'Torture and Truth'

[struggle4progress]

<snip> The young man-I'll call him Salih-listened, answered patiently in his limited but eloquent English, but soon became impatient with what he plainly saw as my American obsession with categories and particulars. Finally he interrupted my litany of questions, pushed his face close to mine, and spoke to me slowly and emphatically:

For Fallujans it is a shame to have foreigners break down their doors. It is a shame for them to have foreigners stop and search their women. It is a shame for the foreigners to put a bag over their heads, to make a man lie on the ground with your shoe on his neck. This is a great shame, you understand? This is a great shame for the whole tribe. It is the duty of that man, and of that tribe, to get revenge on this soldier -- to kill that man. Their duty is to attack them, to wash the shame. The shame is a stain, a dirty thing; they have to wash it. No sleep -- we cannot sleep until we have revenge. They have to kill soldiers.

He leaned back and looked at me, then tried one more time. "The Americans," he said, "provoke the people. They don't respect the people." <snip>

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/23/books/chapters/0123-1st-danner.html

[Acryliccalico]

1. Our government does not

understand that our culture is not the only culture. We would not like it if people came here and broke down our doors and took us into custody without telling us what we were being taken for. Our government has committed crimes against humanity. I know this might sound radical but it is what I believe. Sociology class was an eye opener for me. One of the books we studied was: "Seeing Ourselves: Classic, Contemporary, and Cross- Cultural Readings in Sociology" by John J. Macionis & Nijole V. Benokraitis. 1992, I had this class in 92 and don't know if this book is still available but I recommend it highly.