Daddy, Why do they hate us?

  by Tenacious 1

"Daddy why do they Hate Us?"

"Sweetie, they hate us because we allow you to go to school. They hate us because your Mother drives a vehicle, in public without a scarf over her head...."

This was how the conversation started with my daughter last evening as we studied for Social Studies test about American Indians and watched some 9/11 tribute on TV. I was explaining the cultural divide that caused the violence between colonists/Americans and native Indians.
Native Indians didn't have written language. They couldn't read and had many different spoken languages. They constantly fought with other tribes over territories that had no signs, treaties or known boundaries. Different tribes often, unkowingly claimed the same territories as their own and fought over them. 1,500 Native Indians might claim thousands of square miles as their territory without having anyway for anyone to know where it was. Settlers come along and unkowningly build houses and farms on those lands and were sometimes slaughtered by Indians without knowing why. So the explanation of military outposts, treaties and the development of Indian Reservations went. The root cause was a cultural divide that left no equitable compromise. There was nobody to blame for the settlers "stealing" the Indian's land. We offered them money but they couldn't eat it, plant it or wear it and that confused us. They just wanted to keep their land and for settlers to stop having kids and moving into their territories. We didn't have enough in common to negotiate a compromise with them and technology won over the primative Indians."
That's when she inexplicably asked the question, "Why do those people hate Americans today (pointing to Muslim terrorist flying planes into buildings)?"
I told her:
"Hon, it's the same reason I just explained to you about the American Indians. They hate us and want to kill us because we are so different than they are. There is nothing of common value that we share on which to start a compromise.
They want us to be Muslim and follow their laws. The basis of everything they want goes against everything our country was founded upon. We believe in freedom and equality for all, including religion. They believe our government should force all people to be Muslim and worship Alah. They don't want Mom to be able to drive a vehicle or be by herself in public. They don't think you should go to school. They want you and your mother to always sit in the back seat and wear sheets over your face and body. They don't want you to be able to vote. And they think it should be illegal to eat pork.
Since they are willing to kill any American as part of their religion and belief, we had to go kill them in their own country. They proved that they are dangerous and could kill innocent Americans, women and children alike in our own country. We had to go do something about it and are still working to protect ourselves today."
She is pretty smart and says, "Is that why Iran wants to kill Israel too?" to which I said, "Yes. Basically that is it."
We went back to studying after she paused, looked at me and said, "People will always be at war somewhere in the world won't they."
I am proud of my daughter and deeply saddened at this thought. That such a young mind comes to the harsh realization of the human condition at such an early age is demoralizing. If only we had more American's as wise as this 5th grader.