"What's Going On?"

Most times, when I think about what's going on in America these days, Marvin Gaye's lyrics are the sound track in my brain.

"Picket lines, and picket signs. Don't punish me with brutality. Talk to me, so you can see, Aw, what's going on."

So-called "Tea Parties," and Islamic Center protests, and laws requiring Mexicans to show their papers or get deported, and Quran burning, and just a lot of ugliness that frankly, I've been away so long I surprise myself by how much it shocks me. Let's see, I left for Gulu in June of 2007, but even with a 5 month-stint in DC in 2008, I've spent most of the past 3 years living in East Africa. Because I missed the direct impact of the financial meltdown, the election of the first black President, massive unemployment and layoffs, and now, the shocking demonization of Muslims, I almost feel embarrassingly naive.

I thought about that yesterday at one of the suburban Nairobi shopping malls. It was the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, and I have never been in any venue with that many Muslims before in my life, all of whom were preparing for today's holiday, Idd ul Fitr. As I walked through the mass of women in mostly black gowns and head coverings (very few hard-core burqas, by the way), and men in their traditional gowns and caps, I realized that most folks back home would have completely freaked out in that setting, mostly because of the highly-charged media images they're inundated with.

Americans who've never even seen a copy of the Quran know what the word "jihad" means, because they've seen or read or heard news stories that imply every Muslim wants to declare it against America. And when the idiot in Florida decides to go for his 15 minutes of desecration-based fame, the cable networks rush to illustrate round the clock coverage of his bombast by using either file tape of fiery anti-American protests in Muslim countries, or sending crews to film new examples of impassioned outrage.

I understand that most human beings need to have those kinds of markers, those kinds of black and white symbols of good and evil. "My religion is right, yours is wrong. My skin color is better than yours. My country is more humane." And those are only the grandiose themes. We're further bogged down by, "My house is bigger than yours. My clothes are more expensive. I'm hotter than you are. My job is better, and I'm a lot smarter. And skinnier."

What IS it about being human, anyway??? Why can't we learn from history? For example, why can't we Americans remember that the country was formed primarily because the founders wanted to escape religious oppression, and form a country where you could believe and worship however you wanted?????

Oh, wait, see, there's another example of my increasing Expat naivete. It's like I'm almost forgetting sitting at home 9 years ago watching those planes slam into the World Trade Center and thinking it was the end of the world. For the first couple of 9/11 anniversaries afterwards, the shock was still so real, I wasn't really focusing on the religious-political implications of the act. I was still horrified at the loss of life, and the loss of those iconic buildings, and the loss of our seeming invulnerability on American soil.

But I suppose it was inevitable that something would tear off the scab and reveal the ugliness and pain and fear, and I suppose the plans for the Islamic Center near Ground Zero were just the ticket. As I process it from 8,000 miles away, I have to wonder if the historical cocktail of circumstances over the past nine years made what's happening in America right now completely unavoidable. Heightened conservative rhetoric and bullying in the political realm. Two soul-draining, life-snuffing, budget-busting wars. Fear and resentment of immigrant "usurpers." The election of the first black President who happens to have had a foreign father whose weird name he shares and who happened to be Muslim. Just like those evil men who slaughtered thousands of Americans 9 years ago, and who prayed in ways that seem weird and threatening, to a God who doesn't look like ours.

It's a pity we can't turn back the clock to September 10th, 2001, and then somehow make that day never end, just like a 9-year episode of "Groundhog Day" or something. But even if you could, and at some point during that day somebody told you that tomorrow, the World Trade Center would be destroyed and the Pentagon would be dive-bombed and a plane intended to destroy the U.S. Capitol would crash in a Pennsylvania field, and more than 3,000 Americans would be murdered horrifically, you might not have been able to comprehend it.

Sort of like I can't comprehend what's happening in my country right now.