I sometimes wonder about the origins of my political orientation. It has changed little during the course of my life – though I should hope that it has matured some. One of the things that made a big impression on me at a young age (I’m not sure if the impression was causal, it might have been) was American history. From 1620 to 1776, many of its most important events occurred around Boston, where I grew up. When I was a kid, the schools made a big deal about local history (I hope they still do today, but I don’t know): The Pilgrims, who sailed to the New World to escape persecution. A City on a Hill. No taxation without representation. Don’t tread on me. The shot heard around the world. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Separation of powers. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The government that governs least governs best. (Oddly, I can’t find a serious link for this last quote.)
My teachers were almost uniformly leftist. In fact, my 7th-grade teacher who introduced me to American history a reasonably serious level, and who was one of my favorite teachers, revealed at the end of the year that she had a goal to convince at least some of the class that the colonists were crazy to rebel against England. While American history was taught with more than a little emphasis on social awareness: slavery, poverty, oppression, the importance of unions, etc., the original messages of the United States founders shone through, at least to me.
This legacy is one of the great strengths of the United States. It is impossible to teach US history without encountering these concepts. Rhetoric to the contrary, the American Revolution was fought by the freest people in the world, against one of the world’s least despotic governments. It is remarkable that Quebec, at the time recently conquered from the French in 1763, refrained from joining the revolution, despite the fact that is was ruled by foreigners.
Unfortunately, Israel has nothing comparable in its history. In Israeli consciousness, overwhelming all is the collective freedom of self-defense. While the American trauma was taxation without representation, the Jewish trauma was helplessness in the face of people trying to kill us. While Americans proclaimed, “Live free or die!” Israelis exalted in the mere chance to fight for their lives. Before the founding of the state, Israel had no history of democracy or even self-government. Immigrants were from Eastern Europe and the Middle East, whose history was likewise despotic. When the British left, they evacuated. They didn’t leave anything resembling a government, let alone a democratic government, as they did in India and most of their empire. They turned over their military installations to various Arab militias, and left. Under the circumstances, it is remarkable that Israel is a democracy at all, and has been since independence.
To add to the problems, Israel was born at a time when socialism (the real thing, not its red-green-nihilist form of today) was fashionable. Kibbutzim (communes) were the vanguard of the nation, vigorous and entrepreneurial (today, the grandchildren of the founders are dismantling their tired remains). Over a million Jewish refugees, the survivors of concentration camps, and the exiles from Arab regimes, descended on an impoverished population of 600,000. Under such circumstances it is perhaps understandable that the government stepped in to plan the economy, to tax and provide jobs. The bureaucratic infrastructure was already there to build on – the British ruled their colonies though bureaucracy.
Israel is still very much burdened by this legacy – but I predict its eventual demise. It has been weakening markedly since the 1980s, though it is still strong today. In two generations, the state hasn’t been able to extinguish a culture of centuries of self-reliance and independence. Already, in the newer industries, such as high-tech and communications, the culture of innovation has reasserted itself. Older industries, like power generation, the ports, and most of all the government itself, remain to improve. But their time will come, the sooner the better.
Posted by David Boxenhorn at July 4, 2004 03:25 PM