Friends or enemies?
Thomas Friedman makes an interesting observation in his column published in our print edition today:
"If your name is Muhammad and you are a 21-year-old single Arab man and you have not visited Disney World yet, well, you may want to consider Euro Disney because your chances of getting a tourist visa are very low. Frankly, I wish this were not the case because we are preventing a lot of good, talented Arab men and women from getting educated in America, which is the best way of building friends. This is one of the sad byproducts of 9/11 -- but it has undoubtedly made it more difficult for the few bad apples to get in as well."
My question: Do we always make friends of college students from overseas, especially the Middle East?
Many Middle Easterners come from socially conservative countries. Do they appreciate our more liberal values or find confirmation of the denunciations they hear at home?
Then there's the political environment on many college campuses, which is hardly supportive of current U.S. foreign policy, particularly in regard to Iraq and Israel. If American college students are so strident in their condemnation of administration policies, won't foreign students be reinforced in their negative views of Washington?
I'm not suggesting there's anything wrong with free expression on college campuses or anywhere else. Far from it. Or that we should close the door to foreign students. They should be welcomed in reasonable numbers.
Furthermore, I don't doubt that many visitors find our society liberating, our people open and friendly, our democracy stimulating, and return home full of admiration for all things American.
But we do know of some foreigners who were educated here and left as enemies of our country. One was Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, an A&T engineering grad and alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.
A few examples don't prove much, except that Friedman is wrong about some foreign students at American universities.
Let's hope that in general we're educating a lot more friends than enemies.
Comments (10)
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Dad, you couldn't be more wrong on this. I know many, many foreign students here at UNCC and a large number of them are Muslim. Almost without exception they enjoy the freedom here and many who planned to go home after graduating end up staying and working here. And seeing the criticism of US policy on campus actually helps improve their view of us because they see that even if they do hate our policies they see that not all Americans are behind them. Once this happens we stop becoming this single giant of "America" and they see us as the diverse group of people with different opinions that we are. There are examples where this is not the case, but very few. We should do everything in out power to bring as many foreign students into this country as we can, especially from the Arab world. A few million American-educated Arabs will do more to fight the war on terror than all the bombs in the world.
Posted on April 15, 2005 10:55 AM
Thanks, Andrew. I hope you're right. You've met many more foreign young people than I have.
Posted on April 15, 2005 11:25 AM
Doug --
Sidestepping this issue, I recently had the opportunity to hear Friedman discuss his new book. It was fascinating. He basically argues that the US is being left behind in the race for the best computing, science and engineering jobs. In doing research for the book, he spoke to some of the brightest, most foward-looking business and social policy minds; none, he says, were in Washington.
I'd love to read it, but I've got to get in basketball playing shape, cause the national champion Tar Heels are going to need a point guard and power forward next year, and I've still got all of my eligibility.
Hope all is well.
Johann
Posted on April 15, 2005 12:51 PM
Johann,
Thanks for the nod toward Friedman, who is top notch at spotting international trends.
Once our universities were training foreigners who would make their careers here. Now more of them are returning home. If we're not creating enemies, we may be producing competitors.
Looks like there will be a considerable talent drain in Chapel Hill, too. I hope you haven't lost any of your quickness in the last, oh, 25 years or so.
Posted on April 15, 2005 12:57 PM
Doug -- If we're not free to associate with our friends from overseas, then are we truly free?
Posted on April 15, 2005 1:05 PM
There's no doubt we are not truly free. We'd have to open our borders to one and all in order to even approach total freedom. The only question is what degree of freedom are we willing to trade for greater security.
Posted on April 15, 2005 1:09 PM
I dunno.. but I do know that it wasnt a blue eyed caucasin who flew those airplanes into those buildings on 911. Call it racial profiling if you want. I call it common sense.
Posted on April 18, 2005 7:31 AM
Lilly,
Allow me to introduce you to Timothy McVeigh and Eric Robert Rudolph, two blue-eyed terrorists.
Shall we start banning caucasian males now?
Posted on April 18, 2005 9:43 AM
Sometimes you have to vote with your feet, er, checkbook. I bought a Toyota Prius yesterday; it is a hybrid car that's supposed to get 50-60 mpg. Don't want my gas money helping fund Saudi terrorists and Iranian nukes.
Regarding those shortages in Chapel Hill, well, I may have lost a step or two since I took Lenny Rosenbluth to the rack in the Talmud League in the Newton, Ma. men's over-40 hoops league at the local Jewish Community Center.
Posted on April 18, 2005 4:05 PM
I am willing to open borders to allow those who wish to come here and make the USof A their home.
I do have some stipulations.
1. They must do it legally by propery registering and then applying for citizenship as soon as the law allows.
2. Have a job or have a legitimate sponsor who is willing to support them until a job is found
3. Learn the language so when someone says NO they will be able to comprehend the meaning without having to have it repeated in their own lanuage.
4. If they are not willing to do all the above return to the country from whence they departed without having to be deported and sent back at taxpayers expense.
If they are willing to do all the above mentioned things then I will gladly welcome them to my country and will do my best to help them to become productive law abiding citizens. We will be friends
To me that is what freedom is about. Not having to open our borders to those who have no intention of being legal, law abiding, productive citizens just because it is the politically correct thing according to some to do.
If they wish to come here only to break the laws, or because they are wanted criminals in their own country then stay where they are or expected to be jailed and shipped back to where they came from on the first cattle care or leaky boat available. If they are here as an illegal then they have no legal rights that I have to worry about violating and they expect to be treated as such. They should be considered and treated like enemies.
I fought and worked to hard to have my freedom even threatened by, much less taken away by those who are not willing to go by the rules or by those who would open the borders and have no rules for those attempting to enter.
Posted on April 18, 2005 9:26 PM