Skip Mahoney quotes Leonard Pitts in the Miami Herald:

>But there's a gulf of difference between making us bloody and making us
>fall. This is the lesson Japan was taught to its bitter sorrow the last
>time anyone hit us this hard, the last time anyone brought us such abrupt
>and monumental pain. When roused, we are righteous in our outrage,
>terrible in our force. When provoked by this level of barbarism, we will
>bear any suffering, pay any cost, go to any length, in the pursuit of
>justice.

I wouldn't ordinarily respond to these threads, since my opinion can't do
anything to alter the situation. But since my two direct experiences with
the consequences of this sort of chest-thumping tribalism both happen to
involve members of the HP3000 community, I'll relate them with as little
commentary as my impulsiveness will allow.

In the spring of 1980, I was gainfully employed (i.e., not a consultant)
but doing some work on the side. My client was someone who was just
starting a business in the then-new field of third-party check
guarantees. His chosen platform was the HP3000, and I was doing some
datacomm work so that his Series III could communicate with the
verification terminals he planned to put in his customers' offices and
stores.

If you're over 30, you probably also recall that in the spring of 1980,
53 Americans, former embassy workers, were being held hostage in Teheran,
ostensibly by "student activists" but with the clear -- and later
admitted -- connivance of the new government.

By appearances, my client was from the Mideast, but I couldn't identify
his accent. This bothered me, because I pride myself, probably wrongly,
on being able to identify a speaker's place of origin by his or her
accent. Finally, on our third or fourth meeting, I couldn't restrain my
curiosity any longer, and asked him where he was from.

His perpetual smile faded for the first time. "Why do you want to know?"
he asked. I told him that his accent had me stumped and that as something
of a xenophile, I like to know about people from new and unfamiliar
places.

He paused for a moment. "I'm Persian," he said carefully.

As I was then young and innocent, I asked him why he was so reluctant to
tell me where he was from. He said that he'd had people quit when they
learned he was Iranian. He'd had his car windows broken; he'd been spit
on and kicked in the street (that's just for *looking* Middle-Eastern);
he'd had potential customers back out of contracts. He'd learned to say
"Persian" in the hope that anyone smart enough to know where Persia was
would also be smart enough to know that he hadn't taken anyone hostage.

He had been in the United States for eight years when the "students" took
over the embassy.

Ten years later, I was helping a customer of ours with an electronic
forms application. The customer was a large California auto insurance
company, and I was assisting one of their programmers in writing the
software necessary to produce their complex policy forms on HP 2680
printers, using their brand-new Series 950 (their 930 was turned off over
in the corner). The programmer was Iraqi; during my association with her,
she once took a week off when her brother visited her from Baghdad, where
her family lived. I got to know her quite well.

If you're over 20, you probably also recall that in summer of 1990, the
Iraqi army invaded Kuwait, resulting in almost worldwide condemnation and
eventually, in the Gulf War. The war started on January 16, 1991 with
heavy bombardment of targets around Iraq, including within the city of
Baghdad. Much of the bombardment was carried out by United States
aircraft.

In February of 1991, the aerial bombardment was still going on when I was
at an HP3000 user group meeting in Pasadena. The programmer came to the
trade show together with some of her co-workers, and the group stopped by
our booth. I talked with them for a few minutes, and as they started to
move on to the next booth, I called the programmer aside. "How is your
family?" I asked. "Have you heard from your brother?"

She answered that they were all well; she had talked with her brother and
mother a few days earlier. But her eyes filled with tears. "What's the
matter?" I asked.

She put her arms around me. "You're the first person who's cared enough
to ask," she said.

Tribalism sucks.

-- Bruce


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bruce Toback    Tel: (602) 996-8601| My candle burns at both ends;
OPT, Inc.            (800) 858-4507| It will not last the night;
11801 N. Tatum Blvd. Ste. 142      | But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends -
Phoenix AZ 85028                   | It gives a lovely light.
[log in to unmask]                   |     -- Edna St. Vincent Millay

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