the olive branch of peice of my mind.

so you know those emails that get forwarded all the time, about politics or religion or whatever the flavor of the week has been? last week on thursday i got an email forward from one of my aunts. it was labeled: Allah or Jesus?

the email went on about a christian minister who was privy to a talk from a muslim imam. the imam, when questioned, apparently said that muslims view americans as infidels.

it's an email that i usually would just go for the Delete key on, as quickly as possible. but this time i read it, and a growing intolerance blossomed.

so instead of deleting it, i replied.

my argument was first that you cannot generalize all muslims, just as you cannot generalize all christians. labelling and generalizing are sad paths to destruction.

my second argument was that the lines that separate are far fewer than the ones that unite. the god of abraham is the christian God. the god of abraham is yaweh, jehovah, eloh, allah.

he's the same entity. and i'm sure he's laughing his ass off somewhere at this entire debate. or at least smirking. i know i wouldn't be able to help it.

anyway, my email was countered with an email that stated that in her neighborhood, my aunt has three (yes a whole THREE) muslim families, and they believe that my aunt and the neighborhood at large are infidels. they apparently look down their noses in scorn at the christians.

personally, i have a difficult time believing that these parents would willingly raise their children in an area peopled with the Bad Guys if they believed such.

but that might just be me.

***

at the end of her email, my aunt said: "Allah or Jesus, Kim? I know my choice is simple."

it comes down to faith, dan said, and you can't argue with faith.

and that part at least is true. part of my argument was based on discussions i'd had with my muslim coworker, dilshad, who was frankly appalled that the american public grouped all muslims in the same terrorist family, despite the fact that the Qur'an does not support or encourage such activity. in fact, the actual dictate in their holy book is that to kill one human is to kill all humans, and to help one is to help all.

the thing that got me, that i keep going back to, is when my aunt said in the same email that perhaps the dilshads of the world would be able to educate the muslims about american culture.

i so badly wanted to return fire: dilshad IS american. perhaps you ought to take a lesson from her, instead.

***

when i was a kid i was always afraid of the monster under the bed. it wasn't even so much the monster; it was the shadow, the idea of lurking darkness, the unknown. for the same reason i never jumped off a boat and swam in the middle of lakes--the murky bottom was reaching up, in my imagination, to grasp a toe and gently drag me under dim weeds.

i see my aunt in this same way. i see her lack of compassion, fueled by imagination and lack of understanding, stretching forth a hand and tugging her away. i see that the monster under the bed, the one that switches our "terror alert" from level to another is that self same monster.

i think of my own family tree, stretching back across the ocean. my family is here, i am an american, because somewhere back in time, some little genetic coding urged my family west. i think of the irish in history, the oppression and the derision. the slurs for my italian grandfathers.

in my aunt i see hypocracy--the fact that she is a child of immigrants who themselves had to stand up to the accusations she spews.

you would think, in a country based on cultural differences and the freedom of religion, that there would be more compassion for your neighbor, who has climbed the same ladder.