An inspiring communication in the aftermath of September 11

[Cynthia Daniel]

In an email exchange with Tarique, I asked what country he was originally from because I'm fascinated with other cultures and and he told me India, but commented how much he loved America. I told him I was so glad to hear that since we see so much on TV about anti-American sentiment and that I find it hurtful and depressing. To my great surprise, he and his wife wrote back this most wonderful email that I feel compelled to share with everyone. Thank you Tarique and Albina! (the bolded comments below are mine)

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Cynthia,

I think the vast majority of people around the world, especially in the third world who live at the absolute limits of life, don't really hate the US, since they are too busy wondering about the next meal. Most people in the third world would jump at the opportunity to get into the US. Sometimes, those who can't get into the US but want to, end up voicing anti-US / Western sentiments due to the "grapes are sour" syndrome. The ones I don't understand, are those who get into the US, make full use of the opportunities here, and still trash the US while living here! The US may not be the perfect place, but it is probably the least imperfect place.

Sometimes people come here expecting utopia. Then, they are disappointed, not realizing that where they came from things were a whole lot worse. My wife and I always think back about India. Although we were from quite well-off, land-owning families, who were able to put us into English medium schools, we are nevertheless observant and aware of the plight of the poor and other huge problems in the old country. So, we remain ever grateful to have made it here. The main reason we came here is not survival so much, because that was not a problem in India. For us, the motivation was that the US is where all the exciting things are happening. So many innovations happen here, even the Internet started here!

If you travel to India sometime, you will understand what I'm saying. All Indian families very proudly boast that they have a son or daughter who is a professional in the US. It's a status symbol for them. When I was a child, just about anything from the US was a status symbol - the latest Superman comics, Levis jeans you name it. Even if you brought a paper clip from the US into India, you could get people bidding on it! Just try and take a Harley into India and see how many businessman will beat down your door with fabulous offers. Now, of course, import restrictions have been eased up and there's a lot more stuff available locally in India. You'll find that common people will treat you very well and invite you into their homes as an honoured guest.

Having said that, I will also admit that there are fanatic groups from older schools of thought, that are very worried about losing their control over people. They see newer generations enamoured by the West/US and fear this influence. So, they try to regain control by painting the West and Western culture as the bogey man.

The fact of the matter is that Western culture has already permeated the East and the third world irrevocably. Just look at TV Asia soap operas sometime (I know they're hideous, but...). Hardly a sentence is spoken by Indian soap opera stars without mixing English into it. It's the fashion, the craze. Even the cobbler down the street, will substitute English for words in Indian sentences, much like my math teacher in Boston University, took every opportunity to use the French expression "deja vu" whether it made sense or not. Now, some of the conservative older generations see this as a corruption of their culture.

However, cultures and languages are not static. They have evolved and borrowed from each other over centuries. Why should that change now. Even in American English, everyone is familiar with Indian words like Nirvana, Yoga, Karma, Guru, Pundit, Jungle, Verandah, Pyjama, and hundreds of others from countries around the globe.

I think, mixing of cultures and people is enriching instead of corrupting. We've learned so much here from friends we've made from all over the world. The diversity of the US alone is so enriching, that it's reason enough to want to settle here. Yet there are others who fear change and have a need for control at any cost. They are the ones who create the problems. The common people in the third world as a whole do not hate the US. It's only small groups of clueless, misled, people under the influence of control freaks, that are extremely vocal and therefore capture the Western media's attention. This focus creates an impression, in Western minds that everyone hates the West.

For example, if you saw even a million Indian Muslims burning effigies of Uncle Sam on TV, this is still only 1 percent of 100 million Indian Muslims, or just 1 out of 100. Actually, it's more like 100 thousand demonstrators at the most, and even those guys have been bribed to turn out, and of those that do turn out, 50 percent are more concerned about how much chili powder they could have sold during the time lost demonstrating. The rest of the population is just too busy trying to survive.

Since human evolution has never stopped so far, I don't see the control freaks, in positions of power, around for more than a generation or two. With the Internet, we can make friends, put down our thoughts, and make connections to people in far away places in ways that were not possible before. When high speed Internet finally comes, we may be able to talk, live, face to face with people all over the world at minimal cost. Once that kind of communication gets going, then repressive governments and control freaks won't have a chance. Because at heart, all humans are the same. We only imagine we're different. To find out we're all the same, we just have to get everyone communicating and the evolution of understanding will follow automatically.

I think English has finally emerged as the Lingua Franca of the world today. By far the best investment for the West is to somehow make the learning of English and the Internet freely available throughout the world.

That would do much more to cure the world of its problems than billion dollar guided misiles. The US media beams MTV from satellites into Indian villages. What a waste! How can Michael Jackson's gyrations bring about world peace? Why not beam English language learning programs. Once there is a common language and a universal medium of communication, everything else will evolve in the right direction. You can already see this starting today with the Internet, so I think the future is very bright. A few decades later, we may look at the events of the past months as the last, desperate, dying hiccups of the control freaks.

Anyway, sorry for the long blab. I can't help it sometimes when I get the chance to say something on topics of interest to me.

Here are pictures of my wife Albina and myself at the time of our marriage in 1989. Albina is wearing the traditional Indian wedding dress in all its splendour. My American born niece thought she was an Indian Christmas tree! I think, I could make a good sample portrait out of her picture.

Regards from Albina and Tarique