One afternoon I was explaining the passive tense of verbs, and I used an example that came to mind from American culture. I asked them if they knew who was nominated by the two main parties to run for president. "John Kerry was nominated by the Democratic Party, and George Bush was nominated by the Republicans," replied one of the brightest in the class, a veiled Muslim engineering student named Rahaf. "Very good," I said. "Now, who do you think will be elected?" "Bush," cried several of the students at once, smiling. Abandoning my lesson plan for the moment, but curious at this sudden display of interest in the election, I ventured: "Who do you want to win?" "Bush," said Rahaf, while a number of others nodded in solid agreement. I pressed them further for a few minutes, asking individual students why they liked Bush. The same ideas came up again and again: he is a strong leader, an honest man, and, most of all, a believer. Like the winning margin of American voters this year, these Middle Easterners related to Bush's sense of religious conviction and his confident steering of a nation and culture they admired.
And the next paragraph brought up one of the things that bugged the crap out of me during the election campaign.
"But doesn't he scare you?" I asked finally, unable to contain my personal feelings and throwing the lesson plan out the window. "Because of Bush's ideas many people in my country think that all of you are terrorists." Rahaf and most of the others just shrugged. Maybe that was all true, they said, but he was still a good president.
Bush has never tried to make me hate Arabs or convince me they're all terrorists. If you think all muslims are terrorists, you already had some personal issues beforehand, and Bush didn't make anyone hate Arabs. There were no posters up with warm things to say such as "The only good raghead is a DEAD raghead!" There were no commercials saying "Join the Marines and waste some sand nigger scum!" I don't hate Arabs, and I know full well that there are only a teeny group of fundamentalists out there that are twisting their religion for their own ends. Leaders that are squandering their countries and sending the message to their citizens that it's the U.S.'s fault. It isn't the people. People are all born with a clean slate, and the ones that are turning them into terrorist 'martyrs' are the ones that we're trying to weed out. Another thing the article points out...
Though Democrats are often quick to criticize their opponents for seeing the issues in stark black and white, "us and them" terms, perhaps they ought to step back from their own obsession with "red" and "blue" dichotomies and recognize this nuance of Middle Eastern reality.
That's what I found ironic during the days after November 2nd. There was all this horseshit flying around the internet about the differences between Bush voters and Kerry voters, and red states and blue states. Things are not always black and white. No, they're red or blue. No shades of purple... just red and blue, and it's the Democrats that are pushing the message. It's moderate "South Park Republicans" like myself who are willing to reach out and talk to those on the left. From my personal experience, it's typically the way-left liberals are the ones that are one-dimensional, intolerant, closed-minded and angry, and anyone who doesn't toe the socialist line is a brainwashed, Nazi follower of Bushitler. Just shut up and get over it already. Especially you, Jesse Jackson.
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