Tyler and Chris Argue, Part 3

Tyler:

The point is that the story in the hands of Chris Kaasa is different than in the hands of the American people, or for that matter the teller of the story. I don't mean to imply that you saw the story as a reason for hate, but rather that I believe the story is being told from a standpoint of a person whom I believe to be establishing his patriotism based on the fact that this was a Saudi. Do you honestly believe that, given the voice of the person telling the story, that he would really have felt the "most patriotic" of his life if the guy had been a member of British parliament? Do you think that the restaurant owner would have reacted so disrespectfully to an assertion of royalty if he had been prince of England? While this story may strengthen some, it emboldens others, and I am getting fairly sick and tired of American hatred of people from the middle east.

And because the reaction of the restaurant owner would quite clearly be different in the face of a different person of status, it IS a personal attack on the Prince. And how, in the sense of equal rights, do you assess the US to be leading the way? Europe has long been the pioneer of equality, with us remaining backward far beyond a reasonable point. And really, are you REALLY going to say you believe the owner was attempting to fulfill a unique historical mission and not just sticking to national loyalty?

Well, I thank you for the benefit of the doubt. And of course I can’t know for sure whether the author of this story is a principled egalitarian or a jingoistic simpleton – having read this particular individual’s musings for a long time, my sense is that he’s probably the former. But I don’t think it’s clear at all that “the reaction of the restaurant owner would be different in the face of a different person of status”, or that the author would have felt less patriotic spiting British royalty. (I don’t know, I would expect feelings of patriotism to be enhanced by a small reenactment of 1776; we’ll leave to one side the fact that unlike the inimitably thuggish House of Saud, the House of Windsor has generally gotten over the instinct to justify its more odious vices by blurting, “Don’t you know who I am?!”) In fact, it’s sort of a nasty insinuation, one that frankly, friend, has to be justified by something more substantive than a wink and a nudge.

One deplorable aspect of the public diplomacy between the U.S. and the Middle East is the ubiquitous conflation of social structure, culture and ethnicity – a denunciation of a social structure is not a denunciation of an ethnic group. To assume that it is an ethnic attack poisons the dialogue and accentuates enmity on all sides.

In any case, there is only one good way to respond to claims of royal (or ancestral, or tribal, or religious, or racial, or blue-eyed, or left-handed) privileges: With DISRESPECT for the entire notion. I’m quite sure that you’ll agree that there is no such thing as God-given birthright to superiority – the “prince” that claims such a privilege as a cornerstone of his identity has, I’m afraid, a FLAWED IDENTITY. The burden of proof is always on the individual who makes demands for special treatment. If he can give no reason, he deserves to be rebuked when he tries to take advantage of his false superiority.

And he doesn’t just deserve to be rebuked in America, either – this just happens to be one of the relatively few places on earth where “because I am ME” is not an acceptable reason. I assess the U.S. to be leading the way in that its organizing principle is not loyalty to an ethnicity or religious creed or language group, but adherence to a set of universally applicable ideas. America has never been about occupying an ancestral motherland. It has always been about a peculiarly egalitarian - and I think peculiarly better - way to live, or at least working to make that egalitarian and cosmopolitan way of life possible.

Europe has long been the pioneer of equality? Really? Are we talking about the same kind of equality? If you’re talking about economic equality, I’m with you. But if you’re talking about inborn rights and privileges, Europe has only truly hopped on that train since the end of World War II. We’re certainly behind on gay rights, owing to the sort of religious demagoguery that tainted Europe for so long. But the Old World is slipping back into its old habits of apartheid and reactionary identity politics – Middle Easterners and their descendants, one will have to conclude, are bound to experience far less hatred and persecution across the pond.