3/4/2002:
palestine keeps getting worse. afghanistan is still going. the philippines, georgia, iraq and yemen are next. listening to the BBC this evening [2002, Review of the Year] i didn’t know what to think. what is there to think? one just feels in cases like these. and [we] Americans (the administration, at least, but the public to the extent that [we] don’t protest) seem unable to do either; think or feel, that is. only for [our]selves.
and [we] send troops around the globe reflecting that... an ethnocentric egoism blind to how others are affected or may ultimately react. and [we] send volunteers around the globe talking about peace and understanding. i cannot believe i got a letter from George W telling me what an important job i’m doing. the hypocrisy disgusts me. makes me sick. ashamed that i’m out here. as an American... that i’d even begin to defend American values, ideals or culture... let alone represent them.
i was so disgusted as i listened to yet another self-righteous, myopic “ugly American” political viewpoint that it made me want to leave. head right to Yaounde and tear up my passport in front of anyone high enough to do something about it. to send me home. to take this label off of me. where do they get off? ...and how do i utter we anymore without buying into that same hypocrisy?
the Peace Corps... are you kidding me?!
this was a difficult journal entry to re-read (though i clearly remember how i felt writing it) and a difficult one to post.
ReplyDeleteyou'll notice that i changed all the third person references to America and Americans to first person. hence all the [we]s in brackets.
why? it's hard to go into all the detail... suffice it to say that i realize now that the "we" is more than a label i can simply take off or tear up. like a passport.
i need to own that "we" and the hypocrisy that comes along with it. as a first step. what are the next steps? i'm working on them...
salaam :)
mohamad
p.s. i'll look for that letter from George W and post it... i believe we got it around the holiday season, end of 2001.
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