Friday, October 03, 2003

Happy and Grumpy

I got a letter yesterday from an acquaintance in Iraq. He contrasted two Iraqis he had met. One was dirty from working all day, but happy. The other one wasn't doing anything but complaining that the Americans hadn't rebuilt his house.

Perhaps that second attitude tends to develop in a dictatorial society, where you are expected to just turn off your mind and obey, and where everything you get - when you get anything - comes from the government. And now that the government is, for the moment, the Americans, everything should come from them.

I think it will take a while to get over that serf mentality.

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