or the
president was passing. On every occasion they started singing their traditional
song: “God Bless America!”.
Silent
as a rock, I watched the charity concert broadcast on Saturday once, twice,
three times, on different tv channels. There were Clint Eastwood, Willie
Nelson, Robert de Niro, Julia Roberts, Cassius Clay, Jack Nicholson, Bruce
Springsteen, Silvester Stalone, James Wood, and many others whom no film or
producers could ever bring together. The American’s solidarity spirit turned
them into a choir. Actually, choir is not the word. What you could hear was the
heavy artillery of the American soul. What neither George W. Bush, nor Bill
Clinton, nor Colin Powell could say without facing the risk of stumbling over
words and sounds, was being heard in a great and unmistakable way in this
charity concert.
I
don’t know how it happened that all this obsessive singing of America didn’t
sound croaky, nationalist, or ostentatious! It made you green with envy because
you weren’t able to sing for your country without running the risk of being
considered chauvinist, ridiculous, or suspected of who-knows-what mean
interests. I watched the live broadcast and the rerun of its rerun for hours
listening to the story of the guy who went down one hundred floors with a woman
in a wheelchair without knowing who she was, or of the Californian hockey
player, who fought with the terrorists and prevented the plane from hitting a
target that would have killed other hundreds of thousands of people.
How
on earth were they able to bow before a fellow human? Imperceptibly, with every
word and musical note, the memory of some turned into a modern myth of tragic
heroes. And with every phone call, millions and millions of dollars were put in
a collection aimed at rewarding not a man or a family, but a spirit which
nothing can buy.
What
on earth can unite the Americans in such a way? Their land? Their galloping
history? Their economic power? Money? I tried for hours to find an answer,
humming songs and murmuring phrases which risk of sounding like commonplaces. I
thought things over, but I reached only one conclusion.
Only
freedom can work such miracles!
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