Once again my fellow Americans embarass me...

[onager]

I'm (still) in Egypt. Today I was reading the English-language magazine Egypt Today.

The mag interviewed Samar Dahmash-Jarrah. She lived in various parts of the Arab world for 27 years and has lived in Florida for the past 16 years.

Dahmash-Jarrah was, like most people, horrified by 9/11. And doubly horrified by the anti-Arab, anti-Muslim propaganda that washed over America in the wake of that tragedy.

Unlike most people, she meant to do something about it. She started publicly speaking to Americans about the Arab world, and vice-versa.

Then she got the idea for a book:

She sent out an e-mail to American acquaintances asking them what one question they would pose to an Arab. Jarrah was bombarded by e-mails with hundreds of questions...

One of the most surprising questions was if Arabs knew who Jesus Christ was.

"Where do they think he was from? Rome?"

Excuse me...

:rofl:

"Where did monotheism emerge? Where did the prophets walk? In the Arab world. (Americans) do not know that Jesus Christ was in Palestine," says Jarrah...

Standard Disclaimer: Angry Whackjob Atheist here. I don't have a god in this fight.

[xchrom]

1. it's amazing when americans know the capital of ohio --

let alone asking arabs ''do you know jesus?'' -- of course there is no right answer.

because if a muslim says they do know jesus -- then the next question is -- do you know my jesus?''

implying that unless you know jesus in a particular context -- you don't know jesus at all -- it's bottomless.

[boobooday]

2. It wouldn't even matter if Americans were totally uninformed

If they knew one thing:

Pre-Emptive war is wrong, and war for profit is immoral.

And even in their Jesus-centric, American exceptionalist bubble, they could know this.

If they knew this, it wouldn't bother me one bit for most of them to know nothing about Arabs, and nothing about American geography, and nothing about history.

[patrice]

3. Many tolerate "Money-changers" in their churches.

It's all about doing "Christian" business. Call a local business on the phone, or look at their phone book ad, you see fish, or they tell you on the phone they're "Christian". Their churches are not about Jesus. They ARE about doing business with one another and anyone else they can get ahold of. It's creepy and anti-Freedom.

[pink-o]

4. Oh, that's par for the course!

I could tell you so many stories about American stupidity it would make your hair curl! But let me narrow it down to my one favourite...

My Brit friend was in a coffee shop in a little college town in New Hampshire. She struck up a conversation with a yankee woman close to her age, and after about 10 minutes, the yank asked my friend where she was from.

My friend replied that she grew up in Chester, just about 100 miles northwest of London. The American processed this info, and sat silent for a moment before finally saying....


(wait for it....)


"So where did you learn to speak our language so well?"

[donsu]

5. how sad that americans are so ignorant and don't even know it

it reminds me of one of the wife swap TV shows. a black american wife went to an american family of Japanese origin. the black woman thought everyone in asia spoke the same language. the japanese american guy had to explain to her that in Japan they spoke Japanese, in China, Chinese, etc.

she said 'oh'