Independent UK: On the shores of Cape Cod, I see an America that is closing in on itself

Philip Hoare: On the shores of Cape Cod, I see an America that is closing in on itself
The sense of derring-do and exploration which created America seems conflicted now

Saturday, 18 October 2008



Surrounded by the sea, Provincetown sits at the tip of Cape Cod, held out into the Atlantic. It is both part of, and apart from, America. The philosopher Henry David Thoreau once said that here, "a man might stand and put all America behind him".

As such, it is a perfect place to observe the strange sense of stillness and inevitability with which the American people seem to apprehend the forthcoming and monumental change to their democracy. The greatest democracy in the modern world, all about to be reinvented, it seems, within 18 short autumn days.

These days of October have been blissful on the Cape. An unnatural warmth has settled over the place, the kind of heat we missed out on in Britain this summer. Last weekend was a holiday – Columbus Day, commemorating the discovery of a continent.

Half a millennium later, Provincetown, a former whaling port turned whalewatching port, a place of sunbleached clapboard and drifting sand on the pavements, is a resort for every creed, colour and gender. Currently celebrating Women's Week, it seems to encompass the liberty and hope of the once new republic. Black, white, straight, gay, transgendered and plain ordinary families – of the kind so appealed to by vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin (just as the lesbian couples with their babies in designer buggies are most definitely not) – have been here, enjoying the last few days of an Indian summer.

Out on the whalewatch boats, the tourists ooh and aah at the leaping whales. Coach parties and groups of students, from places as far as the Midwest, listen to naturalists extolling the history of their country. "What they didn't teach you in history class – even if you were awake," Dennis Minsky tells them, "is that it was here that the Pilgrim Fathers first made landfall. Here, in Provincetown Harbour, the Mayflower Compact was signed." It's true enough: modern American democracy was born in these waters. This is were it all began. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/columnists/philip-hoare-on-the-shores-of-cape-cod-i-see-an-america-that-is-closing-in-on-itself-965477.html