Living in  the  “United States of Amnesia”

(Paris, April 3rd) 

“ Without France there would be no United states,” wrote Carols Fuentes in a recent essay. The Mexican novelist and former ambassador to France and not a regular appearing on the White house guest list   reminds America about its history, something the Bush spin doctors either wish to erase from our minds or are ignorant of.  If we go back to our high school days, we may remember that the revolutionary war was won with the support of the French. There are many examples of French solidarity with America, Fuentes   refreshes our memory by poining out that without the backing of the Louis XIV, George Washington outnumbered and under armed wouldn’t have been able to stand up to the British. Good old Louis sent ammunitions from France to Washington.  In the winter of 1777 at Morristown the revolutionary fighters were saved from defeat thanks to France’s logistical support. Louis “the sun King” sent an expeditionary force numbering 6,000 men to fight side by side with Washington as he faced imminent defeat from the British redcoats.  The French fleet under Charles Hector d’ Estaing a descendant of a former French president, blocked English ships in the port of New York in 1778, cutting the British off from the imperial metropolis and vital supplies.  And then we all remember the heroic exploits of General Lafayette who helped the revolutionists in America from1777 to 82 rights?

  Most school kids surely know that the American constitution derives its founding principals and tenets from Montesquieu   famous political tract the  “Esprit des Lois” or spirit of the laws. A sculptor by the name of Barthodi was the father of the statue of Liberty which was a gift presented to the American from the French people. Do you  remember that President Bush? In turn the American Revolution ignited the sparks, which fanned the French revolution. The U.S and France go a way back. There histories are intertwined inseparably.  However, like Taliban historians today’s doctors of doctrine who are in charge of selling this war have cast the French as the “bad guys” in this tragic conflict. No one disputes how much the French owe the U.S: a great deal indeed for freeing his and her nation from Nazi tyranny.   But the United States, for its part wouldn’t be to free if the French over 200-year had not stood by and supported George Washington in his battle against the colonial British overlords. 

 France and the U.S have shared memories. In the 20th century the French fought several bloody war during the post war decolonisation   period.  The withdrew from Indo China only to see the American move into what became the Vietnam War- debacle. The colonial trauma of France transformed itself into the American nightmare of the Vietnam War. Then France fought a bloody civil war against Arab nationalists fighting for independence   in Algeria, that war still scars both nation’s psyche to this day. It has left both the French and Algerian with nothing but bitter memories. Neither has forgotten them. That may explain partly why the French are not so fervently in favor of this new war in Iraq as its allies American are. They know that America’s corporate driven adventurism even it is profitable in the long term will leave deep scars, hard to heal between Americans and Arabs, between conquerors and conquered. Sure the French have their own interests in the Middle East but in making its decision French policy makers take history into account as a reference point in handling the current global crisis.  If we stop eating French fries and pour French wine down the gutters, we might as well like the fanatical Nazis and their cloned Stalinist henchmen who roused the frenzied crowds to burn the books of art and literature do the same with the novels of Balzac, the texts of Montesquieu and the anti war plays of Albert Camus.  We can take down the statue of Layfatte across the White House and send back the statue of Liberty back to where it came from at a patriotic act.  During their reign of terror in their fanatical zeal the Taliban blew up Buddhist statues, turning into into dust thousands of years of civilization while wiping history from the collective memory of the Afghan people. The zealots did this in attempt to indoctrinate people to blindly worship their leaders. History   helps us reflect on a nation’s past actions recalling the excess of the past. War’s hubris blurs all that. However, on thing is clear, in the United States of Amnesia,  the past is fading away  and an uncertain future is emerging.