Report from the East

[Jon Ford]

Wow--Just a few weeks ago Turkey was being held up in the news as the 
solitary model of the desirable Middle-eastern "secular," forward-looking 
society. Times are a changin'!

Jon


>From: clifford endres <endres@superonline.com>
>To: <StepCher@aol.com>, <telebob98@hotmail.com>, 
><austin-ghetto-list@pairlist.net>
>Subject: Report from the East
>Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2001 14:59:15 +0300
>
>Fellow Americans,
>
>For what it's worth, here are two events that happened to me yesterday.
>
>One, first thing in the morning, as I leave the house one of my neighbors
>comes up to me and says, "We're with you, brother, against those nasty
>Arabs.  That business is about what you can expect of an Arab."  I thank 
>her
>and move on.
>
>Two, I'm in a stationery store in the afternoon, buying some paper, when 
>one
>of the two women behind the counter asks me where I'm from.  I confess that
>I'm an American.
>
>"We don't like Americans here," she says.
>"Why?"
>"Just think about it," she replies.
>
>The other one chimes in, "We hate your country and your Bush and your war."
>
>And with icy Turkish politeness, they invited me to finish my business and
>leave.  Discussion finished.
>
>First time anything like anti-Americanism had ever happened to me here,
>except for the occasional wild-eyed student Marxist on the street.  The 
>more
>I thought about it, though, the more I considered it might be the mirror
>image of monolithic American anti-Muslimism.  If so, and it spreads, we
>appear to be in for some shit.
>
>Your Constantinople correspondent,
>Cliff
>
>


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