Happy Interdependence Day!

Commentary

I love the red, white, and blue bunting that adorns homes in the United States in early July as our nation’s Independence Day approaches. I enjoy the parades with decorated tricycles and high school marching bands. And then there are fireworks! 

But in recent years, I’ve pondered whether Independence Day needs an upgrade. It’s so 1776. Perhaps we need to repurpose this holiday. Perhaps we need a day that helps us imagine a different future. Perhaps it’s time for Interdependence Day.

Back when we were fighting for independence from another country, our bluecoats were fighting its redcoats. Today, we live in red states or blue states – and we fight each other. Back then, the 13 Colonies were on the same side. Today, big cities and their suburbs compete with rural regions over the nation’s appropriations and moral code, and which parts of our history to include in school textbooks. Such divisiveness causes self-inflicted wounds that leave us open to attacks, both foreign and domestic.  

Interdependence Day wouldn’t erase the history of Independence Day. Instead, it would give us time to reflect on what we want our tomorrow to be. We’d look back on our past to discover why this democratic republic was formed in the first place. The goal was that the union would let us carefully debate and balance ideas. The hope was that this would lead to a government that continuously worked to do the greatest good for the greatest number of its people. 

Since our nation’s birth, we’ve struggled with this ideal. During our 247 years, we’ve seen peaceful and not-so-peaceful insistence that the freedoms cited in the document approved on July 4, 1776, be available to all. 

We’ve been moving toward the need for this name change for several years now, and I don’t think our Founding Fathers would mind. They would have been familiar with the concept of interdependence from Christian Scripture. It’s expressed in biblical phrases such as “love one another,” “encourage one another,” “build up one another,” and many more that focus on working out life together with the welfare of all in mind.

The announcement in 1776 of the “unalienable” right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” wasn’t a win for a “me.” It was a win for a “we.” A lot of people had to trust each other, believe that they had each other’s backs, and be willing to fight and die with each other so that subsequent generations could build a nation where there is “liberty and justice for all,” as our Pledge of Allegiance says. Proclaiming our interdependence would be a way to promote an understanding that this nation’s – and any nation’s – power comes from finding unity, not sowing discord. 

Poets, presidents, and preachers have invited us to consider our interdependence. English poet John Donne shared the sentiment when he wrote, “No man is an island.” When Nelson Mandela wanted to bring fractured South Africa together, he emphasized the Zulu concept of ubuntu. It means “I am because you are,” acknowledging the humbling need I have for you and you for me. 

Martin Luther King Jr. also called attention to our connectedness. “We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny,” he said in 1965. “Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”  

Interdependence invites us to be unselfish with our resources, helping to ensure that everyone flourishes. Interdependence causes us to reject myths of scarcity, theories of one race replacing another, and zero-sum approaches to life that argue the only way for “us” to win is for “them” to lose. We are more than the sum of our parts. We can do more together than we can apart. 

We’ve enjoyed Independence Day. It has served us well. A celebration of our interdependence, however, is what will ensure our future. In “How the Word Is Passed,” author Clint Smith puts it this way: America is “not so much a place to be in but an idea to believe in.” Let’s believe in and celebrate our interdependence. ρ