A call for American leadership in the 21st century

By Steven Ellis

After graduating from Santa Clara in June 2006, I immediately departed on a new journey, this time as a teacher. I've spent the last 14 months as a volunteer English teacher at a university in Eastern Java, Indonesia.

Living in the world's largest Muslim nation, I expected to find a very different picture of the United States. What I didn't expect was the variety of images and perspectives about America that I encountered.

Overall, I guess I anticipated a good deal of resentment toward America, due to the recent actions of the United States. However, as an American in Indonesia, you're still more likely to find yourself treated like royalty than to find resentment. It's not that Indonesians really like America, but rather that they respect America's success and power.

Whereas most Americans are victims of a lack of information about Indonesians, Indonesians are bombarded with images and opinions about America, often leading to contradictory conclusions. These images and opinions tend to spark the following questions: Is what we see in Hollywood movies really what life is like in America? Do Americans hate Muslims? Do Americans think that all Indonesians are terrorists? Each question highlights the picture of America that Indonesians are getting: wealth, sex and violence.

When I was a senior at Santa Clara, globalization was the unifying topic of academic discussion.

I want to emphasize how important this is to today's Americans. We are in the spotlight. What we produce, from products to entertainment, is soaked up by people eager to experience such apparent extravagance and emulate such success and power.

The point is that the U.S. is a role model for much of the world, and, yes, we already like to think of ourselves as fulfilling this role. It's time, though, that we take into account more of what this really means. We have a responsibility not just to be a free country, but to set an example. This should start with what we produce, what we export and how we choose to project ourselves. And it should certainly continue to affect how businesses conduct themselves.

Here in Indonesia, there are almost no safeguards or regulations to stop companies from doing things like clear-cutting a rainforest or losing all of their clients' money due to negligent investing. The Indonesian government has recently said that although it is aware that environmental problems are increasing throughout the world, it needs to focus on economic growth in order to raise its people out of poverty.

It's not hard to understand their position and perspective. They see America continuing to get richer while their country is struggling. They see our businesses dominating their overall market, running factories in their backyard and more efficiently conducting their way to higher profits. Our image and that bottom line is what they're going to look to emulate. The only way to change this is to show them, through our own conduct, that there are other important issues and other ways to go about achieving economic success.

I'm not saying to change what you watch, what you do for fun or to force the companies you work for to change the way they think about business. I am saying that you should at least realize and keep in mind that what you're doing and what you're supporting is being noticed by the rest of the world.

They already know that we're free and successful. It's time that we show the world something new; that for once, we again have something that we can truly be proud of. Enough of this age-old patriotism and pride. Pride needs to be earned. It's time that we stop relying on our past and start taking action to ensure the future, a future that will depend on working together as one global community.

Steven Ellis graduated from Santa Clara in 2006.