Some Americans like to think that they are better than others that all other countries are inferior to their nation in all respects. This type of self proclaimed patriot is found throughout the world in most countries. Orhan Pamuk writes of certain “ideologues of the Turkish state who expressed their nationalism in unlovely and unadorned authoritarian rhetoric…”
Sound familiar? Sounds like the English as official language crowd or those that belittle the French going as far to change the name of the French fry to the Freedom Fry. The same Americans want to lock up and deport illegal aliens not because they are here illegally but really because they threaten the traditional white character of their America.
Oh they will say “we don’t mind ‘them’ coming here so long as it’s legally.” But I ask you were the Pilgrims here legally in the eyes of the Native Americans. As Malcolm X said I didn’t land on Pilgrim Rock it landed on me. I am sure Native Americans feel the same way about the immortal rock. Who is the American who can decry the Turks for denying the Armenian genocide while they themselves brush aside slavery and the destruction of the Native American people?
These authoritarians will also tell you only they know the true intent of the founders yet they will defy their own logic and brush aside Thomas Jefferson choosing instead to teach about a foreign religious figure, Thomas Aquinas.
So who then are these authoritarian Americans to point their finger at Muslims for being chauvinistic when the American authoritarian will as act as chauvinistically fighting cultural wars with slogans like put Christ back in Christmas or by saying Merry Christmas rather than Happy Holidays to non Christians or by making it a felony for teenage pranksters to remove a baby Jesus from a Nativity scene.
Some say Islam is a violent religion but contrary to what the authoritarians say history shows that Christianity is as violent with its Reformation, Counter Reformation, Inquisitions and Crusades. Authoritarian Americans would say those were Europeans as if many of them were not descended from those who came from Europe while also forgetting the violence of the Vietnam War where the authoritarians dropped 7 million tons of bombs on a people who would not submit to the American military. The bombing wasn’t a strategy for victory but a costly punitive action against a people who refused to bow to adherents of Fortress America.
So on reflection, there is not much of a difference between authoritarians of say Turkey and America, East and West and Christian and Muslim. You see the authoritarians see only what they want to see and “they wave the flag…ooh and point the cannon at you” the world round.
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