What does it mean to be "American"?

"I've come around to the view that the culture war can best be understood as a conflict between two different kinds of patriotism. On the one hand, there are people who believe being an American is all about dissent and change, that the American idea is inseparable from "progress." America is certainly an idea, but it is not merely an idea. It is also a nation with a culture as real as France's or Mexico's. That's where the other patriots come in; they think patriotism is about preserving Americanness" (Jonah Goldberg) Well, what is Americanness? Samuel Huntington believes in the Anglo-Protestant culture as a very important basis of Americanness. (Who Are We?) What do you think? Before you decide on your answer, look at the table below: (Melanie E. L. Bush)

Interesting, isn't it? As you see many Latinos, Asians, foreign-born blacks and foreign-born whites living in the United States do not consider themselves American while they are holding American passports and pay tax to the American government. And their number is increasing in comparison with the "Anglo-Protestant" people Huntington believed to be "American". So, what is the future of Americanness?

Huntington sees the idea of an American identity and culture under attack. But these enemies are not terrorists. "They are America’s own political and cultural elites with their doctrines of cultural pluralism. Armed with a misinformed virtue, these elites have systematically undermined the very idea of a national identity and sought to erase its cultural component" (Who Are We?) So, the danger comes from within the United States. But to know where matters will lead we need to study the weight of these different ethnic groups to find out their share in the power structure of America which will determine their influence on the social, political, economic and cultural identity of America. The trend so far has been pointing to a constant increase in the influence of these minorities over the social, political, economic and cultural apparatus of the U.S.A.

There is another angle through which we can approach the question of "What does it mean to be American?". If we believe, as some do, that America is an idea and an idealogy of liberty, equality and the rule of law, is it possible for someone to be the legal citizen of another country but believe in the American idealogy and be culturally and intellectually "American"? In his book "Beyond Citizenship,
American Identity After Globalization" Peter J. Spiro contends that it is. He says: "globalization is detaching identity from location. What used to define American was rooted in American space. Now one can be anywhere and be an American, politically or culturally ". Well, does this sound like an answer to the question "What does it mean to be American?" Maybe it does.

Internet in the United States of America

According to Nielsen Online, there were 227,636,000 Internet users in the USA in June of 2009, which makes up 74.1% of the population. Now, what role did the USA had in development ofthe Internet? Actually the role of the U.S. in the IT technology goes back to 1945 when it produced itd first computer called ENIAC in 1945, two years after the British invented Colossus, the first programmable digital electronic computer, used for code breaking in World War II. Although computers are more than sixty years old, they and their related technologies are the latest technology to enter the household. But now computers are everywhere, from schools and hospitals to banks and shops and even mobile phone of today are essentially acvanced computers equipped with Internet. With an Internet penetration rate of 74.1%, the USA is the leading country and North America is the leading region in the world.(1) Internet is used for a variety of purposes, and different people use it differently, for example gender, age, socio-economic status, and education of Internet users affects their Internet use.(2),(3). All in all, information is the new source of power in the world and as the sole superpower, the USA is at the center of the information techology which can best be manifested through Inetrnet.

Professor Christopher Merrill's Visit to the Faculty of World Studies

Last Tuesday, September 29th, Professor Christopher Merrill from the University of Iowa came to our faculty. We, the students of North American Studies, had a meeting with him in the afternoon. First there was an introduction, and then Dr. Merrill talked. He talked about himself, what he does at the University of Iowa, and told us about his personal ideas on the American society, politics, and literature. After his talk, the students began to ask him questions, mostly political, and some social and literary. Here I don't intend to get into the details of the questions and answers, some of which I asked myself, but I want to give my evaluation of him as an American. Based on his answers, I think he was very much in love with what we call the "American Ideology". His answers were in line with the ideology most Americans hold about their system of government. He supported the U.S. overnment fundamentally, but criticized the policies of the Bush administration, and thought that the wrong policies of the past are now corrected by the new president, Barak Obama. This is something I really doubt. However, on the personal side, he was a good man and teacher who was fair enough to accept the wrongdoings of his government.

Iran-West Relations and Media Tactics

Today the United States and Iran had their first direct talks since the United States cut off relations during the hostage crisis of 1979-80.The multilateral talks in Geneva involved five U.S. allies: Russia, China, Germany, France and Britain. The interesting thing about these talks is what happened before them and the way the western media, especially that of the U.S. paved the way for such talks

After the recent Iranian presidential election and the media involvement of the west with it, and the reactions it triggered among the Iranian leaders, it seemed it would take some time before the two sides could sit and talk to each other directly after 30 years. What happened after the election in Iran was that the western media tried to show that the election had not been a democratic one and in some way implied, but never directly mentioned, that the government formed after the election would have a legitimacy problem. At the same time the west,particularly the U.S is deeply involed in a problematic region (the Middle East) in which Iran is a major player. So, the problem for the west was to find a way to justify the talks with a government it had been criticizing a few weeks earlier. My assumption is that what the west needed was to show that the danger of a nuclear Iran was eminent and this danger would let them convince the western public that the talks with the government of Iran was a necessity. That's when the Qom nuclear facility comes to help. This facility shows the advancement of Iran towards completing its nuclear capabilities . This gives the group of 5+1 the pretext they needed to engage with Iran. On the other hand, the last thing the Iranian governmet, deeply troubled by domestic problems, needs is international economic and political sanctions. During the above-mentioned talks the Iranian delegation has promised to let international inspectors to visit the Qom facility and has agreed to let Russia to enrich the Uranium Iran needs for its nuclear power plants.

So apparently the two sides are fully aware of their mutual interests and are trying to rise above the media image they fabricated prior to the talks aimed at justifying the talks