Diversity

Interesting Thomas Friedman column today (no link):

When the Iraqi Navy drops you off on the Chosin, a guided-missile cruiser, two things just hit you in the face: one is the diversity of the U.S. Navy -- blacks, whites, Hispanics, Christians, Jews, atheists, Muslims, all working together, bound by a shared idea, not an iron fist. To be sure, it took America a good 150 years after independence to embrace pluralism and women's rights, and we're still working at it. Nevertheless, America today is so different from anything in this part of the world. The Iraqi Navy is all men, and almost all Shiites. We are like Martians to them.

Mustapha Ahansal is a Moroccan-American sailor who acts as the Chosin's Arabic translator when it boards ships in the gulf to look for pirates or terrorists. ''The first time I boarded a boat,'' he told me, ''we had six or seven people -- one Hispanic, one black person, a white person, maybe a woman in our unit. Their sailors said to me, 'I thought all Americans were white.' Then one of them asked me, 'Are you in the military?' It shocks them actually. They never knew that such a world actually exists, because they have their own problems. I was talking to one of their higher-ups in their Coast Guard and he said: 'It is amazing how you guys can be so many religions, ethnic groups and still make this thing work and be the best in the world. And here we are fighting north and south, and we are all cousins and brothers.'''

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