A passport to pity and derision

The central Auckland real estate agent took a gamble on my softer accent, confident that I was Canadian - and lost. "You’re not American, I hope?"

"Yes, in fact, I am," I replied.

"That’s too bad," she answered and moved directly to business.

Five years ago, a millennium ago, I would have body-slammed her to the floor with a tirade on Bob Dylan and Thomas Jefferson, Homer Simpson and Seymour Hersh, Pixar and pumpkin pie. But that morning, a wave of newly acquired Kiwi restraint came over me and I said nothing.

She’s right. It’s been a lousy millennium to be an American - so far. At first meeting, I get either pity or derision and I’m not sure which one is easier to take. There is a certain look smart people give you when any whiff of political discussion begins to percolate. It’s as if your kid brother knows you are in the poo and can’t wait until Mom finds out.

It didn’t used to be that way. Five years ago, in a snowy mountain house in Oregon, two dozen American friends traded New Year’s millennium predictions.

Some things were sure bets.

Hillary Clinton would never see the chambers of the US Senate.

Bill and Hillary would be separated as soon as that stained navy blue dress fetched a decent haul on eBay. Michael Jackson’s next baby would be called "Tink" for "Tinkerbell"in Neverland or "Tinky Winky" if the baby came out sans plastic surgery. Purple seemed the most logical skin colour for the Gloved-One’s newborn anyway.

Our lack of prescience couldn’t compare with what calling ourselves Americans would mean five years on. We didn’t have a clue. We thought our mistake of the century was not being able to figure out for four weeks who won the last damn presidential election.

Today my citizenship has been transformed into a series of political car crashes. I trawl through the New York Times online and have long since skipped the stories of 36 killed by car bombers today because 22 were killed yesterday and 60 the day before that, and I don’t notice what I don’t notice anymore.

Aucklanders stop cocktail party conversation in mid-sentence when I approach, quelling the closest thing Kiwis have to vitriol. Little do they know I’d rather have Mr Gormsby in the Oval Office.

In five years, I’ve morphed from a centrist liberal into a disenfranchised dufus - and my politics haven’t moved an inch, only the context at home has changed. I am the political equivalent of watching my 8-year-old jam his fingers in his ears, yammering at full throttle at his sister, "I can’t hear you! I can’t hear you! You’re not bothering me!"

Karl Rove was right about something [you have no idea how painful it is to write those words] when he declared liberals wanted to respond to September 11 with "therapy and understanding". I would have had them spend some time journal writing with a candle.

Just because there are Oompa-Loompas running the White House doesn’t mean I don’t still love the place, or love the America I know; the people who would like to see Bush’s chocolate factory turn out sweets instead of deadly human waste.

I see the camera shutter click on the hooded prisoner wired to my indignation. My grief - and that is not too strong a word - is that this dot-to-dot connection of scenes - September 11-Afghanistan-Iraq-Guantanamo-Abu Ghraib - has become an entire movie of my Americanisation unravelling. My sense of nationality is in need of plastic surgery, and I swore I’d never go under the knife.

My people are much better than what you see; I want to tell every insulting estate agent. They are too smart, too astute, to let this all go unchecked. When I say "Shock and Awe" I want you to think of a surprise party, not death. When I hear "Axis Of Evil", I don’t want you to mentally add the United States next to new entry Zimbabwe.

Be patient, I tell myself, our next national reincarnation is just a presidential election away. Trust me on this one, my predictions are as rock solid as Hillary and Bill Clinton’s marriage.

An ex-pat American can wage peace in the land of the long, white, non-mushroom cloud. I’m sure of it. Just teach your kids to say their favourite things are Mounties, maple syrup, and Montreal - and nobody gets hurt.

* Tracey Barnett is an American journalist working in Auckland.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10337871