Exit this Roman shell

[imomus]

For those of you thinking of leaving America today -- and there are many, I'm sure -- I'd say just do it. Walk away. Leaving Britain is the best thing I ever did. I lived for years there feeling like a political and cultural exile, trying to fight back with satire and a thousand subtle forms of stubbornness and resistance. But being an 'internal exile' is not good for the soul. My struggle with attitudes which seemed toxic to me started making me as hard, cynical and corrupt as the people and the attitudes I was fighting.

Soon I realised that British people were not going to change. At least not in my short lifetime. My contribution was never going to be accepted in that country. It was much easier to get up and go. You can change the world around you by simply getting on a plane and going to the place where they think like you, even if they don't speak the same language you speak. So I went to live in France. In Germany. In Japan. I became a world citizen.

I started to think in terms of cities, and even districts of cities, rather than nations. I made my own cut and paste environment, a place where I felt comfortable and valued. I selected its elements from the internet and the parts of the cities I loved and went to live in. I count the moment I left my incorrigible homeland as the moment my adult life really began. I am now a much happier and better adjusted person.

So just leave. America doesn't deserve you. Walk away. America doesn't need your talent, your creativity and your intelligence. Or rather, it needs them desperately, but it will never acknowledge that. It's too stupid to understand that. If it calls for you, it will call for you for the wrong reasons. It will call you up as a soldier. It will call for you as canon-fodder in some spurious and unnecessary war that serves the interests of 1% of its population and an even smaller percentage of the world's population. Even if it lets you live in relative peace as a mere civilian, it will force you to live in ways that destroy the world's weather systems and its environment. It will use your tax to fund pre-emptive wars of aggressive imperialism against impoverished nations with energy resources.

Leave while you still can. Leave as a civilian, not a soldier. Leave and lead the life you were born to lead. Your absence will hurt America economically, but it deserves that. And it doesn't deserve you.

Get a passport, get a visa. Work a job, save some money. Come to Europe, come to Japan. Life is more civilised here. Come as you are, come to work, come to play, come to stay. Make love to foreigners, not Americans. Make non-American babies. Make your children world citizens, as you make yourself one.

Then you know in your brain
Leave the capitol!
Exit this roman shell!
Then you know you must leave the capitol

Leave the capitol!
Exit this roman shell!

It will not drag me down
I will leave this ten times town
I will leave this fucking dump
One room, one room

(The Fall, 'Leave The Capitol')

Comments

[malo23.livejournal.com]

I just wanted to jump in here and say that I agree with you 100%. Japan can indeed be a living hell at times, and it has more problems--social, economical, political--than most people are willing to admit (see this book (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0809039435/qid=1099486963/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/104-6302097-4616737?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) if you need further convincing). At the same time, and speaking as an American citizen, I, like many others, feel betrayed--wounded, even. I just don't understand how the American people (if it is in fact the American people who will *really* decide the outcome of this election) could vote for another four years of Bush, Jr. I mean, it boggles the mind. He lies, he cheats, he sneers at the camera...it's a nightmare, truly a nightmare. I don't know whether I'd want to go back to the U.S. at this point, if indeed Bush ends up re-ascending his throne, yet staying in Japan forever (and ever) certainly isn't a very appealing idea either (and, just for the record, I'm married to a Japanese woman and speak the language). Sometimes it seems as if there is *nowhere* left to go. A rock and a hard place, indeed. I'm feeling the crunch.

~m

[starofpersia.livejournal.com]

True enough. I get told "stay in Japan" time and time again, but Japan is no paradise either, and you can never really escape the negative hatred projected towards all Americans overseas esp. Europe. I feel gutted and betrayed by the results of the election and yet I cannot forget the people and things I love and the invisible half that has been standing up in bitter resistance this whole time. I have too much investment in both countries (I also speak near-fluent Japanese and have lived here 3+ years) to walk away from either nation permanently. I think state of mind is the most important thing ultimately, but living in Japan has both made me more open minded and more closed minded in a lot of ways.
And I'm familiar with Alex Kerr- I live in Kyoto and got to run an interview w. him in the local magazine I edit!

[matazone.livejournal.com]

'Just a quick point.

There is a great deal of anger aimed at America from Europe at the moment, but this anger has been caused by the Bush administration. I would certainly think that the majority of people still understand that there is a difference between the government and the people.

This aspect is in some ways the most depressing side of the Bush result; it means that the slight majority in the US actually agree with more of his principles than they did with Kerry's. Kerry's were not ideal, but they were a great deal better than Bush's. Before this election I had a great deal of faith in the US public, believing that there was not a majority that would endorse Bush when it came to the crunch... Now I am disheartened.

I still believe that this election result is the fault of media censorship preventing actual world opinions to reach the US, and this gives me faith in the people of America, but I can't help but wonder how many really do believe that gay people are all sinners, or that abortions really are against the will of God.

It is a very strange time, but I just wanted to let you know that most europeans are still very capable of realising that an American individual will not of necessity be carrying a bible and concealed weaponry!

[starofpersia.livejournal.com]

I would like to believe that most Europeans are capable of making the distinction, unfortunately it is the ones that can't that linger in my memory. I remember the anger I felt when a Swedish girl said "America is horrible-I'm so glad I've never been there" and I replied "How can you hate what you do not know first hand?" A year later she was close friends with me and several other Americans and she was able to admit that not all Americans were evil bastards.

Part of a comment that an Italian/Greek friend of mine left in my journal yesterday:
When I say to people anywhere in the world that I have friends that are Americans they behave like you are either retarded or a God fearing, anti-abortion, gay hater arrogant sad bastard, I feel like I said that I am homies with Adolf Hitler. TheI can't believe that I have to explain to people that not everyone is a republican and they are thinking young Americans, that they *DO* exists.

I have friends who lie and pretend to be Canadians while overseas, but if I can make even a few people understand that we're not all neanderthals, it's worth the automatic prejudice I may face in the process.

[matazone.livejournal.com]

It's sad that it's come to such a situation.

I've always known that America is just like everywhere else, there are people of all types there, but even with this attitude it was very refreshing when I first visited five years ago to hear Americans speaking fluently and incisively about politics and the world.

There is one difference that I've noticed about America though, those that know less feel that they are having their rights infringed if they have to admit that they have little-to-no knowledge of a given subject. In this situation there seems to be a tendancy to shout louder than opponents. Of course, this makes good television and as such it is often these people that shape the views of the world about Americans.

Last night I was discussing the election with a fervent Bush supporter, and she was of the belief that the Swift Boat Veterans were telling the absolute truth. I figured that this was going to be the easiest of her claims to disprove and hopefully sow a seed of doubt that might lead her to research the issues further. I found a link to the NY Times article which reported that the veteran's stories didn't match up with their own previous testimonies or military records. I was then told by her that the NY Times is a 'rag' and that it is all 'propaganda'. So I found the same information on Factcheck.org (a non-party-affiliated website with interests only in accuracy), MSNBC, and the BBC. I was then told b her that apparently all of these are lying, I should never trust the media, and that I should use 'more diverse sources'. When questioned about what sources I should be looking at that were not part of the media and that would reveal that she was correct, she never responded.

When the people who shout the loudest about issues such as the election then display such an absolute lack of substantiation for their claims it does tend to give many a very negative view of Americans. The quieter people never get their views heard. For all I know, there may be many very good reasons to support Bush, but I've only encountered near-rabid believers who have been unable to provide me with any logical arguments for his superiority, and as such it really does no favours for the reputation of the country that has voted for him.

As I said before, this sort of behaviour does seem to be construed as a personal right. I guess it is seen as an extension of the right to free speech, but it has been twisted so that people who have nothing to say compensate by saying what they think louder than everyone else, as if that makes them right. Unfortunately, I suspect that this attitude is beginning to spread to the UK.

Oh well, another day has passed and no further wars have been declared yet...

[(Anonymous)]

Japan used to be a paradise for me. No longer; it's just pointless work in a pointless office, surrounded by narrow-minded Japanese business drones, doing pointless translations. I worked my ass off to learn the language, and now I'm probably going to chuck it all and move to NYC. I don't know how much more gritty, disillusioning firsthand knowledge of Japanese life I can take.

Any place can be paradise, provided one is lucky enough to posess the ability to make creative projections onto the culture/ environment. I think that's what one should aim towards.

[starofpersia.livejournal.com]

True enough. For every amazing experience I've had in Japan, I've spent 8-10 hours doing mind numbing work in a flourescent office where I am ritually excluded from the ingroup. Sometimes I think it's better that if you love Japan, let it keep its mysteries, dont learn the language.

And it's true about the state of mind as well. I think that's a big reason I am a writer.

[malo23.livejournal.com]

A few things:

*Do you feel that there is hatred projected towards you here because you are an American?

*How has Japan both opened/closed your mind (in what ways)? I'm curious about this. I agree with you that one's "state-of-mind" is very, very important, BTW.

*Where can I get a copy of that interview? I'd *love* to read it. I lived in Kyoto for over a year and miss it very much, despite the poor air quality, freezing cold winters, etc. What is the name of the magazine you edit there? I can't even get Kansai T/O in Hiroshima... :(

Finally (I hardly ever have a chance to do this on LJ)...

日本能力試験一級レベルを受けると言っていなかったのですか？すごいね。僕は二級レベルを申し込んだけど、失敗かも知れない。日常会話なら全然OKだけど専門用語（政治、経済など）はあまり得意じゃないし、試験を受けようと思ったらどきどきするからヤバいかなとは思うけど．．．

P．S．北海道でまた地震があったらしい。今年は実にひどい！

Best,
~m

[starofpersia.livejournal.com]

Hey Mark- I'm gonna go ahead and reply directly in yr. journal so I'm not hijacking any more comments space!

[jimyojimbo.livejournal.com]

I can't understand it either. But it appears as if Bush did get the majority (just) of the popular vote, which means that (in the unlikely event of absolutely massive fraud) over half the American voting public want him back.

Like many people here have said, these means that over half the American people aren't "us". I keep trying to put it together in my head, what does that mean? "We" are the ones that support liberal values, accept (as opposed to its weaker cousin, tolerate) homosexuality and abortion. We will argue that, even considering the vengeful and inexcusable violent acts perpetrated by extremist groups, it is in part the collective responsibility of nations on "our side of the world" with regards to the causes of such extremism. And it is obvious that half the American voting population don't agree with "us".

It also means we don't agree with them. This is surely the problem. We are all, by and large, diametrically opposed. I can't accept their values, they can't accept mine. It is a battlefield, where we want to destroy the others, as much as they want to destroy us. We, the liberals, want to destroy their objections to our causes, just as much as they want to destroy our objections to theirs. It seems oddly intractible. No matter how much we think we are right, they will think they are right to the same degree. We are at war, between ourselves, to some degree.

I write this as British, yet equally as depressed about the result of the US election as anyone of "us". This was the election I cared about, as for me our political debate seems non-existant. As far as I'm concerned, we actually have no choice. To us in the UK, Blair is actually the closest we will get to a liberal state. It's depressing that the party closest to my beliefs is endorsing Bush. We actually have no political dialogue that can persuade me that the bollock in power at the moment isn't the best. We seriously have nothing else. This is the scary thought.

All I keep thinking is that I am of the generation that is being increasingly ignored. I know that my parents' generation voted for Thatcher. We have not fully gone through the loop yet. Dammit, I'm now 24, and I'm worried that my vote will count for an argument that is irrelevant.

[starofpersia.livejournal.com]

The thing is, I am able to accept the fact that they dont approve of gay marriage, abortion, whatever, but I cannot accept that they wish to make/keep these things illegal. They do lots of things that I dont approve of, but I dont make laws against them doing it, I just choose not to do it myself.