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Shades of grey

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Contributed by: Andrew Eberhard on 8/28/2006

The thoughts of Elisabeth Kinsey inspired this story.

In my experience, traveling to Germany of late has been a major matter of personal restraint and a minor matter of patience. Two years ago, so desperate was I to distance myself from the foreign policy decisions of my government, I felt obligated to explain to anyone that expressed even the slightest interest that I did not endorse the actions of my government and that I was most certainly not alone. It had long been my experience that Germans recognized a difference between Americans and America. I was concerned, however, that in an election defined by military posturing and intolerance, this distinction between America the government and Americans the people might have been clouded abroad just as the voices of diplomacy and inclusion had been diminished at home. After the first week it became clear to me that my fears were unfounded. The perceptions of Americans among the Germans I encountered were, understandably, somewhat conflicting, but in general I was still judged according to the contents of my character, not the actions of my government.

The history of the German people and their government has been employed frequently of late as both defense of our preemption and dismissal of their relevance, but tellingly little has been said of what has been learned by the Germans, particularly since the fall of the Berlin wall. As soon as I learned to restrain myself from apologizing at every turn either for the actions of my government or the actions of inconsiderate American tourists traveling through Germany as if it were a collection of RV parks that lay waiting for them to dock their encapsulated ideologies, I began to realize that with less aggression and a little patience, those cold, rude, crabby Germans [sic] would show me that grey, not black or white is the true color of the world.

As the saying goes, a mind is like a parachute in that it functions best when open. Each time, particularly in the last three years, as I board a plane bound for America, I remind myself that just as there many Americans who share my concerns of the world America is helping to create, there also are Americans who travel with respect in their carry on luggage. Some of them have even sat beside me on that nine-hour voyage.

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CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Andrew Eberhard

Denver , CO

Andrew Eberhard has posted 1 story and 1 comment since joining on 8/28/2006. Andrew Eberhard 's average story rating is 5.

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