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opinion:
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Avoid
old mistakes in current crisis
LONDON - Bob Dylan once sang: "The times they are a changin’."
This is the society we now live in.
As students looking at the tragedy, we try to decide when everything
will just be all right. For me it becomes a different
issue. It is not only the death of the victims, nor the
suffering the families will go through. It is the one
belief that not many can fathom.
There is the possibility of the Middle Eastern citizens in the
United States being sent to internment camps as the Japanese
once were. Being from a bi-racial family, it never once crossed
my mind until now that race and religion can separate and divide
our nation as the African American civil rights did in the ’60s.
Growing up with an Iranian mother whose father was a diplomat
to the shah, and a father whose roots went back to the beginning
of the Anglo-American race, it became a clear sign that I was
never going to suppress my heritage. To this day, when
I am asked what my nationality is, I respond with the proud
answer of, "I am half-Iranian and half-American."
But with the terrorist attack on New York and Washington on
Tuesday, I question whether or not my being Iranian is what
the public wants to hear.
Most of the community groups all of the countries in the Middle
East together, without knowing their beliefs and style of government.
They are all clustered as "terrorist countries," and
now it will become even worse. Many women in London have
already become harassed due to their Islamic style of dress,
and what makes us think that if it has already started in London
that it is any different in the States?
Now I agree there are people in this world who are happy about
the attacks, but there are many on the U.S. side who feel that
whatever country attacked the US should be punished.
For example I spoke to my mother yesterday and asked her how
she felt about the Middle East being grouped into one terrorist
cluster. Her response was, "It disheartens me to think
that people can be so ignorant, for example, if it is Afghanistan
then the country should deal with Afghanistan and leave the
other countries alone."
I believe that now many people with Middle Eastern descent are
afraid of what could happen to them in the near future.
Will there be any type of camps implemented? Will many
of them be harassed? Will they live reclusive lives?
These are the questions that I ask myself at night.
While many students here are terribly upset about the tragedy
that happened in the U.S., I am upset for different reasons.
I am hoping that in the day and age we live in, the strongest
of our race will grow from this experience rather than shut
those who are different out.
Tanya Gorman is a junior political science major from Cal
State Long Beach studying at South Kensington University in
London this semester. |
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