Daily Archives: November 25, 2002

cultural insensitivity

Cunundrum. The vernacular approach to “Happy Thanksgiving” is “Celebrate life and love with family and friends”. Yet, Thanksgiving is a holiday based on destruction, death and imperialism. What does it mean to be a holiday? To celebrate these values? I hadn’t really remembered that Thanksgiving was approaching, because i never actually wish anyone a Happy Thanksgiving, partially outta frustration that i see that day as my birth day and therefore refuse to give it the violent inscription, since i need to own it for my own sanity… But then, at last night’s Ani concert, some punk ass screamed out “Happy Thanksgiving Ani” and Ani stopped singing and said “Imagine living in a country where our holidays celebrate life instead of death.” Of course, this made me smile, because i couldn’t agree more.

And now i’m faced with a situation. I need to tell 1000 people that we’re not going to be doing our normal weekly thang because of the holiday, but how do you politely and respectfully say what the vernacular means without implying the historical insensitivity?

empire

Well, we are certainly becoming a new roman empire (and most likely we will also fall). And finally Osama has decried his reasons for which we should. Reading through that is quite impressive. As a disbeliever of all Zoroastrian-derived religions, i couldn’t help but disagree with his world view in relation to religion and sexual/social morality, yet so many of his points regarding policies, politics and ethics were so accurate and the wakeup call that i wanted the US to have after WTC that it was quite eerie to read this message, regardless of who its author might actually be. Aside from his statements about our foreign policies, one point struck me in an interesting way:

You are a nation that exploits women like consumer products or advertising tools calling upon customers to purchase them. You use women to serve passengers, visitors, and strangers to increase your profit margins. You then rant that you support the liberation of women.

Oh, and friends have also pointed out similar articles of interest:
– The Push For War
– Our Way: The Trouble with Being the World’s Only Superpower