From: Jasper
Date: 11/1/01
Time: 7:44:29 AM
Come on Charlie,
More than one friend of mine who spent a lot of time in France told me pretty much she same thing about the French.
As an American pulling into port on a sailboat with some American friends, I met some Canadians who made it clear that they would just as soon shoot us than speak to us. One guy refused to sell us gas just because we were Americans.
Who the hell knows what that was about? Maybe (and this would be my first guess) they had a bad streak of Americans making total asses of themselves just before we got there. Maybe we had a bad a bad streak of Canadians who were making asses of themselves. Anyhow, this wasn't a racial thing (unless you consider American's and Canadians different races) or a religious thing (as far as I could tell). But it struck me at the time that these people who were going out of their way to be nasty to us were doing it because they thought they were supposed to.
In my experience, most people in most places are helpful to strangers. In most parts of Africa, the Middle East and the entire Mediterranean area it is the duty of people from almost every culture to treat strangers well.
No, I wouldn't be surprised to find some Moslems who thought it was their duty to harm non-Moslems, but I don't see why I should worry about it anymore than I should worry a "redneck" attacking me in a "redneck" bar -- or a Canadian refusing to sell me gas in a Canadian port. --Jasper