A country where dreams and nightmares invariably collide

It’s been a strange few days in terms of the ways of the world. So, what’s new about that, one might ask, as we all begin to appreciate the little joys of greater personal freedoms, and hopefully, we at last begin to emerge from the worst part of the coronavirus curve.

May 25 is one of those dates that holds out a bit of special meaning for me, but this year it was one that produced a horrible piece of TV-video footage of a 46-years-old black man, George Floyd, being choked to death as a white police officer pressed his knee into the neck of the man he had arrested.

Five days later along the Salthill Prom, about 40 teenagers, whose behaviour had spiralled out of control, dished out horrendous abuse to Gardaí trying to break up a row that had started between two of them.

Both incidents, while differing greatly in terms of their conclusions, told a tale of massive cultural differences that exist between countries like Ireland and the United States. One based on courtesy and community co-operation; and the other with dangerous undercurrents of racism and violent behaviour.

The United States has to be one of the strangest countries on this planet. On the one hand, it is the land of creativity, hope, glory and dreams . . . on the other, a cesspit of intolerance, vicious racism, bullying and at times raw hatred.

Of course, it would be grossly unfair to tar all Americans with the one brush. There are large swathes of their population who are open-minded, fair, kind and charitable, but without doubt there is also a sizeable minority (well maybe even more) who are aligned to the notions of white supremacy.

The case might be made that some Americans are still prisoners to the culture of black slavery that can be traced back to 1619, when a Dutchman arrived with the first batch of captives on Virginia’s shores.

Slavery remained the status quo in America until the Civil War of 1861 to 1865 when President Abraham Lincoln officially proclaimed the end of slavery when he declared that slaves in rebel areas “are, and henceforward shall be free”.

Lincoln, though, paid the ultimate price for his campaign against slavery when he was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth as part of a plot to try and revive the cause of the Confederate states in the South.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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