Independence?

Summer is a time for reruns on television and elsewhere. That’s especially true this summer. In that spirit, I am running a portion of my 2017 Independence Day post, updated for the present national crises.

Here’s what I wrote three years ago: “Every year on this day, we pause to remember the birth of our country. The first modern democracy, the United States has been for over two hundred years an example for other nations who seek freedom, often at great cost. Current events conspire to undermine this history. Yet it’s not the first time since the beginning that this ship of state has hit more than a few shoals and encountered rough water. Nonetheless, I like to believe that, as in the past, it will right itself and get back on course.”

I wish that I could write that today. I can’t. Our ship of state is foundering, taking on toxic waters of racism, violence and hatred, sinking slowly into twin virulent pandemics, with no able seaman at the helm.

Independence is the descriptor for this day. The dictionary defines the word thus:  “Independent: not dependent, not affiliated with a larger controlling movement; not requiring or relying on something else; not looking to others for guidance in conduct; not requiring or relying on others for care.”

Is that really what we want for our country now?  Granted that the spirit of 1776 celebrated independence from the yoke of Great Britain,  I  doubt that independence is what will work in the summer of 2020.

The term “independence” implies both the rugged individualism long associated with America and also implies that we can all go it alone. Posters and placards that have appeared during the Covid-19 pandemic proclaim the exact opposite,  “We’re in this together” they declare. What does that mean if not the need to rely on others for guidance and for care? How many more people would die if we were  “not dependent” on health care workers and first responders?  Similarly, unlike the suggestion that independence means disaffiliation from larger movements, the state of our nation demands solidarity. “Black Lives Matter” is a call to join voices and hands and feet with those who march, protest and gather in order to clear the polluted atmosphere of violence and hate. “It takes a village to raise a child” so it’s said; and it takes a dedicated community to raise a country from dissonance to harmony.

Independence Day was birthed from the rallying cry for freedom from tyranny almost 250 years ago.  80 years ago, President Franklin Roosevelt articulated “The Four Freedoms:”  freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear. I propose another set of four freedoms for our nation in 2020: freedom from oppression, freedom from discrimination, freedom from violence, freedom from hate.

Only when independence becomes in-ter-dependence, can all be free.