25 March 2009

OK, so much has happened, I'm sorry I haven't written in awhile.  In my defense, my computer's hard drive crashed and I was without a computer for about a week.  But it's fixed now, and I had an external hard drive, so I have my important files, and everything is all good.

Since my last blog, I turned 21 years old, thanks to everyone that facebooked, emailed, and sent cards and/or packages.  It was so great to get any little piece from home!  My host family was great and made a birthday dinner for me, complete with a birthday chocolate cheesecake, and I celebrated my birthday, another student's and St. Patrick's Day all on the 18th of March at a party that was hosted by some ASC students.  It was a blasty blast.

This past weekend, our group had a trip to Australia's capital, Canberra (pronounced can-bra, NOT can-bear-a), to visit both the old and new Parliament Houses, the Indonesian Embassy, the Great Britain High Commission, and to see every museum that it has to offer.  It was really fun and really exhausting, both physically and mentally.  We have been talking about Australian foreign policy, and therefore how Australia interacts with the United States, and it's amazing to see our country from an outside perspective.  We were prepped in earlier weeks before the topic of foreign policy with the topics of basic Australian history and national myths.  While most of you know, European settlement in Australia began with convicts being sent there from England in 1788.  They thought they were embarking on terra nullius, or no man's land, but the land was actually home to over 250 tribes of Indigenous Australians that were there for at least 40,000 years prior.  Regardless of the Indigenous population, England settled its penal colony in a land that they thought was fertile, but realized it was harsh and fragile.  While it may not seem very critical today that Australia was settled by exiled convicts to a land that is unwelcoming and sterile, it spawns the national myths that still affect how Australian's make decisions in personal relationships and with relations to different countries.  Australian's have this sense that they are outcasts, sent to the very corner of the earth, and in fact they were the lowest class defined by 18th century England, and were "weeded out" of the population in order to pursue a more perfect nation.  They were then sent to a land mass so huge and so far away that they felt, and still feel, that they do not have the man power to defend themselves, and therefore need a protector.  They also have a deep fear of invasion from countries like Japan in WWII and Indonesia 10 years ago who are close enough to destroy them without the rest of the world realizing.  These national myths have pushed Australia to develop a foreign policy based on these ideas.  They have a "mother country" as their protector, with the UK taking the role until WWII in which it switched to the United States.  Australia's policy is to pretty much adapt to the foreign policy of their "mother country" and do what they do and send troops where they send them.  Of course Australia's "mother country" still has the basic values and goals that Australia has for the world, they just basically make the decisions for them.

Since the United States has resumed position as Australia's guardian, we discussed the national myths and foreign policy of our country as well.  Our settlement looks  a lot different than that of Australia, since our Pilgrims came in hope to pursue religious practice without persecution.  We had a strong sense of optimism because we believed we were coming to a land in order to start a civilization based on freedom.  Therefore, our national myths are that we believe that the US is an exceptional nation, in which US Christians are "chosen" by God because our Pilgrims were the light on a hill.  We also are a nation based on isolationism, in fact one of our founding fathers George Washington said that staying out of foreign affairs would be the success of our nation.  Now, Manifest Destiny inspires our land in that we believe we have a right and a duty to promote and secure democracy worldwide.  We do this through the idea of liberal internationalism in which we believe that we must be in great partnership with every nation, which is why the UN is established in the US.  Lastly, and most recently popularized under the Bush administration, is the idea of neo-conservatism in that we believe we have a mission to help the world, but we do not need to consult the advice of any other country; basically, "if you're not for us, you're against us."  With these ideas acting as our passionate foreign policy, we welcome any country, like Australia, that wishes to do as we please.  In a way, doesn't that seem what we're striving for?

The United States is viewed as a nation that wants to take over the world with their own military domination, and we believe American domination is a moral claim.  We want to use force to solve problems in the world and that is evident in our spending on military and defense as it makes up 45% of the world's total military expenditure.  (What would our country look like if we drastically altered our spending into helping instead of defending?  Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. said "a nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is a nation approaching spiritual death." World Military Spending)  And in the defense of the United States, so many countries, like Australia, look to us to be their defender and to assist them in times of crisis -- we do this in the way we know how: military destruction.  However, what kind of mindset is this?  Is this how we were brought up?  We were challenged in our class to think about a foreign policy based on the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12), in which the focus would be on the poor, the mourners, the hungry, those persecuted for seeking righteousness, the meek, the merciful, the pure of heart, and the peacemakers.  Can a foreign policy exist with these in mind?  Foreign policy itself is a set of goals for a particular country so that it can grow economically, politically, socially, and militarily.  For the United States, it is represented as completely individualistic.  We were challenged with picturing what the world would look like if foreign policy, especially foreign policy of the United States, was based not on defense and military, but by helping countries find their own stability and place in the world.  Jim Wallis, in our required reading of a chapter in his book titled God's Politics: Why the American Right Gets it Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It, makes a connection between security and stability and the idea that if every nation could find their own stabile piece of the world, they would feel secure.  He says, "there is no security apart from collective security -- no national security apart from more common global security."  He also challenged the United States in its contradiction with biblical prophets, especially Micah, to use fear as the central point of motivation of its foreign policy and to say that peace depends solely on "unquestioned military preeminence", and then say the nation is "the greatest force for good in history" (President George Bush, 2002).  While these ideas may or may not be hard pills to swallow, i thought the most profound things that Jim Wallis had to say about the United States was his thoughts about September 11, 2001.  He says that this was a time for the United States to join the rest of the world by being entirely vulnerable, an inevitable truth in the human world.  He said that this moment could have been a teachable moment, a moment where the United States could have set the precedence for other democracies to ensure human rights.  We were put in a unique position because of worldwide sympathy, and Wallis believes we had the opportunity to lead the world in strengthening international law and institutions, and committing to things like abolishing all weapons of mass destruction, including our own.  Instead of focusing on multinational cooperation, and using wisdom to solving the root of the problems of social unrest, we reverting to the comfort of our military power and dominance.

With all of these ideas fresh in our minds, we embarked to Australia's capital city.  My favorite places were the Great Britain High Commission and the Indonesian Embassy.  I had always had the view that Great Britain was more egotistical than the United States (I'm not sure why) and I wasn't looking forward to going to their High Commission, but I really enjoyed it.  Peter Elder, First Secretary of Economic and Global Issues, spoke to us about Great Britain's basic foreign philosophy which boils down to their saying, "Better World, Better Britain".  Globalization is a big focus for Great Britain, especially with the reality that decisions now affect everyone in the world on a much bigger scale, and they have goals to attack the threats of globalization like food security, poverty, migration flows, and climate change.  Peter said that the bonds between states of the commonwealth have never been stronger, and the same goes for the bond between UK and the US (although he did say that he thought it would be great for the United States to join the Commonwealth).  These strengthened bonds he believed had to do with bilateral relationships with the states/countries and the idea that we all have similar goals for the world and similar demographics so we can learn from each other (especially from each other's mistakes). The strong relationship between the UK, the US, and Australia make it so that each can use their different worldly spheres (like the UK being a part of the European Union and the US and Australia being a part of APEC) and their common ideas for the world to make a difference.  "Big challenges won't go away but we should give everyone a fair go," was the summation of Great Britain's foreign policy.  From there, we went to the Indonesian Embassy and learned about democracy from the point of view of a country that in the process of becoming a democratic nation.  Indonesia has been adapting democratic principles within the past years, and have strongly emphasized home-grown democracy -- that strength in democracy comes from people being a part of it, realizing it is important and the best for them and then fighting for it.  They believe "you cannot promote democracy at gun point."  As far as the relationship between Australia and Indonesia, Indonesia sees problems in the lack of education in Australia about Indonesian culture, as a relationship cannot grow if there is not an understanding in one another's culture (an interesting thought for education in the United States).  Also there is a perception that Indonesia is unsafe for Australian citizens because it is a nation of terrorism, which is apparently false according to the Indonesian Embassy, but is a warning to citizens from the Australian government.  This contradiction obviously hurts their relationship.  They too focus on bilateral relationships and hope to set the precedence with Australia for developing and developed countries in bilateral relationship with one another.  

Canberra as a whole was a great experience, and wasn't all about visiting political institutions.  We also went to several art museums including the National Gallery of Australia where I saw Jackson Pollock's Blue Poles and more Andy Warhol pieces to add to my "have seen" list.  

I am truly sorry for how long this post is, and how long it took for me to update the blog, but I wanted to share what I was learning.  I could go on much more, but I'll try to save more information for later posts.  I would love it if you would comment on any of these ideas, I am not saying that this necessarily encompasses my own beliefs as I am still searching, growing, and learning, so I would love it if you would let me know what you think as well.  Please be a part of my learning process!  I love you all and still miss you!