[Homestead] The roots of Muslim rage
Lynda
lurine at softcom.net
Sun Dec 18 19:00:46 EST 2005
It has been years in the making, Marie. What we see "now" is the result of
what was being done then.
The U.S. isn't terribly popular anywhere because of their policies of snitty
superiority. Also, our labeling of people. Everyone who even vaguely looks
like they might have some ancestor that comes from the Middle East is
quickly labeled an "evil" Muslim with that snear and look down the nose that
Americans are reknown for.
Slap a label on them and treat them as inferior is the standard for American
behavior when folks are out of this country. We didn't become known as the
Ugly Americans without due cause.
I saw it when I was five traveling in England with my grandfather. ("What a
delightful little girl" with that sound of "I can't believe she's an
American" in their voices.) I asked Grampa about it later and he said he'd
beent old by people that they were "pleasantly surprised" that I had manners
and new how to behavior in "polite society."
I saw it later when we traveled to Bahrain, Spain and Russian to the
national stud farms. They expected people who hadn't bothered to learn
their customs and who were rude and pushy. People who thought they could
throw money at things and get what they wanted.
I still see it in some of the correspondence with folks in other countries.
They expect Americans to have a "tude" which equates to "I'm an American and
I'm superior."
And we saw it right after 9/11 with the folks who owned two of the little
Mom & Pop stores in our neighborhood. It was really a sorry state of
affairs that they felt it was necessary to post signs saying they weren't
from Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan and that they weren't Muslim. Later they
posted signs saying "thank you" and explaining that their prior experiences
had been in large cities back East and they appreciated how people treated
them in our little town.
These things are created over night. This is a result of years and years of
behavior on the part of our government.
Lynda
----- Original Message -----
From: "Marie McHarry" <mmcharry at dtnspeed.net>
>
> Lynda, you lost me with this paragraph. Muslims were tolerant under the
> caliphate, but today religious Muslims in religious states (the Taliban,
> present-day Iran, and a substantial part of Africa, Saudi Arabia) aren't
> winning awards for tolerance. (Of course, we could have the same situation
> here if our own fundamentalists took over.) I'm not sure how "Christians
> stopped that." It looks more to me like the rise of fundamentalist to
> positions of power. In modern times, religious tolerance in Islamic
> countries appears to have resided in the strong ruler (the Shah and Saddam
> -- the Christians were protected under Saddam -- come to mind).
>
> Marie
>
>
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