Forsaking The 'American Dream' – by Roman Ahsan

Forsaking The 'American Dream'

– by Roman Ahsan

October 30, 2011 - The Review - ‘PAKISTAN TODAY’

The article below is from the perspective of those who have never visited USA, yet have still fallen for the American dream – Please feel free to submit your comments as to how you feel about the insights below:

The Scene: A fighter jet out of control plummets towards the ground. The pilot, sporting a white helmet struggles desperately to regain control over the plane, but it crashes to the ground. The man barely survives. But wait! “They” had the technology to rebuild Steve Austin (Lee Majors) as the world’s first bionic man. After an operation in which they planted mechanical devices in his body, Steve was able to run faster than a speeding car, could punch through solid walls and was equipped with an enhanced eye-vision enabling him to see the details of a tiny object 100 meters away.

This was the plot line of “Six Million Dollar Man”, the American TV series that seized the world by storm in the 1970s. Run on the local television network in Pakistan a little later like all other American TV shows, the series nevertheless had us all transfixed. We started identifying ourselves with heroes like Steve Austin, who like Spiderman, were committed to defeating the forces of evil by taking on the ‘bad guys’ in the neighborhood. Week after week, new stories awaited us which captured our innocent imaginations!

There were countless other American TV shows in the 1970s that catered to our fantasies. “Little House on the prairie” showed the day to day struggle of a farmer living with his wife and three daughters in the old West. Again, like the other good guys of the TV shows, the farmer was shown as a noble and harmless person. Indeed, such people have to encounter more problems in their lives compared to others which provided material for the TV show.

The big screen also cast a magic spell in the days of Hollywood classics like “Ben-Hur”, “Cassandra Crossing”, “Crazy Boys”, “Yeti”, “Superman” and others. On the mini-screen, though movies were shown only twice a week and were mostly old, yet they were also eagerly awaited by the crowd. Be it a comedy, a tough Western story, a fuzzy feel good romantic flick, a fun movie or an intense war movie with a heavy cast - viewers would be fighting off sleep to catch them on the telly late at night.

The 1980s had arrived, and it was difficult also to escape the song numbers churned out by US music artistes with audio cassettes being an essential part of a teenager’s collection. American novels also provided coveted entertainment during vacations. Though magazines like Time, Newsweek and National Geographic do not exactly qualify as light reads, but they also had the capacity to grab the reader’s interest while lending us a different thought process. We grew more and more enamoured with American lifestyle!

Who can really discount the charismatic aura of the American Dream? Why are the Pakistanis (and the world in general) so mesmerized by its magic? There is just one word perhaps, ‘perfection’. The Americans are perfectionists and they know how to package and sell everything - be it a novel, a TV show, a movie, a product, a brand or an idea with a touch of class and appeal. Sadly, this includes war also! The saying is undeniably true; Hollywood truly is America’s biggest propaganda machine. The American government gets away with blatant lies partly because we are so blinded by the American dream that we are unable to recognize the truth.

For people like me who grew up loving the American dream, it is so shocking and disappointing that the US government has a different act than Archie, Indiana Jones or James Bond. The Americans as shown in their TV shows stand for honesty, courage, generosity, friendliness and compassion amongst other traits. The heroes in Hollywood movies are like saviors responding quickly and effectively to challenging situations or to rescue the oppressed. The fictional American superhero “Superman” created in 1938 stands for the symbols of courage and chivalry as presented in countless comic strips, comic books, radio / TV shows and movies ever since. But where are Superman and Batman now? Why are they not saving the world from the evil forces that are creating havoc through wars, invading one country after another on the pretext of different excuses?

The administrators of US government need to pay heed that they are creating hatred all over the world against USA through their policies which is giving rise to resistance movements globally. Instead of labeling all resistance movements in the domain of “extremism”, the US government needs to rectify itself. The focus of ‘the land of opportunity’ should be on making this world a better place to live in where people of all countries could co-exist in relative peace and harmony. Is it time to end our romance with the “American Dream”?