I don’t usually offer my thoughts on political issues, but I felt the need to do it today. I’ve been pondering the recent controversy surrounding the Dubai Ports International (failed) takeover of six major US ports, and I’ve had a consistent thought: we are the same prejudiced and paranoid society that we were back in the 1940s. What prompted me to write this post was this article in The Oregonian today.

During WWII Japanese-Americans all over the country were forced from their homes and placed in internment camps. The short version of the article from The Oregonian is that there are some in Gresham, Oregon, that want to construct a monument or memorial of some kind to a former mayor, Dr. Herbert H. Hughes (1941-1956). The problem is that Dr. Hughes was a director of an organization who tried to keep the Japanese-Americans from being able to return to their homes and farms in Gresham after they were released from the internment camps. 60 years after this took place there is still a lot of hurt and anger from those who it effected. These Japanese-Americans suffered undue prejudice and hardship because of wide-spread hysteria and parinoia.

Turn the clocks forward 60 years. 6 major US ports are managed by a foreign company. This foreign company decides to sell it’s management operations to another foreign company. The security for these ports will not change. It is managed by the US Coast Guard and US Customs. The management impacts security 0%. What the buying company is suffering from is American parinoia, purely because it is an Arab company. We will allow a British company to do this job, but because you are from the “wrong” part of the world you can’t.

What frustrates me the most is that the ones who got the most upset about it are the congressmen and congresswomen who should be above this prejudice. But, because it is an election year they don’t want to appear soft on terror and homeland security. Instead they take action against the takeover, showing the world that we don’t like the Middle East, and don’t trust anything (or anyone) that comes from it. In order for the Middle East to become a free(r) Middle East we need to be making friends over there, not making enemies. What the politicians perceive as “protecting American assets” has just fanned the flame of anti-American sentiment throughout the Muslim world.

My hope is that, in 60 more years, we don’t look back on these two separate-but-related issues and see that we are still the same. Unfortunately, I fear that it is just too much wishful thinking and not enough reality.

For more articles on the backlash of this debacle read this, this, this, and this.

[tags]Dubai Ports International, politicians, Middle East[/tags]