Are Americans Completely Full of Shit, or is There Still Room For a Little More Shit?

I was discussing the state of the Democratic Party with another American (thankfully dominating me in the role of obnoxious American), a Brit. (keenly more astute than the obnoxious American when it came to US political history), and a Ugandan. The American was proudly claiming (and loudly) that, judging by Bush’s current approval rating, the Republicans were finally done. I completely disagreed, saying that when Americans actually got to the polls they would come to their security-minded-homophobic-ant Islamic-senses and predicted that Republicans would retain House and Senate control and would probably win the presidency in 2008 unless the Dems manufactured a real leader (read, miracle). The Brit and the Ugandan were rather astonished by my characterization of the US voting block, who they thought was only Republican because of economic concerns, and the Brit said: “Wow, are Americans completely full of shit, or what?”

To which I replied: “No, there’s still room for more shit.”

Anyway, this is what I’ve been thinking as I catch up on news from home via the internets, which I have a re-connection with thanks to spending my days in an office again. Then I was thinking I could be wrong, maybe real idears were being delivered by Democrats to actual Americans who vote. Then I read some quotes by G-dub regarding his plummet in the polls where he says it’s due to ‘battle fatigue.’ [Note: despite connection to internets, don’t expect links to back any of this up; remember, I’m full of shit] No sir, your battle will never fatigue Americans. Fatigue is felt by the rest of the world; Americans will continue to vote for battle.

This trip has really opened my eyes to how closed American eyes are. To start, I’ve hardly met any American travelers (a noticeable decline from trips abroad dating back to 2000), most are Australian, Scandinavian, British, Western European (in that order). We need to get out. We’re the richest people on the planet, why don’t we travel? I know there are countless, meaningful reasons, but let’s at least travel in the intellectual sense even if it’s not safe to leave the country. The rest of the world seems much more concerned about what could happen to Iran. The rest of the world seems much more aware of what Muslims and Christians have in common. The rest of the world even gives America a pretty fair-break and doesn’t assume we’re scared, homophobic, or anti-Islam.

To be fair, I do meet lots of Americans in Uganda, but few of them are travelers. They work in NGOs, medicine, research, or as missionaries. The latter is quite unique to Uganda in my experience; I’ve not witnessed such an American missionary presence in any of my travels in Africa. Ugandans are big on the hip, new, born-againednest that defines the recent resurgence in the church in the US, as well as, to some degree, what I refer to when I even use the word American in the above tirade and our current president is in many ways THE symbol of this.

Every Christian church/sect you can name/imagine is taken up with zeal by Ugandans. Christianity plays a huge roll in many aspects of life/culture here and its manifestations are much more apparent than in any other country I’ve been in. Despite this, an American missionary I met here defined Christianity in Uganda to be: “A mile wide and an inch deep.” Apparently there’s lots of work to be done.

Something else unique about Ugandans (treading carefully here) is that, culturally, there appears to be an openness to foreign opinions, beliefs, and even instruction here that I haven’t seen anywhere else to the same degree, and is surely in opposition to the skepticism I observed in Botswana. They may not admit it, but the missionaries here are well aware of this phenomenon, and if I see an American in a public/social setting with Ugandans, they are inevitably evangelizing. At restaurants, at parties, at the bus stop, I have overheard Americans speaking of Christ and the way to God to wide-eyed Ugandans. Of course, this is cool, to a degree. But here are a couple of questions that I have heard Ugandans ask in these situations:

“How can I go to a night-club and be one with the Lord?”

“What will become of the people of the churches who allow homosexuals?”

So, this is when it gets a little disturbing, especially when the answers these foreigners provide are taken as, well, Gospel.

On one occasion I engaged one of the representatives of the Gospel (a 22 year-old from Virginia) regarding sin and trying to convince all that the definition has changed over time and that what we’re seeing from the “churches who allow homosexuals” is part of another historical shift. That was fun, but what really gets to me, and what I brought up with this woman, is how fanatical Christianity has manifested itself in Uganda (ok, some links, but now you know they're important) and how these missionaries can continue to justify their work when they can see what, in part, it breeds. There’s an uncomfortable connection between these folks, the fervor for relatively marginal sects of Christianity that Ugandans pursue, and the LRA that I haven’t explored yet. I’m not trying to say US churches are funding the LRA, but they aren't exactly proceeding with caution in my view.

Ok, please see the above as merely ‘almost completely full of shit.’ These are random thoughts right now as I try to learn about what shapes a place that is very new to me.