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Before I begin with my wondering about being an American I must say that I admire American members of the public that the American constitution so profoundly called, "we the people" for many reasons!

First of all, Americans are the most loyal people on the planet to their leaders, even when they are putting them to hell! American people are open hearted, warm, friendly and open to new ideas and they do care about values of liberty, freedom and democracy. I admire American people for many reasons including the fact that they produced all these wonderful soldiers who followed the orders of their leaders and go out to foreign lands and kill people that they had never known or would ever know. In doing so they got killed in their thousands and yet they did not question their leaders and felt they were dying and killing for their country. Yes, these soldiers were and are among the finest soldiers in the world! No doubt about that!

I admire American people for another reason. The parents, husbands, wives, friends, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, friends and relatives of these soldiers keep crying, grieving and mourning for these fallen sons and daughters in the uniforms of American army, yet supporting their leaders, even though the leaders are taking them to astray!

These are finest of human qualities! I admire Americans for their openness and diversity and tolerance!

Having said that I would like to come back to my wonder! If I were an American and still able to remember how other nationals across the globe view America and American people! I wonder what would I have felt and how would I have tried to leave my American life!

To other nationals across the globe America and Americans are equivalent to American governments and what they did in relation to their country or countries and in general towards the world! Hence, Americans are the most misunderstood bunch of people on the planet! People generally like to generalise as our lives tend to get dictated by our emotions rather than our rationality. Most of these people thus generalised Americans with American governments! Hence they begin to hate America and Americans at the same time!

The situation is this that whatever all the American administrations in modern times did to the rest of the world or however American foreign policies affected or impacted upon the world are built in public memories of these countries and hatred is implanted in their minds towards the wrong enemies!

If one looks at these misguided perspectives of people against American people or the Americans one would see that this hatred is wrongly targeted! There is hardly any difference between American public or British public or Americans and Pakistanis or Amenians or German and so on.

Why is this the case? Let's take a look. Did Pakistani government ever asked the Pakistani public whether they wanted their government to go and kill millions of Bangladeshi innocent people! No, they did not! If they had the majority of people would have said no. But they went in and killed anyway!

Did Indian government ever asked their people whether they should go to war with Pakistan! No! Nor did Pakistani government! There were wars between India and Pakistan!

Did Tony Blair asked the British people whether he should take us to war against and in Iraq with America! No he did not! Did George Bush ask Americans whether to go to war on Afghanistan or Iraq! No he did not! He went in the war!

British, Americans, Germans, French and almost all nationalities of the globe protested against the war. In London we had about two million people taking part in anti war demonstration! Did anybody listen! No!

Moreover, the media had been so manipulated that anti war demonstrations, discussions, debates and opinions were put in the background! They were not reported at all! Most importantly, people who opposed the war were portrayed is if they were the criminals! Does this make the British, Americans, Germans or French or Americans "hateworthy" for what has been going on in Iraq! People are not jumping up and down America because there are hundreds of Iraqi people dying every week! No they are not! Families are burying their dead in America, in Britain and elsewhere: the soldiers who died in Iraq! Same is true for British soldiers and people.

People generally are absolutely disempowered in western democracies and in American democracy it is even more so than anywhere else in the world!

There is no "we the people" remaining in America. Americans cannot influence American domestic or foreign policy! What is happening in American economy! What is happening with all those state governments levels, their budget deficits and fiscal crises, that do not make good copy in the print media and that do not get reported in the prime time television!

Where are the people! Crime going up! Murders going up! Serial killings going up! Unemployment, educational and welfare budget cut, low income families and those inner city areas and those villages that are way way outside cnn or fox news catchments area! They do not produce good chat show or talk show with drama, adrenalin rush and suspense like the live televised chase of OJ Simpson and so on!

America is eaten away by guns, gun crimes, gun violence and gun related genocides or massacres! Who has any power to stop American children being massacred by lunatic gun crazies!

So there is nothing so unique about Americans that the world has to hate Americans! Americans are as disempowered as anyone else! Americans cannot influence their government's foreign policy like we British people could not and the whole world population is the same.

I don't think I would be any better off being an American at all! I am as powerless as an American. Because the system of civilisation is such which is now lead by American administration that does not offer or support power to people. A powerful people means a powerless government that means a "government of the people, by the people and for the people". That means that government would live to establish equality and liberty. Power to the people means the end of "power" the way we know it. But that is not going to happen with this globalised system of capitalism.

There is no point mixing Americans with their government. The government lives in White House that speaks a different American than the Americans on the streets across that wonderful landscape, that sends their sons and daughters to be killed in foreign land and then mourn and still stay sane!

I still wonder and I still feel strongly about Americans and hope Americans will someday say again: we the people and take the "gun" out of the politicians' hands, who play games with the lives of people and at the same time say a thunderous "no" to death penalty and stop politicians playing with the justice system and with people's lives.

Author of Poetica Rainbow Ryder, The Son of Eternity, and Dehumanisation of Humanity (four volumes)
Poet in Residence for Southwark Libraries
Editor, Poet's Letter Magazine and Poet's Letter
Munayem Mayenin