Xenophobia - People Like Us

During the cold war we thought of the soviets as cogs in a great colorless, flavorless, totalitarian dystopia. We were astounded when Gorbachev broke the frost with Glasnost and we discovered that most soviets were actually just ordinary people with common sense leading simple existences who just wanted a decent life for themselves and their children. The world breathed a sigh of relief.

In the period between the end of the cold war and the war on terrorism the atmosphere in America was permeated with a kind of shell shocked mixture of hope and joy that truly the apocalypse had not come and the earth would continue to spin gracefully around the sun. And yet, in America there was a slight undercurrent of nameless tension, a casting about for a new enemy because truly we had forgotten how to live in peace- if we had ever known.

It is my sincerest hope that we will remember that people in the Middle East are not cogs in some great faceless illogical terror but are in fact ordinary people, leading ordinary lives, trying to get by somehow and create a better future for their children. I hope that we will remember that the Middle East is the cradle of civilization, a place rich with culture, and filled with highly literate, sophisticated and evolved people from many races, religions and viewpoints.