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Four Things Citizens Can Do
Thursday, January 25, 2007(The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation)
Four Things Citizens Can Do
Moving forward, with awareness, in a
tenuous new world
by Richard C. Harwood
- msnbc.com, October 1, 2001
WASHINGTON,
Oct. 1 ó What is a citizen to do? We can watch
the polls as they tell us we are ready to go to
war. We can display the flag to demonstrate our
patriotism. We can turn to our grief, which
sometimes overwhelms us. But there is more than
that to be done. Now we must step back and
consider our future. That will require a
different kind of engagement on our part. As
citizens, we must turn our attention to this
essential task.
There is no easy way out of
our current predicament. But there are things
citizens can do to get a grip on the
situation.
ON SEPTEMBER 11, the nation was
stunned, but the response has been nothing
short of remarkable. People who once shunned
New York City now cheer for it. In an age of
media-manufactured heroes, we have witnessed
ordinary Americans do extraordinary things. In
reading obituaries of the victims, many
Americans feel as if they have lost a member of
their own family. The nation has come
together.
Americans have experienced
great swings in emotion since that dreadful
Tuesday ó from initial grief to raging anger
to a growing sense of resolution to root out
terrorism. None of these emotions will
disappear anytime soon. They will swirl within
us, sustained by a nagging voice that keeps
whispering in our collective ear.
But as
the days march on, we face more questions about
the course of the nation. Citizens must be
ready for inconvenience, new budget priorities,
even more dead Americans. A prolonged
ìcampaignî against terrorism will require the
will of the American people. But such political
will cannot be built merely upon anger, or even
the best of our nationís political
oratory.
What We Must Do:
For the
nation to move forward, there are four
essential steps its citizens need to
take:
1. Learn more about the
world.
As a guest on recent radio call-in
programs, I have been struck by the extent to
which many of us do not know much about Islam,
countries such as Afghanistan and Pakistan, and
our own nationís involvement overseas. There
is a sense of context we must gain in order to
engage with the questions before our nation. We
must act to educate ourselves.
2. Move from
comfort talk to public talk.
No doubt, we
need to continue to comfort each other and
somehow find a sense of inner peace amid the
uncertainty around us. But we must also move
from talk that gives us comfort ó which is
personal and therapeutic ó to public talk,
which is about what we collectively make of
recent events, what we think should happen and
why. Americans must engage with the public
questions before them.
3. Search out
differing opinions. When under stress, we often
seek solace from those who affirm our existing
views. But now we must have the courage to
actively seek out views that differ from our
own. For it is only when we engage with
different viewpoints that we are forced to
articulate our own views, examine deeply what
we believe, and reach a fuller understanding of
what we value. This is a critical part of
forming an informed public view.
4. Expand
our ideas of patriotism. In times like these,
patriotism can take on the quality of demanding
lock-step agreement, even lead to a kind of
myopic, closed-mindedness. But patriotism is
rooted in a sense of devotion ó a love so deep
that one is willing to search for what is good
and right. As we engage with the questions
before us, we must see patriotism as standing
up for the principles of democracy, such as
tolerance and the give-and-take that makes this
grand democratic experiment so beautiful and
strong.
The Value of Openness
To
succeed in these four essential steps will
require that each of us bring a special quality
to public life: openness. For these four steps
ask us to listen to others ó even when
peopleís views hurt our ears and send pangs of
anger through our gut.
They call upon us
to learn about people who may be different from
ourselves, remembering that this nation is
built upon a history of immigrants who often
looked and sounded different than those who
came before them. And they urge us to weigh
tough choices and trade-offs ó for there is no
easy way out of our current
predicament.
Since the September 11
attacks, we Americans have responded by
reaching down and bringing forth amazing
fortitude. Now there is more for us to do. We
must we take new steps in the essential task of
being citizens.