What have you done? What have you done? It's the question I wanted to ask
my American friends after last week's election result. But I already knew
the answer. They did everything they could. They just lost.
So now we have four more years of George W. Bush's regressive social,
environmental and foreign policies to look forward to. That certainly
doesn't bode well for science, the environment or human rights in America -
or elsewhere for that matter.
Do such statements make me anti-American? According to many pundits and
politicians weighing in on both sides of the border after the election it
does. Apparently, disagreeing with the U.S. popular vote makes you either
"anti-American" or "intolerant" or some sort of "high-minded liberal
elitist." Even some of our elected Parliamentarians insist that any
critical analysis of America or American policies simply amounts to
"anti-Americanism."
The irony, of course, is that this is exactly the kind of "you're either
with us or against us" mentality that drove many of the criticisms of the
Bush administration in the first place. In his first term, President Bush
forged a path of American unilateralism in the world community. He pushed a
me-first agenda and was willing to trample human rights, science and the
environment to do it. Just ask the 5,000 scientists, including 48 Nobel
laureates, who have signed onto a statement accusing the Bush
administration of "manipulation of the process through which science enters
into its decisions."
Yet now, those who dare criticize the choice of the slim majority of
American voters who picked Bush are being accused of being anti-American.
Well, if being anti-American means being against the war in Iraq,
supportive of women's rights, supportive of progressive environmental
policies, against the missile defense system, supportive of stem-cell
research and supportive of same-sex marriage, then sign me up. But I don't
believe it does.
Simply disagreeing with that slim majority of voters does not make a person
anti-American. In my youth I received a scholarship from an American
University worth more than my father made in a year and it allowed me to
attend one of the finest colleges in the world. Later I earned a PhD there
and I am forever grateful to Americans for that. When I returned to
Canada, I could not compete with my peers elsewhere in the world because of
the poor funding available in Canada at the time. I stayed because I
received a large U.S. grant. I will never forget the generosity of the U.S.
and owe a huge debt of gratitude.
But it is precisely because I love America that I am so profoundly
disturbed by what is going on there. Unquestioning acceptance of the
status quo isn't exactly an American ideal. In fact, it strikes me as
decidedly un-American.
So yes, when 52 per cent of Americans vote for Bush, I will say that I
think they made a mistake. And when 11 states vote overwhelmingly to ban
gay marriage, I will speak up. Disagreeing with a ban on same-sex marriage
is not a matter of being out of touch with "American values." It's a matter
of human rights. When one group in society is singled out and repressed and
not given the same opportunities as others, then their rights are being
violated. That is simply wrong. It doesn't matter if the majority of people
voted for it. You can't vote away human rights.
Pundits who insist that critics of President Bush are anti-American are
really saying that if 52 per cent of Americans believe anything then that's
what America stands for and everyone else has to respect that. This is a
morally relativistic viewpoint that doesn't even withstand the most basic
of scrutiny and Bush administration critics should not be bullied into
believing it does.
Those of us who feel that 52 per cent of American voters made a mistake on
November 2 don't hate Americans. On the contrary, we care enough about the
people and the ideals the country is supposed to represent to be very, very
concerned.
