April 28, 2003

A NEW GLOBAL FORCE TO BE RECKONED WITH

By Tom Plate

The beginning of the end of U.S. Midwestern provincialism

© 2003 Asia Pacific Media Network

EVANSVILLE, Ind. -- This is undoubtedly the heartland of America, assuming America has any heart left.

And these days it is beating as proudly as ever. But even though the sports teams at the University of Southern Indiana are called Screaming Eagles, the undergraduate students here are anything but screaming yokels. When a visiting lecturer half-jokingly likened President George W. Bush's style to that of crusty actor Clint Eastwood -- taunting Saddam Hussein "to make my day" -- the students chuckled as appreciatively as any wise-guy audience at Berkeley or Harvard.

This mid-sized southern Indiana town has provided a patriotically disproportionate share of the American men and women who make up the nation's military. "Actually, most of the students here," explains University of Southern Indiana Prof. Michael Aakhus, "have friends or relatives over there."

No wonder: Just a few miles from this picturesque Midwestern campus, with its 10,000 or so students, proudly stands Ft. Campbell, a huge army base. The Veterans of Foreign Wars chapter here is reputed to be the largest in the country. The Dixie Chicks, who spoke out against George Bush and his Iraq policy, should not expect to be invited to Evansville any time soon.

Sure, some Philosophy Department members tried to ignite an anti-war protest prior to the U.S. invasion by raising thoughtful doubts, but the effort flopped: The campus' heart just wasn't in it. On the contrary, after France, Germany and Russia gave the United States grief at the U.N. Security Council, USI students mounted an effort to end the traditional practice of flying the U.N. flag on campus. That was stopped in its tracks by university President H. Ray Hoops. He explained that such de-flagging might suggest disrespect for the handful of foreign students enrolled at this otherwise homogeneous university. Students bought that argument.

Still, the Midwestern student mentality remains skeptical of many of the coastal conventional wisdoms that most New Yorkers and Los Angeleans take as axiomatic. This is probably especially true in foreign relations.

For one thing, they are not comfortable with China. To be sure, very few of these students have traveled to China and have no current plans to do so. That's why the attempt in Beijing to help broker a negotiated wind-down in the North Korean tension could have huge impact here. From the Midwest perspective, it's Beijing's most significant foreign policy move in memory, and Indiana students are rooting for the Chinese to succeed. That's because they are feverishly eager to bring home their friends and loved ones from Iraq and have little appetite to fight another war soon.

Not everyone here is seized with religious fervor about globalization. The East and West coasts believe that in the end it will produce more wealth for everybody, but in the cruel short term, people here suspect, it also creates unemployment (as jobs go abroad) and spreads problems more rapidly around the globe. The SARS epidemic, which originated in China, is obviously on everyone's minds, as unlikely as Evansville is to see it crop up here. Their sense of the globe as a shrinking proposition is as intuitive as that of any multinational businessman. The presence of a major Toyota truck factory here no doubt underscores the point.

But these kids are not all about money. Many come from deeply religious backgrounds that emphasize personal values and loyalty to family, community, God and country. Pastors at local churches such the Calvary Temple, Oak Hill Evangelical Church, Trinity United Methodist and Memorial Baptist, to mention just a few, may not think of their norms as resembling Asian values. But they are: Indeed, in some ways, small-town America has more in common with traditional Asian societies than do Washington, New York or San Francisco.

That's why students are more sincerely worried about the integrity of American business than world-weary secular Beltway bishops. They are well informed about the scandals at Enron and Arthur Andersen that raise searing questions about who we really are. They even accept that those in the rest of the world (Islamic or Arabic or whatever) are well within their rights to raise them.

They are certainly under no illusions that Indiana can insulate itself from the winds of change sweeping around the world. Just look at 9/11, they say. It happened a thousand miles from here -- and almost two years later we're having to go over there and risk our lives. "They were truly shaken by that," explains Aakhus. "The Midwest has awakened."

The above weekly column has just appeared in the Honolulu Advertiser, The South China Morning Post and The Straits Times of Singapore. The author, Tom Plate, is a regular columnist at these three papers. The column also appears in other world newspapers, including The San Francisco Chronicle, The Seattle Times, The Japan Times and The Korea Times. Email him at: tplate@ucla.edu.

For publication and reprint rights, contact the author directly or John Simpson (john.simpson@latsi.com) of the Los Angeles Times Syndicate International.

Previous Columns:

Why War in Korea is Less Probable Now (April 21, 2003)

China: A Nation Behaving Badly (April 14, 2003)

What Does it Mean to be a Friend of the United States? (April 7, 2003)

Islamic Bomb of Worldwide Anti-U.S. Hatred? (March 31, 2003)

© 2003 Asia Pacific Media Network