A 4th of July in the United States | The duty

Who are these Americans? On July 4, the biggest national holiday in the United States (along with Thanksgiving), at least 6 people were killed and 26 injured by a man in a shooting during a parade in a suburb of Chicago.

In this country, the dead still pile up in an inconceivable cave of acceptance, at the end of the hand of white men. The year 2022 will probably be devoted to a record year for the chapter of unjustifiable violent deaths in this country. And the hunt for abortion which resumes thanks to an ex-president, Narcisse, who no longer believes in democracy. And a president in office who dithers on the paths of war.

The United States is doing badly again. Who are these Americans, whom I love in spite of everything?

That same July 4th in Ogunquit, Maine, there were thousands of us walking along the beaches in search of fireworks in this beautiful eastern coastal village, or in Old Orchard, or in Wells, rising from where else do I know. Laughing families, tipsy young people, nostalgic old people swooned together, inviting each other into their homes, in front of rooms burning with the same fire that had killed thousands of innocent people in their cities. No shame in partying and brandishing all imaginable variations of their beautiful flag despite the abject and the irreparable.

You will tell me that so many paradoxes are only normal for a people who have only 400 years of history (after the presence of the first peoples) or that all the countries of the planet celebrate their nations to form a rampart beyond heartbreaks that affect them without exception.

But that evening, in front of the pyrotechnics which rose, high and higher still, I asked myself: who are these people to whom I am closer than the French? A large army of careless or reckless?

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