The opening sequence in Russel Crowe’s movie, "Gladiator" has his character setting up Roman soldiers to fight the native armies defending their home territory somewhere in Roman-occupied Germania. (Today’s scholars generally accept Germania as geographically covering from modern Germany to the Netherlands, including parts of Poland, Denmark, and Czech Republic.)
Last year we took two river cruises in Europe hosted by a well-known tour service. Most of the trips were through Germany with side stops in or through Paris, Prague, Amsterdam, Budapest, Istanbul, and Luxembourg. We traveled on the Rhine, Danube, Main and other rivers surrounded by castles, quaint villages, and bustling cities and harbors. Truly were these sites and tours right out of Fantasy Island, and the time floating aboard ship gave me much time to think.
The Federal Republic of Germany has flown many flags (so to speak), starting with the totems of the Germanic clans who themselves blended with Celts, Persians, and tribes from Baltic and Slavic regions. Then came the banners of conquerors: Romans from a thousand years ago, and in the lifetime of some of us, the Nazis. Throw in all the alliances through marriage with Spain, France, Austria, Prussia, and countries to the north and east, and you get names like Bavaria, Franconia, Saxony, and the Rhineland.
Now, let’s narrow our focus to a couple of cities: Prague, was once in Czechoslovakia, but is currently in (the) Czech Republic since Slovakia is now its own country; and Budapest, which is really two cities, Buda on one side of the Danube and Pest on the other, and which were originally separate commercial competitors in the salt and spice trades but are now connected by bridges and commerce. Budapest today flies the Hungarian flag, but not long ago flew that of the USSR (one of our guides still speaks Russian she learned in grade school).
In emphasizing regional and cultural differences, one of our tour directors is from a part of the Netherlands closest to Belgium, and she made it perfectly clear she was not from Holland, which most English speakers erroneously call the entire country (North and South Holland are two of twelve Netherlandic provinces). The personal analogy I get is when I say I’m from Colorado, some people automatically say, “Oh, Denver.”
The simple point I’d like to make is various conquerors, occupiers, or alliances at a given time dominate the history of the European Union and some of its cities. And lest you immediately say, “Well ya, but that’s them, not us,” just hang with me for a controversial minute.
Our country is, relatively speaking, kind of like the birth of the Six Flags theme park logo. So pop quiz: name the “six flags” flown at the so named theme park in Texas? The answer is Spain, France, Mexico, The Republic of Texas, The Confederate States, and the United States, as the six identities who once governed what become the 28th state in the US. (BTW: The amusement park chain started in Arlington, TX, but the Six Flags name is used at all the parks regardless of location.)
On our recent trip to Key West, we camped at sites in NM, TX, LA, MS, and FL. Each of these states (we already covered TX) still reflect influences of Spain, France, the Confederacy, Cuba, Mexico, and indigenous peoples who were there before all the others. In Key West, most of the Uber drivers and the service-industry workers were from Jamaica, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Cuba, and even Nigeria. We also learned about the 1982 faux Conch Republic secession from the US in protest of the then Customs and Immigration agencies trying to control access to the only highways into the Keys from the Florida mainland. Key West still flies the Conch Republic flag and celebrates their Independence Day every April 23.
In 2012, historical author Colin Woodard published American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America. He raises the point that the idea of the United States being truly “one country” is a mirage that has existed since the signing of the Declaration of Independence and into the later development of the Constitution in 1787. (Additional reading: Miracle at Philadelphia by Catherine Drinker Bowen, originally published in 1966 with an updated 1986 version.)
Woodard’s premise is, except in times of war or a natural disaster that draws us together, our individual states tend to operate from a platform of their own interests influenced by their founders from England, Spain, France, Amsterdam, Mexico, and Canada. The author also describes the effects culture, financial thinking, religion, agriculture, and so on have on a given state. He goes on to point out that some states are so vast as to fall under different regions, specifically separating Northern California from Southern, and North Texas (Dallas, et al) as being under much different influences than those areas of Texas bordering Mexico or Louisiana. (Further personal observations: after traveling in both Alaska and Hawaii, none of the people I visited much thought of themselves as members of the continental U.S. (Also, while in Key West, I fished with a sea captain who declared himself a fifth-generation Key Wester and had no consideration for the goings-on in mainland Florida.)
Right now, some say we are a “country divided,” and I’m not downplaying their perspectives, but after looking at the evolution of both Europe and our own great Nation, we may have to concede that what individual states or nations have in common are things and not beliefs. We may share the same money or the same coastlines or borders, but we really seem to operate by the individual dreams, visions, and hopes our ancestors lived by and left to us.
We seem to be OK with the idea of having many individual and unique sports teams, some even coming from the same city but assigned to different divisions. Why, then, does it surprise us when we bump up against other people who don’t think like us in areas of religion, politics, fiscal responsibility, education, child-rearing, immigration control, social programs, or gender roles and sexual identity? Heck, we can’t even agree on daylight savings time or which holidays to celebrate.
Despite historical programs of assimilation, I propose we may have never, ever made it to the “melting pot” state and may have even gotten stuck in the “salad bowl” mode of throwing a bunch of individual ingredients together and expecting the lettuce to taste the same as the tomatoes, which is OK if you’re a tomato.
So, when you watch Russell Crowe and the rest of the movie, you may conclude that Rome never really had a chance of keeping the whole world under its control for roughly 1500 years. But I argue that if we recognize and operate within and above our differences, instead of trying to make New England look and act the same as the Southwest for instance, we may find our Nation(s) can last longer than the Roman Empire.
I certainly hope it’s not another war or natural disaster that keeps us together, and that we can learn from the mistakes Roman leaders AND citizens made. But, like our American Eagle, I do believe we can still soar to the heights we have earned through establishing our place in the world during our relatively short National history.
Best regards to all, and let’s be safe out there.
