Let's Be Clear About Something

Nationalism and Patriotism are two different concepts.

A patriot loves his or her country, and wants it to be the best it can be. To that end, a patriot acknowledges his or her country’s problems, and engages in peaceful means of bringing attention to those issues.

A nationalist, however, steadfastly believes his or her country is the best in the world, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a traitor. He or she also believes there is no place for those of other nationalities in their country; they can only do it harm, since it already is the best country ever! To wit…

Deutchland Uber Alles, Uber Alles In Der Welt!!!

These lyrics were written as part of the German national anthem in the mid 19th century, the first time Germany was unified. It was a wave of nationalism that brought about that unification, hence those lyrics. Those words only referred to the many smaller municipalities surrounding Germany at the time, and how the newly unified Germany was more powerful than them.

No big deal, right?

But then Hitler came to power and elevated those lyrics to their nationalist acme. And that’s why, gentle reader, after kicking Hitler’s ass, the allies banned the public singing of the German national anthem, until the mid 1950s, when most of the lyrics, including the aforementioned lines.

Hitler ruins everything. Asshole.

Nationalism does unite the people, but it does so out of fear and loathing of the outsider, the ‘common enemy’ shared between the nationalist center and those outcast from other parts of the society who don’t believe they will survive on their own. It is because of this core belief that nationalism almost always brings about violence against that ‘common enemy’ and its perceived allies, culminating in revolution, war, so on and so forth.

Don’t believe me? Read on.

During the French Revolution, that ‘common enemy’ was the bourgeois, who were completely annihilated, swept up in the massive wave of bloodlust of the proletariat, along with anyone else who even remotely resembled them in some way, as well as many innocents. During the rise of the Third Reich… well, you already know. this one. The Islamic Revolution in Iran united the long suffering middle and lower classes against America, “The Great Satan”, and brought about mass execution of ‘loyalist's’ to the Shah, and later, when it went sideways, included communists and anyone with the slightest leftist leanings.

And here we are, in 21st century USA, and those same nationalist forces are getting stronger, spurned on by Trump, and attracting the disenfranchised and loners against a new ‘common enemy’; immigrants, Muslims, and liberals.

For now.

Gentle reader, history warns us there is bloodshed to come, if we allow these nationalists to run roughshod over common sense and basic human decency. Stopping them has become all the more difficult because of the mind boggling presidency of Trump, but it can be done. It should be done. So I beg of you, do the right thing at every chance. Have compassion and empathy. Use that compassion to love your country; our country. It’s a wonderful country, and we can keep it that way.

If we stand up and be patriots, not nationalists.

That Feeling I Used To Get

I was 14 when I was no longer able to deflect my dad’s insistence that I learn how to drive. Even mother’s doomsday predictions regarding my fate if I drove in the pothole strewn dirt roads of Dar-Es Salaam did little to dissuade dad from tossing me the car keys one fine Saturday morning and gently but firmly shoving me out the front door and toward the white Peugeot 505 estate that was our mode of transport.

Sitting behind the dark blue plastic wheel, and with dad in the front passenger seat to my left, I swallowed the lump in my throat and turned the key in the ignition, my right foot gently pressing the accelerator. As the engine roared to life, I felt a steady vibration climb up my arms and into my body. I buzzed at the same frequency as the massive car, and my stressed expression faded as a smile took over.

It felt good.

Over the next hour or so, and later in subsequent lessons, dad thought me that that engine buzz was also the car’s way of communicating with me, the driver. This was 1988, and cars were very much mechanical entities. We were still a long way from engine computers, traction control, electrically assisted and fly by wire steering, DSG transmissions with pedal shifters, and all the other electric and electronic drivers’ aids that are virtually commonplace in cars these days. Heck, back then, most cars didn’t even have rev counters!

And that was where that engine buzz came in. It told the driver about the health of the engine and its components. It changed from idle to highway speeds, letting the driver know if the spark plugs were misfiring, if it was time to shift up or down, if the carburetor needed adjustment, so on and so forth.

The steering wheel itself also spoke to the driver; whether or not the front end needed alignment, which wheel was out of balance (is that still a thing, balancing the wheels?), which tire was worn out and needed replacing, the state of the CV joints keeping the front wheels attached to the car… Every single driver control, every pedal, every sound from a car meant something to the driver, and made him or her a better driver as a result.

Alas, gentle reader, those days have gone the way of the dodo.

Nowadays, a central computer unit monitors and controls all aspects of the car engine’s operations, traction control keeps even the worst drivers out of the ditch, LED lights and brightly lit tachometers tell the driver the best time to shift, and computerized automatic transmissions allow for smooth, almost instantaneous shifts, all without the need for the drivers’ skilled left leg. All a driver has to do these days is steer the electrically assisted steering wheel. In many cars, they don’t even have to do that much! Cameras and GPS keep the car in lane, and a safe distance from the car in front.

Worst of all, in a lot of cars, steering wheels aren’t even physically connected to the front wheels!

For Pete’s sake!!!

All this of course has a lot to do with the advent of the electric car, itself necessitated by climate change and the immediate need to embrace an alternative to fossil fuels to feed our transportation needs. After all, electric cars don’t buzz or roar, they have no gearboxes, and include the bare minimum of mechanical parts. These days, if you want to ‘feel’ like a driver, you have to race. Especially off road. You’ll feel everything off road. Oh yeah.

I’m going to miss driving. I mean driving like I used to, like most people used to. I’m going to miss feeling like I am in control of a mass of machinery, of gears, springs, pistons; mechanical parts I could repair easily or at not much costs by a mechanic. I’m especially going to miss looking under the bonnet of my car and seeing an engine, and not feeling like a complete idiot.

It’s a sign of the times, I suppose. Technology moves on and drags us along with it. And for the most part, I’m okay with this. But I promise you, here and now, that I will resist technology taking away the one thing I used to love to do, that I enjoyed doing, even if it was just going to the grocery store and back. Even with my useless right leg eliminating the likelihood of me ever driving a stick shift again, I will resist these bland, numb, impassive ‘cars’.

I’m not done feeling yet.

Migrants’ Song

My parents and I were lucky.

We never had to slog through deserts and oceans only to be turned away at the border. I was never separated from dad and mom and stashed away in a chicken wire fenced pen for months on end without basic necessities.

After all, this was the world before 9/11, before even Desert Storm, before what little sympathy there was for Middle Easterns turned to suspicious hatred and vitriol. All we had to do was file the necessary visa paperwork and show that we have the support of mom’s family, who at that point had already been living in the US for more than a decade. Mom came over in 1990, followed by me in April 1992, with dad bringing up the rear in June of the same year.

There we were, the whole family, back together again, all on tourist visas. Dad and mom scraped together whatever money they could and hired lawyers and kickstarted our green card applications. As the only English fluent of the bunch, it all fell to me to fill out applications, translate between lawyers and parents, irrelevant and redundant as their interruptions may have been (looking right at you, mother!), and navigate between the many floors of the main INS building in Arlington, Va during numerous fingerprinting and ID photography. All the while I also had to deal with an argumentative and critical dad and a whiny, needy mom. Suddenly, I was the parents and they were the children.

Meanwhile, dad and mom slowly sold everything of value we had to pay the lawyers and keep our cases going forward. The last of those possessions to go were their gold wedding bands. We were all heartbroken to see those go, even me. I still don’t know why.

At last, after many months of skipping meals, sleeping in the car, begging Iranian business owners for under the table work, and quite a few broken apartment leases, we all received our social security cards and work permits.

We could finally restart our lives in the land of opportunity. We could begin our pursuit of the American dream.

Sigh.

This, dear friends, was how we migrated to the US the legally, by going through proper channels. And I didn’t even mention my $5500 hospital bill when I collapsed my first night here, mom’s constant trips to the emergency room for God knows what, and all other life’s niggles and unknown variables. And we did it at a time when the world was a relatively kinder, gentler place; countries were more welcoming of strangers seeking a better, safer life, and “alt-right” was what you called your left hand.

I can only imagine what it’s like to try this today, in a world exploding at every corner and coming apart at the seams, where ‘different’ is hated and feared, and everyone confuses nationalism with patriotism. Where “shit happens” is an acceptable response to migrants dying en-route to a better life, and murder and genocide are forgiven in favor of capital gains.

Whatever or whenever the case may be, immigration process isn’t a fun, breezy adventure Undertaken when people are out of vacation ideas. At its legal best, it is a lengthy, very expensive, and mind boggling process. At its illegal worst, it is not only lengthy and very expensive, but also extremely dangerous and physically difficult. Every immigrant has a reason for abandoning their life in their native land and undertaking the journey.

So next time you call immigrants “nasty dirty freeloaders… a plight on our way of life”, and suggesting they use their religion and native clothing to illicit sympathy and gain entrance to your country, wherein they will divert your taxes to pay for their healthcare, maybe consider what I’ve said here and reconsider.