Imperialist America

Allow me a bit of banality for clarity’s sake for a moment: living in a foreign country, you hear and read and see a different perspective on your own. I’ve read numerous articles, seen countless opinion letters, and heard endless conversations calling America “imperialist,” or perhaps “the great oppressor,” or, the favorite of the Muslim world, “The Great Satan.”

Now it is not my intention in the least to defend America as a “godly” nation, nor even as an ideal nation. Our sins are certainly plain as day—I don’t even think a brief list is necessary here. What I am asking, however, is that we use some balance and perspective in the way we talk about our country and others.

Let me take, for example, the current South Asian country in which I live—let’s name it The Moon. On The Moon, justice, or perhaps I should specify “social justice,” is negligibly existent for those with no money, power, or class.

An American friend of mine who lives nearby told me once of a friend who had come to visit him. He asked for a rather sizable loan for a trip he was making to see his brother in a distant state. My friend refused as the man wouldn’t clarify exactly what the money was for, and, as he later found out, was quite justified in his decision. It turns out the man had gone to “help his brother win an election” in a rural area. Their method of campaign was to fight the opposing party—and I mean physically, with fists and sticks and weapons—and then to pay the police to only arrest the members of the opposition. Needless to say, without any competition, the man won in a landslide. Thus goes democracy on The Moon.

And this is not an isolated incident. I told this story to one of my friends who is from The Moon, and his response was not utmost surprise but rather a knowing nod and a “yes, this happens very often.” In a country neighboring the Moon, I heard a story about a man put in jail for insulting the prophet Muhammed. Fortunately (a word used relatively in this case), he was put into a “VIP” cell with members of a political party who had been thrown in jail for, well, once again, being the opposition.

I could go on. But there are other issues to see.

Child marriages are far too often the rule on the Moon, not the exception. Girls as young as 5 (and younger) have been married to men far, far older. They are not allowed to reach full physical maturity before the marriage is consummated.

Girls who are taken from their villages and sold into prostitution may consider the married ones lucky, however. These girls (and yes, I mean girls, not women) are taken from their families and homes into large cities where they are stuffed into rooms about the size of your bathroom and forced to have sex with strangers for money. Why forced? Because of the massive debt they must pay off before they can gain “their freedom.” Most girls are never able to pay off their debt, as they are charged astronomical (again, a relative term) prices for the rooms they rent, and because they soon have children to take care of, with no husband or any male figure whatsoever to help.

The Moon has some wonderful laws. Good laws, great laws even. They are enforced insofar as no one can make money from their not being enforced. Bribes are the rule—it wouldn’t be amiss to say The Moon runs on bribes. Moon politicians regularly hold “offices of profit.” What this means is that when they assume a position of power, they are “entitled” to another position in which they do absolutely no work, but simply collect the salary from at the end of the month.

I see I’ve gone on too long. More about The Moon and conclusions to come.