Tomorrow is the Fourth of July, a day when citizens of the United States express pride in their country. American writer Steve Coronellawonders why Europeans find that so difficult to understand
As my 15th successive Fourth of July in Ireland approaches, I find myself asking: why doesn't Europe get patriotism? It's a simple enough question, but the answer is not so straightforward.
Europeans have no problem understanding nationalism. You can look at any period of European history - medieval or modern - to see how nationalist movements have blighted the continent in the past.
What I'm referring to is the kind of plain, public-spirited pride that goes on display every year in the US on July 4th.
After a decade and a half away from my Boston home, it's my impression that America's Independence Day celebrations are indeed different.
They lack the sense of insularity and exclusion that tinges similar festivities in Europe, whether it's Bastille Day in France or the commemoration of the 1916 Easter Rising here in Ireland.
Political figures from the extreme right in Europe are well able to spot this difference. And not just in the Balkans or the newly-liberated states of the old USSR, where poverty and economic crisis are often the norm.
In prosperous countries such as France, for example, Jean-Marie Le Pen still attracts a double-digit percentage of the vote in national elections, and far-right parties have been in government recently in Austria, Italy, Denmark and the Netherlands.
Sinclair Lewis may have warned in his 1935 novel It Can't Happen Here that an even more dangerous swing to the far right could occur in the US, but I have my doubts.
Despite the current administration's obsession with national security, insularity, on the whole, is not the American way - even though US citizens are regularly accused of being out of touch with the rest of the world. Because of our history and our geography, Americans will always be looking out, to other shores and to other peoples.
Indeed, the majority of us are able to trace our origins to someplace else, and for many US citizens reconnecting with our forebears - millions of whom fled an impoverished European homeland - can be a lifelong quest. (My own two sets of grandparents arrived in Boston about 1930 from Cork and Sicily).
For this fundamental reason, Europeans just don't get US-style patriotism, which is based on an extraordinary set of foundation documents as well as a genuine national identity shared by all citizens, no matter where else they might call home.
Despite the European Union's clumsy efforts at producing its own defining raison d'être through a ponderous constitution and unwieldy institutions, Europe will never realise a similar ambition. Europeans will always consider themselves Italian, French, or indeed Irish, first and foremost.
This does not bode well for the future of Europe, according to Professor John Gray from the London School of Economics.
In his essay The Dark Side of Modernity: Europe's New Far Right, Gray observes: "European institutions cannot replace national identities, but they are widely perceived as eroding them. Weakened national cultures do not cope well with the difficulties of assimilating newcomers; they are breeding grounds for a vicious populist politics that seeks to buttress identity through ethnic exclusion."
In the US, in contrast, the door to outsiders, slammed shut so forcefully in the aftermath of 9/11, is showing signs of opening once again, even though the Senate recently rejected a comprehensive immigration reform Bill. Despite this setback, contenders for the presidency in 2008 will no doubt be asked to address this vital national issue in a meaningful way.
So, despite the difficulty that has come of late with being an American in Europe, I'll celebrate with pride as the Fourth rolls around this year.
And even if our national day has its over-hyped and exploitative side, I'll remember the Declaration of Independence and the constitution and the Founding Fathers.
They have no equal here in Europe, and perhaps might not for some time to come.
Steve Coronella is a freelance writer living in Dublin