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["Lynda" <lurine AT softcom.net>]

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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