YAMMER

I’m recovering from two sleepless nights. Political junkie that I am I found myself waking up at some ungodly hour of the morning to hear the lead speeches from the Republican convention (I’d done the same last week for Obama).

Of course the trick is listening to what is being said between the lines, sometimes hard to do as in both cases the respective audiences have been whipped into such a state of frenzy they holler like an army of cheerleaders on adrenochrome, no doubt concerned that anything less than a rabid appreciation of their candidate will play badly on Prime Time.

The speeches naturally play up to the crowd, the rhetoric carefully orchestrated to whip up already trigger-haired emotions. But beyond the difference in party politics - big and small government, high and low taxes, pro-life, pro-choice, more war or jaw-jaw - something else struck me last night, or should I say the wee hours of the morning. It was the continued reference to America being the greatest country on earth.

This theme was hammered repeatedly. It was used to justify everything from foreign policy to the reason the candidates first became involved in politics itself. “Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country” has become the core idea beating at the heart of American politics.

America still sees itself as an idea as much as a nation. It was a country created rather than one that slowly evolved. And this sense of self-definition and self-justification is what drives it. Because at its centre, I believe, is a sense that somehow it is not a country in the way the rest of the countries of the world see themselves. America will forever be the new kid on the block, a nation of immigrants, rejects and runaways who stole a nation from indigenous people to create its own slice of heaven.

Hence this relentless self-assurance that such a dream was worth it... that the American people truly are living in the greatest country on Earth.

I considered this I lay in bed watching the first glimpses of dawn peek through the curtains. And I asked myself whether the people of my own country Britain thought of themselves the same way. The last time it seemed that we were asked to do so was way back in the 1940’s when Churchill exhorted the populace to remain both steadfast and loyal. But looking back at those wartime speeches it is salient to note that he never spoke of Britain in isolation. While professing an abiding love for this sceptred island he knew our future could only be secured with the aid and support of our friends and allies. We were always part of bigger picture, whether fighting the Nazis or later, Communist totalitarianism.

Even if we could have afforded it, Churchill knew we couldn’t go it alone. But more importantly, he wasn’t presenting a Great British way of life as a model for the whole world to follow or adhere to. He had travelled far and wide in his youth and was worldly enough to realise there were other nations who felt their own way of life was of equal worth and value.

This is an idea with which America seems to struggle.

The recent Olympics in Beijing proved a salutary reminder of how other people can also feel passionately that what their country represents is the strongest and most powerful model in the world. The Chinese after years of censorship and repression find it hard to acknowledge that what they have been told by their leaders about themselves might not always be the truth. Their table-topping medal count no doubt went a long way towards convincing them they are once more a major player on the World stage.

Russia too, smarting from its post Soviet break-up, while having to accept its lowlier position on the Olympic rostrums, now finds itself gripped by a fever of hero-worship as Putin re-awakens their sense of self-respect after twenty years of disillusion, confusion and loss by invading former Soviet territories, throwing America’s diplomatic arguments back in her face, installing its own army of ’peacekeepers’ and proving itself to be both a belligerent foe and a wily political animal, the likes of which haven’t been seen for half a generation.

As for us - Team GB - while revelling in our record medal haul - discovered on returning home that we are anything but a United Kingdom, instead increasingly seeing ourselves as four distinct countries.

While the English struggle to define their identity, media commentators spending thousands of words on the subject, at once self-mocking, self-hating, more often uncomfortable and bemused, our Celtic counterparts have no such qualms or confusion in knowing who they are. Welsh, Scottish, Irish first - British a very definite second. But for the English to declare the same is seen as a dark form of Nationalism and by proxy, racist. The Little Englander, the Middle Englander, Mondeo man, Colonel Blimp... is seen as a figure of embarrassment, of fun. The solid stock, the Yeoman of old, has disappeared, to be replaced by white collar workers in call centres, consultancies, sales-reps. We’ve become a nation of David Brents.

Nevertheless, when I hear American politicians barking on about their country being the greatest in the world it still leaves me perplexed. Do the Dutch feel the same? The Danes, the Swedes, the Norwegians? European states have long recognised that it was this way of thinking which nearly caused their annihilation half a century ago. There is no longer any appetite for such posturing. Only the French maintain a pretence, but they are so consumed with their own crisis of identity even they know it is only for domestic show. The Germans accept they are still not allowed such utterances and the Spanish and Italians recognise that for all their bluff and posturing no one will ever take them that seriously.

The most belligerent form of self-aggrandisement comes from The East. China, as I have already described, is finally waking from its own self-imposed nightmare. India, for so long tethered to the yoke of its own mumbo-jumbo and spiritual madness, also feels it is time for a share of the cake. Sadly if any nation is likely to kick off a nuclear conflagration it is them, its petty and adolescent relationship with Pakistan a continuing worry to the rest of the world. And let’s not even get into the bonkers posturing of the Middle East.

But as Westerners, we look to our closest allies for a sense of understanding and wisdom when it comes to the global picture. We need to feel that like us, America appreciates that such self-absorbed sabre-rattling and dick-swinging gets you nowhere. There is no right way to live. There is no blueprint. Democracy sure, freedom of speech, equal rights... then leave it for people to determine their own sense of personal values. As long as no one’s getting hurt - then live and let live.

John McCain seems to me something of a confused character. To a degree he’s an outsider, a leftward leaning Republican, and as such disliked by many in his party. Outside of his military leanings and his attitude towards tax & spend, much of what he says could easily fit beneath the Democratic umbrella. Perhaps those beatings he took in Hanoi made him take a right turn. His running mate Palin is a small town ignoramus. Unworldly and untravelled, she’s a woman whose understanding of the world reaches as far as the state line. And as such, she is similar to a vast number of her fellow Americans. She is also similar to vast number of Russians, Indians and Chinese, people who also see the world only in their own terms, through their own particular and reactionary prism.

This type of small-mindedness, to me at least, feels like the last thing the world needs right now. We don’t want nations governed by fear, but by hope. We need to find our commonalities, not our differences. We need to reach out to other, break down the prejudices, whether perpetuated by religious maniacs from all sides of the spectrum, or nationalistic leaders stirring emotions for their own political and power-hungry ends.

The old line, though over worn, still rings true today. Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel. And after the stupidity and chaos of last eight years, it should also be the last thing on the minds of either political party or the American people themselves.