Elephant in the room
When we lived in the USA we came to realise that there were some subjects you just couldn’t talk about with Americans - basically religion and politics. In recent years both those two have grown in importance as the world has observed American religion and politics at first hand. When a friend of mine sent me a series of photos of a herd of elephants going through the lobby of a South African hotel, the thought that they are ‘an elephant in the room’ became very real! There are an increasing number of problems arising and because they cannot be talked about, it feels like we are behaving like another animal... an ostrich with it’s head in the sand. Not that people outside the USA aren’t talking about these issues, it’s just there is no dialogue with citizens of the USA because it just becomes a slanging match and the Americans feel justifiably or unjustifiably attacked. ‘ Why don’t they love us? ’ I have heard them ask. We cannot answer that because they cannot hear. External