America at its best and at its worst

FOR the last century or more America has been the world’s great and largely benign superpower. The country has afforded opportunity and protection to tens of millions of people, millions of them Irish, millions more destitute European economic or war refugees.

For generations Emma Lazarus’ open-armed declaration from almost 150 years ago rang true: “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

It was a noble manifesto and its uplifting generosity lives on in the lives of 320m Americans today. Lazarus’ welcome, even at this remove, is a far more humane, unquestioning and generous response than any offered to today’s European migration crisis.

Even if America’s actions and interventions were not all admirable — the recently lifted Cuban blockade is just one black mark — the country seemed more often than not a force for good; it seemed as if optimism and an uplifting idealism were made real and it was hard not to be seduced. But it had — has — a dark side too and though this week we saw the very best of America, we saw its dark, unattractive side too.

The response to the tragedy in Berkeley could hardly have been more generous or supportive. The people of San Francisco, especially those in the health and public services, showed a warmth and empathy few societies could match. It showed the instinct to do good, to offer comfort, prevails. The reactions showed the power of active, unquestioning decency. The warm, supportive reaction to the plight of visiting students and their families was a bright light in a very dark week — one that will not be quickly forgotten.

Neither will the murder of nine innocent people during a church service in Charleston. They were coldly shot to death by racist Dylann Roof simply because they were black. The outrage was a pretty violent expression of America’s dark, maybe its darkest, side. It highlighted the racism that endures despite decades of liberal, progressive cultural advancement. It highlights the entrenched hatred celebrated by the Confederate flags still dotting the countryside south of the Mason Dixon line.

That it comes after a litany of attacks, some utterly disproportionate, by police officers on African-Americans marks it down as little more than a normal abnormal event. That it occurred in a society that facilitates the expression of such hatred through bizarre gun ownership laws is not surprising but it is a mystery to most of the civilised world.

The Charleston carnage was not the most disappointing event in America this week. Though the murders were utterly tragic, the response to Pope Francis’ encyclical on the environment was deeply dispiriting. That the front-runners for the Republican nomination to run for the presidency next year — Jeb Bush included — were so contemptuously dismissive of the science behind the message, suggests they are a far greater threat to our world than even Isis.