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My thoughts, all serious, on important issues and events. |
| A MAIL ABOUT USA AND MY RESPONSE TO IT [Who is an American?] The following is an actual correspondence, dated 26 January 2009. The mail in question was posted on a list of AIIMS doctors settled in USA. My riposte was posted there. I am reproducing here for those who might like to view it. THE MAIL— “To Kill an American” You probably missed this in the rush of news, but there was actually a report that someone in Pakistan had published in a newspaper, an offer of a reward to anyone who killed an American, any American. So an Australian dentist wrote an editorial the following day to let everyone know what an American is. So they would know when they found one. (Good one, mate!!!!) 'An American is English, or French, or Italian, Irish, German, Spanish, Polish, Russian or Greek. An American may also be Canadian, Mexican, African, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Australian, Iranian, Asian, or Arab, or Pakistani or Afghan. An American may also be a Comanche, Cherokee, Osage, Blackfoot, Navaho, Apache, Seminole or one of the many other tribes known as Native Americans. An American is Christian, or he could be Jewish, or Buddhist, or Muslim. In fact, there are more Muslims in America than in Afghanistan. The only difference is that in America they are free to worship as each of them chooses. An American is also free to believe in no religion. For that he will answer only to God, not to the government, or to armed thugs claiming to speak for the government and for God. An American lives in the most prosperous land in the history of the world. ; The root of that prosperity can be found in the Declaration of Independence, which recognizes the God given right of each person to the pursuit of happiness. An American is generous. Americans have helped out just about every other nation in the world in their time of need, never asking a thing in return. When Afghanistan was overrun by the Soviet army 20 years ago, Americans came with arms and supplies to enable the people to win back their country! As of the morning of September 11, Americans had given more than any other nation to the poor in Afghanistan. The national symbol of America, The Statue of Liberty, welcomes your tired and your poor, the wretched refuse of your teeming shores, the homeless, tempest tossed. These in fact are the people who built America. Some of them were working in the Twin Towers the morning of 11 September, 2001 earning a better life for their families. It's been told that the World Trade Center victims were from at least 30 different countries, cultures, and first languages, including those that aided and abetted the terrorists. So you can try to kill an American if you must. Hitler did. So did General Tojo , and Stalin , and Mao Tse-Tung, and other blood-thirsty tyrants in the world. But, in doing so you would just be killing yourself. Because Americans are not a particular people from a particular place. They are the embodiment of the human spirit of freedom. Everyone who holds to that spirit, everywhere, is an American. ***************** MY RESPONSE— It is all good hype, correct to the extent that appears here. But, hypes are hypes, including the following-- "Because Americans are not a particular people from a particular place. They are the embodiment of the human spirit of freedom. Everyone who holds to that spirit, everywhere, is an American." >> I am sure that each member of this list, including myself, is an "embodiment of the human spirit of freedom and holds to that spirit". That being so, will uncle Sam save me from penury because I am "An American?" And, presuming, for sake of discussion that it will, why should I wish to eat tainted bread rather than live or die in penury? Is not that bread tainted with the treacherous WMD? Does it not stink from the blood of a Prez assassinated because he wanted payment for his goods in Euros, not American dollars? Is that bread not haunted by the souls of women and children and civilians bombed for 9/11, when probably 14 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi Arabian and probably none an Iraqi. Is that bread not burnt charcoal black by the napalm bombs dropped on thatched huts in Vietnam? No, my friend. I am not an American, even though I have an "embodiment of the human spirit of freedom and hold to that spirit". The human spirit of freedom has not yet been patented by the US Patents Office, though it has probably patented neem, Haldi, Dosa, Yoga, Basmati etc. So much for the great American spirit of freedom or the subjugation of freedom. I hope now that Bush has more time at his hands, he is busy filing papers with the Patents Office for patenting the new torture methods developed at Guantanamo and Abu Graib, and also for patenting the methods for discovery of WMD. To come to the fundamentals, let us hope the dentist in question or somebody else moves papers with the American Patents and Copyright Office for laying sole claim to the "Human spirit of freedom", denying it to the rest of the world outside the East and the West coast. If that is done, America and the American version of the "freedom of spirit" would truly have won. MC Gupta 5 March 2009 |
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