Undoubtedly, as soon as news of the bombing hit, many people immediately thought ‘Arabs!’ Well, I covered my issues with that in my “Arab ≠ Muslim” post (3/19/13). When it was discovered the suspects were of Chechen descent, many people thought ‘where the hell is Chechnya?’ and then probably just as quickly decided they didn’t care. All they cared about was the opportunity to spew xenophobic hate on the internet. A sampling of some of the comments found on Yahoo’s news posts:
“another good reason to close our borders”
First of all, I hope I don’t have to go over the whole immigration thing again. See “Getting My Irish Up (3/16/13).” The Tsarnaevs came here ten years ago as children. Do you seriously think they were moles? Or could it be that someone here in the States influenced them? Remember we have our own homebred terrorists like Timothy McVeigh and Ted Kaczynski.
“All the Muslims who yesterday expressed hope that the suspects were not muslim now need to rise up and voice their disdain of these two. Probably won't though.”
Plenty of Muslims have voiced their disdain not just for this incident but all other acts of terrorism perpetrated by extremists. Your assumption that they won’t leads me to believe you have never met a Muslim and instead get all your information about them from fearmongering politicians and media. I hope that you also expect Christians to voice their disdain of Christian extremists like Westboro Baptist church.
“This is why I am so annoyed with american society and our political correctness ..every other country in the world puts safety first over hurting peoples feelings ...airports , public events or where ever else we need to start watching , searching , questioning or whatever else we feel needs to be done to keep us safe ..at the airport forget random selection just say and do what you need to ! if they look middle eastern search them…”
Seriously? “If they look Middle Eastern search them?” This statement is so wrong for so many reasons. One, again, it assumes that all terrorists are of Middle Eastern origin. Two, it unfairly vilifies an entire group of people. Three, it confuses race with religious or political beliefs. Four, it’s incredibly impractical. I mean, I look vaguely Middle Eastern sometimes. How many people are you going to stop and search? Five, it is just plain racist and xenophobic. Hey, buddy, the majority of serial killers and mass shooters are white males, should we then be singling white males out at any event that has the security to do so?
In the midst of all this “us vs. them” rhetoric, I’ve been seeing terrible posts on Facebook like the one above. Here’s the problem with these posts. First, of all, don’t be emotionally manipulative by saying I don’t have the guts to post it. There’s nothing gutsy about posting garbage on your Facebook page from the safety of your own home. And it’s not that I don’t have the guts, it’s that I’m not stupid or amoral enough to believe in it. Second, from a Christian standpoint, this post is un-Christlike. Jesus doesn’t care what country someone is from. He didn’t instruct us to help only certain poor people. And I’m so glad the disciples didn’t say to the Gentiles, “sorry, gotta take care of our own, ya know?”
From a secular standpoint, what the makers of these memes don’t understand is that foreign aid does in fact help us. When we create allies through aid, it is extremely beneficial to our national security. JKF’s vision for Peace Corps included three goals.
1) Helping the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women
2) Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served
3) Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans
I’ve always viewed goals 2 & 3 as the most important. The problem with much of American society is that we are insulated. Only 30% of Americans own a passport and that number is only as high as it is because we’re now required to have one to travel to Canada and Mexico. (Half of American trips abroad are to one of those two countries.) Subsequently, most Americans have never interacted with a foreigner in any meaningful way. Why, then, do so many Americans shoot their mouths off about people from other countries? Why are they so quick to make blanket statements about subjects they have little education on? Sure you have the right to say whatever you want, but it doesn’t mean you should.
If you’ve never met a Muslim and don’t really know anything about the religion, you should probably just keep your mouth shut until those things have been rectified. It’s one thing to disagree with Islam as a religion based on theology, as I do. It is another to make generalizations about people who believe in Islam. My family and friends in Turkmenistan were almost all Muslim. They would never engage in terrorist activities. On the contrary, they showed hospitality better than many Christians I’ve met. Part of my job as a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer is to promote the 3rd goal by telling people these things. There are Muslims in the world who are peaceful. There are Central Asians, and (for the third idiot up there) Middle Eastern people, who will put themselves out to help a stranger. I’ve found helpful and friendly people in every country I’ve visited. Americans don’t have a monopoly on morality.
Besides getting Americans to educate themselves about the rest of the world, Peace Corps is helpful by contributing to national security through the 2nd goal. Just as there is a lot of disinformation about other people in our media, there’s a lot of disinformation about Americans going around. When we live and work in other countries, we build relationships with people who then learn that Americans are not like what they see in the movies. For many people in Turkmenistan, we were the only Americans they had met. Imagine what happens then, when someone tries to spread lies about America as the “Great Satan.” People can then say, “no, I’m friends with an American; she’s really nice. She showed me pictures of her family and house and talked about her life there. America’s not like how you say it is.” Even better is when, through our foreign aid programs, students can say “I studied abroad in America; it’s a good place. I had a host family that treated me really well and lots of American friends in school.”
Even on smaller trips, we can dispel misconceptions about Americans. When I went to Romania, my cab driver, who wanted to accommodate me any way he could, informed me that if I wanted drugs or guys to have sex with, he could arrange it. That was apparently something that English women often came for, so he thought I’d be interested too. He was surprised when I informed him that I was not into that, that I had come to Romania to see the museums and Dracula stuff, and that I would like to know if there was a church I could go to on Sunday. He and I became friends and I like to think that I made a positive impression on him as an American.
Peace Corps started in the 1960’s. Now there are world leaders who were positively influenced as children by PCVs years ago. The vice-president of Nigeria is one example. Disenfranchised people are easy targets for terrorist recruitment. If we target them first by giving aid and by building positive person to person relationships with them, that contributes so much more to our security than the nearly $7 billion we spend on war each year.
If you’ve read my blog from the beginning, you know I don’t think Peace Corps is perfect. Every organization has problems. But I believe in Peace Corps’ vision. I believe especially in the 2nd and 3rd goals. These goals can be achieved by other means as well. In a perfect world, Americans would be encouraged or maybe even required to study abroad for at least a semester.
As Mark Twain said, “travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness,” so go get a passport if you don’t have one and plan a trip abroad. Many of our problems come from our refusal to forge relationships with people different from ourselves. So in the meantime, make friends with your Muslim, gay, atheist, black, or however they are different neighbor and decide to look for the good in people for a change. You may discover that our similarities outweigh our differences, and our differences can be an asset not a liability.
For further reading enjoyment: When Christians Despise the Poor
Why Don't Americans Travel Abroad?