The metro as metaphor?

Recently, I was riding the metro here in Washington, DC. Ashamed as I am to admit it, I don't use metro very often, instead opting to drive my car. My excuse, at least for now, is time. I'm still nursing, so I have four hour windows, at most, between feedings. I had an appontment at 2, and if I take the Metro, I need to (as I did ) leave by 12:30 and might not be home until 4 (I was back at 3:45, but only because I took a taxi from the metro stop). If I had driven, I would have left by 1:30 and been home by 3:15. But this essay isn't about self-flagelation for not chioosing the environmentally-conscious (never mind saler) mode of transport, it's about the metro as metaphor for the city.

I've lived in a few big cities, Boston, New York, London, and Washington, DC (I also lived in a Latin American capital, but n o metro there). I've visited plenty others. In each, there is the usual mix of urban dwellers, plus tourists and those who, save for poverty, would drive if they could but instead have to take the, as above, less efficient option. The experience I have had of each, differed in many ways, but one is, which emotions does the ride bring about? In Boston, it's often intellectual curiousity, "I wonder what school that kid goes to / what he's studying / what he's reading?" Glamorization of "Southies" nonetheless, Boston's subway (T) riders are a brainy lot. In New York, it's a cutlural question -- "What is he/she/it wearing / doing / eating / singing / bugging me about?" In London, it's geographic -- "where is that bloke / strnage accent / veled woman from?" Here is's political.

Politics stir many emotions in me, very few benign. I chose to study international relations, and avoid as much as possible domestic politcs, becuase I find Congressional bickering far more depressing than wars and genocides. When the two cross, such as the knagaroo court of latest Congressional protest against our war against Iraq, I'm at the end of my emotional tether. The metro rubs salt in this psychic wound.

On my ride in, I noticed an interest satorical trend -- camoflague. But for most (not all) it was not of choice. When I first came to DC, one of the big shockers was the frequent sight of military personnel. But then, most of them were resident at the Pentagon or other tyoes of desk jockey - middle aged, burdened with a spouse and kids, tired and bored; little different from other goverment-employees save that their poor choice of garment was not their own doing. (I had a friend who became positively hypertensive at the site of so many women in suits and running shoes). These days, Washington's residents are a prettier, better-dressed lot (all that money generatedi n K streeet is going to Barney's and Bloomie's, it seems). The most beautiful of the government minions, however, are the ones garbed in camo.

Thoise r5iding the metro obviously employed by DoD were now soldiers. Vibrant young men and women, healthy, alert, vibrating with energy, and wearing the colors of death -- various shades of green and brown, anchored by heavy black boots. When I stared at this lovely young woman, shiny brown hair pulled into a neat pony-tail, glowing, clear skin and the young man, even boy, with his strong jaw and bright eyes and gorgeous smile, I filled with anger and sadness. While these two may be lucky enought o be desk-jockeys as well, although more likely the elder desk-jockeys mules, running too and fro bearing messages and briefcases, they could be two of the hunderds of thousands beautiful, vibrant souls currently in Iraq and Afghanistan (and all the other stations supporting the "war effort"). And so many of these beautiful faces will be covered with blood, strong hands hanging off a dismembered arms, shining eyees gone curdled in death.

War can be objected to for an endless number of reasons, but at the moment of seeing young people in camoflague riding the metro, I mourned for beauty. George Bush must hate the beautfiul. Not people, clearly he is puffed with pride in his two daughtters fine Texas-style glamor. But he can live with the knowledge that he is destroging the most truly beautfiulthing in life, young life and all the potential it holds. More than engineering the death of so many young Americans (never mind all the Iraqis) he is killing the future. World War I is remembered for nothing more than Flanders Field, the poppies symbolic of all the dead young men, the glory of European culture badly bruised, the strength of it's youth ravaged. A whole generation was lost. WE won't, so far, lose a generation of young men and women to combat in Iraq, to a war as fabricated and so muchmore unecessary as Iraq. However, we will forever be reminded by it, by the beauty it gobbled up and defecated out in the form of the permanently traumatized, the horribly injured, the endlessly suffering veterans and their survivors.

As I sat on the metro, this was my one overwhelming source of emotion. The other was the gray-haired couple trying to figure out the train system. Why were they here? Were the "tourons" (I nomiker I had never heard before I met my husband, a native of the area). Did they come to see "our nation's Capital". Were they proud of being Americans? How did they feel about the war.

In Phillip Roth's book "The Plot Against Amerca", the protaganitst family comes to visit WAshington, DC for long-anticipated trip event hough they hate the sitting president and felt threatened by his agenda. They came in defiance, to reclaim their pride in being American's despite the doings of a administration they despised. Did this couple feel that way, or did they approve of Bush and his choices as leader. Or worst of all, did it not matter to them? What were they thinking as they say the young sodiers? I fear, most of all, that they were nothing special, just two more stupid Americans, fattened on a diet of low-culture, cheap patriotism, and geographic insularity. The same people who were duped into believing in this war and whose favor could be curried with the right sound bite or two. And then I think, could they have been visiting their son or daughter here? A college student? An intern in the office of a midwestern Congressman? Or, just perhaps, a soldier? Well, at least if they did have children, they were alive. These were not parents of a corpse. Not yet.

What's so hard about saying sorry?

I want to say sorry. I have lots of reasons every day, to my husband, my children, all the people out there on the roads the same time I am. But my apology isn't to them. It's to the future. When the history books look back on the US war / invasion / occupation / destruction of Iraq, they won't say "and why didn't Joni do more to stop it?" But they should. They should ask all of us. And the answer was, I'm too busy, I'm too insulated from it, I couldn't be bothered to inconvenience my life, I didn't want to try so hard that it might have a one hundredth of a percent chance of having any impact. But I do feel guilty. I know that if I leave this country and am detected as an American, I will be held responsible for the actions of my government. No I certainly did not vote for George Bush either time. But I am a citizen, I do live here, I do pay taxes, and I do take advantage of the many public services offered to me (I don't take my own trash to the city dump, do you?)

And becasue of this, I want to apologize. Not to the rude French person who sneers at me becasue I'm American and part of a war-mongering country (as if the French have clean hands -- ask the Algerians). No, I want to apologize to the children in Iraq. Even if we were justified in going in there (and we weren't, at least not as soon, as arrogantly, as we did -- but that's another post), we have destroyed their country and, at best, hobbled their future.

If I weren't too lazy, too busy, too selfish, too involved with my own children, I'd start a campaign. A campaign for every person living in America (citizens, illegals, and everyone in between -- i.e. the Irish bartender who is still on vacation three years later). All 300 million. Each of us should apologize to the Iraqi children, and as a gesture of trying to do better, to make things better for them, each donate a dollar to rebuild schools. Schools where they can all learn, and where, in a conflict, they will all be protected. Three-hundred million dollars is barely a drop in the ocean (less than what's been spent on this war, too). But maybe we could use it to build schools like the new US Embassies -- bomb proof campuses, oases of safety, with dorms for students and / or teachers, to be used year round or only in emergency. Everyoone is suffereing in Iraq, but we are destroying childhoods and creating future terrorists (see Newsweek article). Aren't we sorry about this? Don't we, the richest people in the world, want to make it better for them? Can't we spare one dollar to do so?

Okay, so that's my dream campaign. But there it is. And it makes me reflect back on a conversation I had with my husband a few days ago. Why do so many people think that saying "sorry" is to humiliate yourself? Why didn't Baby Doc Bush actually say "I'm sorry" in his State of the Union? Would that, like disagreeing with the war, give Bin Laden larger cajones and convince him to train some more pilots? A true man, and true person, can admit their mistakes and say sorry, and realize what a gift they are giving in doing so. They are not only saying, "I am wise enough to reflect upon and analyze my own choices and actions" but they are also saying "and I am determined and capable that I will do much better now". If Bush apologized for his mistaken choices, we could regain world sympathy and support. That, not more troops, will win the war against terror in the long run.