The Empire Page

Independence Day is approaching and I wonder if one of our historians will again be asking us not to wave our flag. Do historians in other countries do this? 
   

My guess is that they probably don’t. But in the United States anything goes. In 2006 historian Howard Zinn wrote an editorial titled “Put away the flags,” which ran in a number of newspapers around the country. The historian advocated in the column that we shelve our sin-soaked flag and instead “assert our allegiance to humanity.”  The column was reprinted in various newspapers for July 4th of both 2007 and 2008.
       

I don’t know how many Americans take Mr. Zinn up on his offer. But is absolutely amazing that on one of the only days of the year that we Americans can celebrate what really brings us together we still have to hear such grumbling and discontent.  
   

Zinn is known for his general disgust with this thing called the American experiment. His “People’s History of the United States” is a page-by-page account of literally all of America’s shortcomings, everything from the sins of Columbus to the failures of Bill Clinton. From beginning to end, he simply plows through three to four centuries and picks away. Zinn basically does the same thing in “Put away the flags,” in which the United States can do no right. 
   

It is foolish to think that this country and its government have always made the wisest decisions. But can we flip this coin and look at the other side of reason? Is it not equally foolish to think that we never get it right? As for myself, I spend part of Independence Day usually thinking about the brave and brilliant Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton was one of the few Founding Fathers to vigorously oppose slavery. He also fought in the Revolutionary War and played an extraordinary role in founding this country.

I also think about our 1993 humanitarian intervention into Somalia, and instead of focusing on the nineteen American servicemen that died, I think about the noble intentions of our armed forces. My thoughts then might go to something as random as the six hundred million dollars we gave to the victims of the horrific typhoon in Indonesia in 2006.
   

There are no perfect human beings and there are no perfect governments. Turkey has its long-suppressed Armenian massacre, Mexico has the bloody 1968 Summer Olympics, and China has something called Tiananmen Square. The list could go on and on. I would implore all Americans to look at other countries and ask themselves: are the historians of those countries asking their citizens not to wave their flags?
   

Civilizations do not fall all at once, somebody once said. And if we allow people to pick through three or four hundred years at only bad human nature gone astray, then we are in trouble. And when this kind of thinking climaxes to the actual consideration of not displaying our national flag, then we are certainly in trouble.
   

No, those historians in those other countries are not asking their citizens to do what Zinn is asking us. Those historians are probably proud of their nation and its heritage. 

Can we learn from them? Can we try and put away our emotional criticism and see some of the good in this country? For this July 4th, as we display our flags with pride, it might be good to remember this.

Wave your flag nice and high, Americans, and, for at least one day, turn a deaf ear to the likes of Mr. Zinn. Wave your flag without shame. The integrity of Independence Day for many years to come depends on it.  

John Glass lives in Brooklyn.