LAST month I caught up with a friend,the photographer Harry Benson, who was back in his native Glasgow to receive yet another well-deserved accolade. He lamented the image that, his adopted land the United States, was now displaying to the world under a Donald Trump presidency. It grieved him and it frightened me.
Sadly, it’s becoming not just an image but the reality as things worsen. The murder of a young woman in Charlottesville and the open display of Nazi paraphernalia don#t denote the land of the free or the home of the brave. Instead, it’s indicative of a crisis in the country and an absence of leadership from the top.
Harry first landed in the US along with the Beatles. On seeing the reception that met the Fab Four he knew that they were destined to be huge stars but also that he wouldn’t be returning home. It was a time when America was also facing challenges and was deeply divided. President Kennedy had been assassinated not long before, and the war in Vietnam was in its infancy. Civil rights were to the fore and confrontations were taking place in Mississippi and Alabama.
But, it was still a time for hope and optimism. There was a strive for change for the better and a fairer society for all. Most ordinary Americans were repelled by the actions of a racist minority and leadership in the situation was given by those holding high office. Sadly, at the moment there’s a feeling of fear and uncertainty and a questioning of just what America’s about. Moreover, the actions of President Trump have been abysmal, showing he’s unfit for office.
Harry had been on the Meredith march and he has the photographs to prove it. Civil rights marchers were confronted not just by racist demonstrators but also by police brutality. Tear gas and baton charges took place and Harry recalled escaping back to his motel. There he spoke to a young FBI agent and narrated his good fortune in having only been lightly tapped by a state trooper with a baton, as he’d run past him in the melee. It wasn’t good luck he was told, but that the cop knew who he was. Assaulting a civil rights marcher, black or white was one thing, striking a foreign national, as he was, quite another. It would then become a federal issue and the FBI could become involved.
However, back then President Lyndon Johnson and his Attorney General Bobby Kennedy showed leadership and courage in facing down supremacist governors and the racist hordes. Change was enforced and the irredentists seen off. Sadly, much of the then American dream died in Vietnam and the drive for progress stalled. America, as Harry said, suffered a nervous breakdown. No such leadership has been forthcoming from Mr Trump or Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
I’d stayed with Harry in New York in March when carrying out speaking engagements and had travelled through the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia, near Charlottesville. The divide then was evident from the police ring around Trump Towers to chats with American travel writers who struggled to know their own country. A young man from New York recognised both coasts but viewed the land in between as alien. A Texas lady, from a Democratic family who’d been friends and staunch supporters of LBJ, now feared to debate politics in a state where the main issues were same-sex marriage, gun control and abortion.
Driving through Virginia to arrive at Gettysburg in neighbouring Pennsylvania, the depth of the historical divide was obvious. Battlefields littered the landscape and Gettysburg, far from being akin to the Culloden or Bannockburn I’d imagined, was more like Flanders in scale and extent. The Civil War scarred America but it seemed progress had been made since Lincoln’s Gettysburg address heralded not just the end of slavery but delivered a vision of America.
However, tragically Mr Trump prefers Andrew Jackson to Abraham Lincoln as a role model for his Presidency – “Old Hickory”. who gave smallpox-infested blankets to the native Americans, as opposed to “Old Abe”, who gave a moral vision of the land the US should be.
What’s happening in America is a tragedy not just for the land itself but all humanity. The world needs a United States as it has been and can be, but not as it currently is. Despite its size and status, it still remains a land of huge unlocked potential from shore to shining shore. The brain power that it possesses and the talents that it attracts are needed to combat the challenges the world faces.
As the constitution declares, some things are self-evident. The intelligentsia need to engage and working people need to be mobilised into voting. It’s time good people who are the majority stood up for the America there can be and must be.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel