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<\/a><\/p>\nBy Andrea Folds<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not an easy time to be an American abroad. We have a reputation that tops even the un-toppable \u201cW.\u201d days, and that is not a record any of us were trying to beat.<\/p>\n
Talking\u00a0with a good friend of mine from Ireland last week, I asked how the public\u00a0across the pond was reacting to the Orlando tragedy. \u201cNot to sound\u00a0callous,\u201d he said, \u201cbut it\u2019s kind of like typical America at this point\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
Our \u201ctypical\u201d is political gridlock in the face of mass murder. Add to\u00a0that the screaming train wreck of Donald Trump, and you find yourself\u00a0sheepishly palming your navy passport with as much embarrassment\u00a0over current events as you already feel over certain landmines of history.<\/p>\n
If at this point you are rolling your eyes at yet another self-hating,\u00a0unpatriotic liberal, let me be clear. I believe all countries have problems.\u00a0All perpetrate crimes against humanity, big or small, and all have the\u00a0potential to stop. The U.S. just executes its successes and failures on a\u00a0much larger stage, and as a democracy, it does so with the support,\u00a0whether active or passive, of its citizens. Now is not an easy time to\u00a0define our roles as citizens in the intricate tangle of U.S. policy and\u00a0culture, regardless of what we believe.<\/p>\n
I am not claiming that the moral question of how to live in Empire\u00a0while subverting it is a new one. I am merely stating that the answer to\u00a0the question has become more complicated, as has everything in the\u00a0world. And to pretend otherwise, instead of asking anew how U.S.\u00a0citizens can live in accord with their beliefs, is to commit a greater sin\u00a0than hubris.<\/p>\n
I hate questions like this. They are cumbersome and time-consuming, and they never yield straight answers. Believe me, I didn\u2019t even want to be asking it in\u00a0the first\u00a0place. I thought that as long as you kept your head down and worked for\u00a0a non-profit or volunteered a lot, your hands were pretty clean. It\u2019s not\u00a0like you\u2019re<\/em> the one administrating\u00a0civilian drone strikes, right?<\/p>\n Then some nosy Quaker\u00a0picked a fight with me during bible study, and my comfortable answers went out the window.<\/p>\n But let me back up a bit. The mid-20th century was today\u2019s familial\u00a0foreshadowing in terms of geopolitical insanity. More specifically, civil\u00a0rights and nuclear weapons were colliding with postcolonial eruptions,\u00a0and the U.S. was having a war. U.S. citizens who refused their\u00a0summons to Vietnam of course had another option. They could go to jail,\u00a0and many did. When they got out, they didn\u2019t feel much like sticking\u00a0around.<\/p>\n One cohort from Alabama had been imprisoned for six months as conscientious objectors during the days of Vietnam. After being released, they decided that to play it safe and avoid further unplanned\u00a0vacations at the government\u2019s invitation, they should choose a\u00a0country that didn\u2019t even have a military.<\/p>\n In November of 1950, 44\u00a0Quakers from 11 families headed south, heeding the general invitation\u00a0from then Costa Rican president Pepe Figueres to foreigners to come\u00a0help develop his newly demilitarized country. This was not some neo-colonialist field trip or juvenile jaunt before settling down to real life. It\u00a0was an earnest attempt to create a community where nonviolence, and\u00a0the Quaker values of community premised on nonviolence, could be\u00a0lived out.<\/p>\n Sometimes seemingly crazy ideas\u00a0work amazingly well, usually through a combination of great\u00a0luck and great human effort. Monteverde had both, and it continues to\u00a0defy odds today as an incredibly diverse, dynamic community committed\u00a0to the Quaker values in a world that considers them about as realistic as\u00a0equal opportunity economy and a pacifist foreign policy. Thus, a handful of kids\u00a0who didn\u2019t want to go back to jail 50 years ago succeeded in creating what several\u00a0visitors, still in awe of their own great fortune at being there, called \u201cthe\u00a0Quaker Mecca.\u201d<\/p>\n Mecca it may be, but I certainly didn\u2019t head there as a faithful pilgrim\u00a0on hajj. I made my way to Costa Rica as a result of God\u2019s speaking to\u00a0me through his favorite medium for my life, Google. I found the job\u00a0opening for English teacher at the Monteverde Friends School one day\u00a0at work, and in what I still consider to be the greatest fortune of my life\u00a0thus far, I was given the job, and thus began my year of education in\u00a0how to be a human.<\/p>\n All the lessons I learned from my time in Monteverde, and more\u00a0specifically my time teaching, could fill a book. That is partly because of\u00a0how much the place has to teach, and partly because of the staggering\u00a0number of lessons I had somehow not yet learned by age 25.<\/p>\n And in the middle of this great year, a well-meaning Quaker had to\u00a0come and ruin everything. One Sunday in February, we were at bible\u00a0study before meeting (an optional hour for those who are still learning\u00a0how to learn from silence, and rely heavily on words for communication).\u00a0The conversation was about an interview we had just watched with\u00a0Walter Brueggeman about the relevance of the Hebrew Prophets to the\u00a0U.S. today. Brueggeman accurately cited and lamented the great\u00a0number of problems with the country, and predicted a terrible fate for its\u00a0people if we didn\u2019t change our ways.<\/p>\n The comments afterwards were understandably in line with that\u00a0message, coming mostly from U.S. ex-pats who\u2019d left the country for just\u00a0those reasons, or who left and then stayed away after realizing what\u00a0they had gotten away from. I agreed with their points. All of them. But I\u00a0couldn\u2019t say so. It was just too depressing to think that there was nothing\u00a0anyone could do to improve the state of things. Or to say that somehow\u00a0the few people who could were the ones who would never do so. So I\u00a0chimed in with my personal plan to save the country and dared anyone\u00a0to challenge me.<\/p>\n I chose climate change as my point of entry \u2014 the most overwhelming\u00a0and depressing problem of all \u2014 and declared with obnoxious certainty\u00a0that I\u2019d be starting law\u00a0school in the fall, after which I\u2019d become an environmental lawyer, reform the food and agriculture policies of the country, and end global warming through an economic domino effect just in time to save the planet. Crisis averted, everyone please calm down.<\/p>\n One woman somehow felt moved to take issue with the simple and\u00a0self-important optimism of my plan. But she didn\u2019t just argue with me.\u00a0She laughed. She laughed at the idea that I\u2019d ever be able to influence\u00a0the corporately dominated policies of the U.S. She laughed, more\u00a0importantly, at the idea that anyone could live in the U.S. and be able to\u00a0do anything other than support it through passive compliance. I was\u00a0furious.<\/p>\n Although she wouldn\u2019t have guessed it at the time from my frozen,\u00a0artificial smile as I refused to further engage in conversation with her,\u00a0this woman made me think. What if she was right? What if I couldn\u2019t just\u00a0march into the heart of Empire and claim freedom from guilt, lack of\u00a0association, simply by virtue of participating in fossil fuel protests and\u00a0calling for a national carbon tax? This made things annoyingly\u00a0complicated.<\/p>\n I thought back to Monteverde\u2019s founders, and their decision to pack up and\u00a0leave. Without something as concrete as a summons to war, what did I\u00a0have to protest against? Not like I wanted<\/em> to be drafted for war, but it\u00a0certainly made things clearer about what one was choosing or refusing\u00a0to support. The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized that\u00a0not all of us could leave, even if sometimes we\u2019d like to. Some of us-\u00a0many of us, really- need to stay and work from inside the system to bring\u00a0about change. So how to do so without lazily paying into it at the same\u00a0time?<\/p>\n I have given up hope of finding one-size-fits-all answers to anything. I\u00a0tried that with religion for a long time, and was left with anger,\u00a0exhaustion, and no answers. Certain things work for certain people, and\u00a0that\u2019s fine. So for me, personally, individually, here are the 3 things I\u2019m\u00a0keeping with me from Monteverde as I transition back to the states and\u00a0try to avoid completely succumbing to the comfortable zombifying effect\u00a0of capitalist patriotism.<\/p>\n 1. Taxes \u2014 that other thing besides death.<\/strong><\/p>\n In one of the many great shots of Michael Moore\u2019s latest analysis of\u00a0America\u2019s disasters, \u201cWhere to Invade Next,\u201d he zooms in on the income\u00a0tax receipt paid by U.S. citizens, where we are told nothing about how\u00a0our taxes are used. He then zooms in on a French income tax receipt,\u00a0where citizens are showed exactly how their dollars are spent. The\u00a0distribution of U.S. income tax dollars is a contentious question, with\u00a0percentage breakdowns provided by the government, by watchdog\u00a0groups, and by market analysts, all with significantly different\u00a0interpretations. The figure purportedly given to National Defense ranges\u00a0from around 22%, according to the us.gov figures, and 80% according to\u00a0groups like warresisters.org, who include spending on veterans of past\u00a0wars and other war-related expenses.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re committed to non-violence, the idea of funding U.S. military\u00a0conquests may seem paradoxically in conflict with your beliefs, and in\u00a0line with your legal obligations as a U.S. citizen. Groups like the National\u00a0War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee (nwtrcc.org) can help you\u00a0figure out ways to navigate your concurrent personal beliefs and\u00a0financial burdens with a menu of suggestions for protest, both monetary\u00a0and non. Whatever you do, just acknowledging that you\u2019re paying into\u00a0the military arm of the world\u2019s superpower is a good first step to being a\u00a0conscientious U.S. citizen. And it makes you feel less like a chump, even\u00a0if you are still paying up.<\/p>\n 2. Buying \u2014 or more specifically\u00a0not<\/em> buying \u2014 things.<\/strong><\/p>\n There are a few key ways to tell the difference between a Tico (Costa\u00a0Rican) and a gringo (anyone from North America, or just a particularly\u00a0clueless kind of white person) in Monteverde, aside from the amount of\u00a0intense rain gear they\u2019re wearing. One dead giveaway is that gringos\u00a0love to buy things. If a large fundraising dinner is coming up, and we\u2019re\u00a0going to sell pizza, the gringos immediately ask where we can order the\u00a0pizza from. The ticos are already rolling their eyes and on the phone with\u00a0their neighbor\u2019s sister, who makes the best pizza dough on the\u00a0mountain. It\u2019s not just food, either. When I realized I needed to boil water\u00a0for coffee every morning if I wanted to continue my ritual of mindless\u00a0instant Nestle while listening to NPR and wondering why mornings exist,\u00a0I went to the store and bought an electric kettle. Fast. Plastic. So easy.<\/p>\n My neighbor was appalled. She has a metal kettle that I could have\u00a0used instead. Same result \u2014 boiled water. It\u2019s not just a matter of thrift \u2014 it\u2019s\u00a0a matter of stuff. Americans don\u2019t seem to have a concept of how much\u00a0stuff we have. We just assume it accumulates over your life and you\u00a0dread the day you ever have to move. Ticos \u2014 or more specifically,\u00a0Monteverdans \u2014 seriously question each new thing they acquire before\u00a0doing so. Do they need it? Will they be able to give it someone else who\u00a0does when they\u2019re done? Is it really necessary? Those are questions I\u00a0have a hard time remembering to ask when I find myself in the dollar\u00a0section of Super Target. But the embarrassment I can feel at the thought\u00a0of my neighbor seeing my Hello Kitty Band-Aid impulse buy certainly helps.<\/p>\n 3. And finally \u2014 separation between church and state, or between\u00a0church life and real life.<\/strong><\/p>\n I like going to church. I have always liked it, because it\u2019s a free\u00a0intellectual exercise. Like going to a movie or a play without having to\u00a0buy a ticket. Someone stands up and states their belief, vaguely\u00a0challenges you to question yours, and leads you in singing some tunes\u00a0you may or may not have heard. Then out the door to lunch to mull over\u00a0what you just heard and pick it apart as you live. Beautiful.<\/p>\n Quaker meeting is not like that. Not just because there is no sermon\u00a0to dissect afterwards, nor order of worship to comment on. Quaker\u00a0meeting doesn\u2019t end when the preacher blesses you out the door.<\/p>\n Instead, it follows you with handshakes, greetings, and earnest\u00a0questions about how you\u2019re really doing. I spent the first 3 months of\u00a0meetings wishing people would just leave me alone so I could run up to\u00a0my classroom and start lesson planning. I spent the rest of the year\u00a0dreading my impending transition back to American church, where a\u00a0question deeper than whether you saw the game last night is severely\u00a0uncomfortable.<\/p>\n I am still an introvert, 100%, even after the Quaker hospitality. But I\u00a0am going to make a considerable effort at the next congregation I\u2019m a\u00a0part of to nurture and honor the communal part of church. I want the\u00a0people I worship with to ask about my daily life, and I about theirs. I want\u00a0as little separation as possible between what I believe and what I do.\u00a0And I want as much socializing as possible with people who actually\u00a0care about that sort of stuff.<\/p>\n Monteverde is too rich to sum up in a single article. American identity\u00a0is too complex to analyze from a single vantage point. And these may seem\u00a0like pathetically trivial ways in which to reconcile your citizenship and\u00a0your beliefs \u2014 to solve your political identity crisis. Great, see what doesn\u2019t\u00a0work for you and find what does. This is all just to say that even those\u00a0experiences that leave us speechless, wondering where to go, and\u00a0knowing it has to be somewhere different than we were before \u2014 well\u00a0even those, we must try clumsily and humanly to put into words.<\/p>\n By Andrea Folds It\u2019s not an easy time to be an American abroad. We have a reputation that tops even the un-toppable \u201cW.\u201d days, and that is not a record any of us were trying to beat. Talking\u00a0with a good friend of mine from Ireland last week, I asked how the public\u00a0across the pond was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1387,74,1094,1389,1388,1102,1386,1385,1323,1383],"class_list":["post-9737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-american-values","tag-church","tag-climate-change","tag-consumerism","tag-economic-equality","tag-environmentalism","tag-ex-pat","tag-quakerism","tag-taxes","tag-values"],"yoast_head":"\n<\/a>Andrea Folds is a cynic by nature, an idealist by force, and a wannabe Christian, as Auden put it, by some odd miracle. She has worked as an activist on too many issues for too little time in the South where she\u2019s from, in New York where she studied, and most recently in Costa Rica, where she recommends everyone go but not really everyone or you\u2019ll ruin it.\u00a0Andrea is starting law school this fall with the sole intention of lovingly prosecuting certain deserving industries, and she will continue blogging her way through this life at willfullyfunny.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"