Tyranny of Shaming
American Race Wars as Seen by an Immigrant

by Nonie Darwish • March 11, 2018 at 5:00 am

The bias of many Americans against American values has blinded them from seeing the reasons we immigrants went through hell to come to this country. Many Americans believe that those who criticize the culture from which we escaped must be "Islamophobic." They seem not to understand why we never again want to see what we have gone through so much to escape from.
Such attacks on the white majority in Americans are, bluntly, racist. It is a shame that so many Americans are unable or refuse to see what many immigrants see: that it was under this white majority that millions of oppressed people -- of all colors and creeds -- from around the world were rescued from tyranny, Sharia law, slavery, discrimination, Islamism and a miserable existence under corrupt, war-torn and famine-stricken nations. Instead, many seem to want to bring all that here.
We watched American freedoms as a dream: to be able to smile back at a man who opened the door for you without accusations of being a loose woman for smiling. To be able to wear what you want, go out when you want, work or get an education or not, and venture to hope one day to live under a system that respects monogamy and equal rights for women and minorities. Yes, it is the American culture where whites are the majority, no problem with that, that made our dreams come true. Despite its shortcomings no other country in the world offers its citizens the chance to be whatever they would like. We might never get back what we already have.

(Image source: Lisa Norwood/Flickr)

Every day we hear on television, "We need an honest discussion about race in this country".

Many well-meaning Americans, however, may have had enough of this endless, empty and dysfunctional discussion of race. To an outsider, Americans seem obsessed with race; and the discussion always deteriorates to shouting, insulting, blaming, finger-pointing, distorting reality and removing any hope of taking responsibility for oneself. The goal of the discussion always seems to be to try to claim that "I am holier than thou."

We immigrants, on the other hand, the minute we land in the US, we feel the political struggle for our vote.

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Iran: The French Soufflé Fails to Rise

by Amir Taheri • March 11, 2018 at 4:00 am

France's Foreign Minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, pictured on September 8, 2016 (when he was Minister of Defense). Photo by Adrian Dennis - WPA Pool/Getty Images.

According to those in the know in Paris, France's Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian is a smart soft-soaper capable of persuading a mule out of its hind legs.

A provincial politician, Le Drian emerged from relative obscurity towards the end of President François Hollande's much-maligned presidency. As Defense Minister in Hollande's government, Le Drian was quickly established as the star of a moribund administration.

While other ministers turned round vacuous illusions, Le Drian won a reputation as a "doer" (in French faiseur) by winning huge contracts for the sale of the latest French combat aircraft, the Dassault Rafale, to a number of countries including Brazil, Egypt and India, thus providing some good news for Hollande's bad-news tenure.

Le Drian was Socialist enough to survive several Cabinet reshuffles but not too Socialist to remain on board as the party's sinking ship.

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