Well it was fortuitous that it came when it did. I was just signing-in to do my blog entry for the day and this, I feel, brings up a good point. I enjoyed the article, it made me feel good to read, but as I am currently living abroad, it smacked of urban legend. How many of us (Americans) actually travel abroad, after all?
According to state department statistics, only one quarter of the American population actually has a passport and less than half of us who hold a passport have ever used it to travel outside the US. (What else one would actually use a passport for otherwise is not stated in the statistics, but it would be interesting to know.)
So, fearing that this may be some urban legend, I went to my favorite research starting point for all such suspect items and (imagine my surprise) discovered the article is, in fact, genuine! I have some reservations on why it may have started circulating given some of the information I now have about the article, but those reservations aside, here is the original email I received and my response to it.
(With my thanks to the relative who sent it! I'm leaving your name out of the blog as you are currently sleeping back in the states. If you want to be identified as the originator of this email, please feel free to add your comments below.)
Romanian Newspaper on the USA
We rarely get a chance to see another country's editorial about the USA.
Read this excerpt from a Romanian Newspaper.
The article was written by Mr. Cornel Nistorescu and published under the title "C"ntarea Americii," meaning "Ode To America" in the Romanian newspaper Evenimentulzilei
"The Daily Event" or "News of the Day".
An Ode to America
Why are Americans so united?
They would not
resemble one another even if you painted them all one color! They speak all the
languages of the world and form an astonishing mixture of civilizations and
religious beliefs. Still, the American tragedy turned three hundred million
people into a hand put on the heart.
Nobody rushed to accuse the White
House, the army, or the secret service that they are only a bunch of losers.
Nobody rushed to empty their bank accounts. Nobody rushed out onto the streets
nearby to gape about. Instead the Americans volunteered to donate blood and to
give a helping hand.
After the first moments of panic, they raised their
flag over the smoking ruins, putting on T-shirts, caps and ties in the colors of
the national flag. Theyplaced flags on buildings and cars as if in every place
and on every car a government official or the president was passing.
On every occasion, they started singing: "God Bless America!"
I watched the live broadcast and rerun after rerun for hours listening to the story of the guy who went down one hundred floors with a woman in a wheelchair without knowing who she was, or of the Californian hockey player, who gave his life fighting
with the terrorists and prevented the plane from hitting a target that could
have killed other hundreds or thousands of people.
How on earth were they able to respond united as one human being? Imperceptibly, with every word and musical note, the memory of some turned into a modern myth of tragic heroes. And with every phone call, millions and millions of dollars were put into a collection aimed at rewarding not a man or a family, but a spirit, which no
money can buy.
What on earth can unite the Americans in such a way? Their land? Their history? Their economic Power? Money? I tried for hours to find an answer, humming songs and murmuring phrases with the risk of sounding commonplace, I thought things over, I reached but only one conclusion... Only freedom can work such miracles.
Cornel Nistorescu
This deserves to be passed around the internet forever. It took a person on the outside - looking in - to see what we take for granted!) GOD BLESS AMERICA!!
I respond
Too bad this is a five-year old article... the coverage of us abroad these days is far from so rosy. As someone who is currently living abroad this is not so much the case these days. The accolades that are lauded in this article are accurate and correctly reported. They are far more easy to understand when you discover that they were written less than two weeks after two hijacked planes hit the World Trade center in New York.
This article was written by Mr. Cornel Nistorescu and published under the title " Cîntarea Americii" on September 24 (2001) in the Romanian newspaper Evenimentul zilei ("The Daily Event" or "News of the Day").
As Associated Press reported about Mr. Nistorescu:
Nistorescu, managing director of the daily newspaper Evenimentul Zilei — News of the Day — published his editorial Sept 24, two days after watching a celebrity telethon in New York for victims of the attacks...
Like his other columns, "Ode to America" was meant for domestic consumption. No one knows when — or how — the article first reached the other side of the Atlantic. But Nistorescu figures it began when someone pulled it off the English-language version of his daily's Web page and sent it to a friend.
Since then, thousands of Americans at home and expats around the world have e-mailed it to friends, saying it captured their nation's spirit. It has been read out to U.S. soldiers and on radio talk shows and posted on U.S. Web sites.
Nistorescu says he had no idea his "Ode to America" would resonate so far away...
Nistorescu remains surprised and touched by the success of the piece, one of thousands he has penned in a more than 20-year career.
"It is all about the American spirit and how freedom cannot be crushed," he says.
There are a number of people who I have met whilst living abroad this past year that understand that the dissention in the American public these days is one that is fostered by a small minority that are capitalizing on it for political gain. I wish more people would see the actions of certain people in power for what it is and quit ignoring "that man behind that curtain."
Instead of squandering the world-wide empathy that was felt five years ago on an unpopular and unprovoked war that had our nation, to say nothing of the world, split the administration could have worked on the issues that were important to the direct issues at hand. Now, instead of be divisive and catering to the small but powerful and vocal minorities that give them so much money, the administration could do what it promised to do and try and unite the people of America toward a common cause.
Perhaps then we could start rebuilding the reputation that America once had abroad.
I hope that wherever you are today, you have something to better the reputation of yourself and your country in the world.
Don Bergquist - 18 October 2006 - Thames Ditton, Surrey, UK
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