The Return Voyage of the Mayflower

Recently an irate reader of mine took me to task for criticizing the foreign policy of our government. He questioned my patriotism and my loyalty to this country. What amused (and startled me) was his angry suggestion that I should go back to the country of my origin and help ‘your own people that our young boys are helping overseas’. He also reminded me, as if I need to be reminded, that I should be gratefulfor being in this country rather than criticize the policies of our government.

While it is tempting to brush aside such outbursts as ranting of an otherwise educated professional who happens to be a xenophobe and an Islamophobe, close scrutiny reveals that such attitude has become rather pervasive since 9/11. Some how every one who looks different and thinks different is a suspect and a turncoat. This attitude, permit me to call it un-American, is not uncommon in some of the third world countries where nationalistic and religious fervor fuels the fires of prejudice and intolerance. Ours is a pluralistic society that accommodates and encourages conflicting and opposing opinions. Here in America one could speak out loudly and stridently without being reminded of one’s foreignness or for that matter one’s legitimacy.

This raises some interesting questions. Does society expect immigrants to be more loyal and toe the government line on foreign policy than the old immigrants and American born citizens? And how long does it take to wash away the foreign label and become part of the fabric of the society? When does the brown skin, slurred R’s and ‘Middle Eastern’ sounding names become irrelevant?

I am mindful that immigrant experience in this country has not always been picture perfect. At different times various immigrant groups- Italians, Irish, Japanese, Jews- have been singled out as undesirable and subjected to social and occasionally governmental persecution. Now in the post 9/11 America it appears to be the turn of Arabs and Muslims. The neo-cons and their spiritual gurus, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Franklin Graham and the like, have been ratcheting up hateful rhetoric not only against those who perpetrated crimes against this country but also against the religion itself and by implication against all those who profess to it. All one has to do it to look at the fatwas and edicts emanating from the high priest of judiciary and the potentate of the sacred religion of extreme conservatism to realize how scary it has become.

My case is rather simple. Forty years ago I made a conscious decision to make this country my home. I did not leave Pakistan, my native land, out of persecution or economic hardship. America offered opportunities not only for personal and professional growth but also provided an intellectual freedom that has been sorely missing in many places around the world. What I did not do, neither a pre-requisite nor advisable, to wrap myself in the flag and jump head on into an ocean of symbolic and occasionally misguided patriotism. To be an American, even a hyphenated one, is much more precious and sacred than the symbolic rah- rah-rah of the amen crowd.

We pride ourselves as a country of immigrants. It just happens that some of us did not get on the first boat leaving for America a couple of hundred years ago. But still we came to pursue a dream that at least to some of us is much more meaningful and significant than the flashy consumerism that many people around the world and even here in our own country equate with America.

These past 40 years I have received a bounty of goodwill and unprecedented opportunities in this country for which I remain indebted on a very deep and personal level. In return I have also, to some small measure, contributed to the society. To put it bluntly it has been a two way street just as it has been for many other ethnic and religious groups in this country. And like them I also subscribe to and believe in the secular democratic values of my adopted homeland.

So when in a fit of juvenile hysteria some self-styled patriot demands that I pack up and go back to the country of my origin, I am amused by the absurdity of the very thought. Suppose we start applying an arbitrary patriotic litmus test to all immigrants, new arrivals as well as old ones, to test their loyalty. And suppose we force those who fail the test to pack up and leave on a one-way return journey on some modern days Mayflowers. I for one would find it difficult to find a berth because most of these ships would be heading towards European ports rather than Karachi, Mumbai or Calcutta.

Amjad Hussain is a columnist on the op-ed pages of the daily Toledo Blade and a clinical professor of surgery at the Medical College of Ohio.

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