saddam and middle school
December 16, 2003 12:32 PM

My first thought when the news started showing pictures of Saddam Hussein post-capture: Aw, he looks cute.

Really, with a softer haircut and rid of the Stalin facial hair, he looks like a fuzzy little old man. Cute.

And this is why I don't comment much on international news.

Something that pisses me off, though. When I was in middle school (in the eighties), I distinctly recall being taught that Sunni Muslims were the friendly, secular, "good" Muslims, and that Shi'ites were basically raving fundamentalist meanie mean pantses who were not our friends. And now the news is all "yay, Shi'ites"/"Sunni sucks" and apparently we're not at all concerned about fundamentalism - ironically, a word I came to associate with "narrow-minded badness" through my education in a southern US state, right next to one of the hotbeds of christian fundamentalism. Which is worrisome (not my ironic education, the whole Sunni/Shi'ite thing).

I mean, first, this proves that our government's perspective of the week has a major influence on textbooks, what kids learn, etc. Ergo - the citizens aren't very informed, because someone else decides what most of us get informed about and how. So, okay, we knew that. But it's still disturbing to see it proved so blatantly. I'm feeling a little police-statey here.

And of course, there's the whole implication of a judgement upon non-christian religions in what's supposed to be a secular school system. Not to mention the semi-racist implications of our general attitudes towards fundamentalism in Islam.

But worst of all is that, let's face it, we're big liars. It's absolutely to be expected that, over 15 years of changing US interests in the Middle East, our allegiances would shift. Seriously, people, it's a bit absurd to criticize the US simply for having supported some group that turns out years later to be a group we don't like. Sometimes people make mistakes, or things change. But to not own up to those mistakes is lying, and failing to take accountability for the parts of our problems that we contributed to ourselves.