I had never seen such a great love. There were two young girls next me cheering the bands as if they were in a staduim according to my Egyptian standards. They did not look as if they were celebrating a major national occasion. It is a country that gave a lot to its citizens. They take pride in being U.S. citizens and being part of this nation. One of the things that I have noticed in U.S. parades that some nationalities who became Americans take the chance to celebrate. I saw the Taiwanese and filipino Americans in the parades with the both flags saying Happy Birthday to the U.S. The last thing I can say it about American parades that it is about the love; the love of the crowds and the paraders. It is so in the air and no one can miss it. The last real parade in Egypt took the life of our late President Anwar Sadat on October 6,1981. Sometimes the Egyptian government pretent to do parades during spring time but nobody cares. So really I cannot compare the American parades to anything I have ever experienced in my life in Egypt. ...
Lebanon.profile (Lebanese):
Too often, Lebanese desire uniformity in education. The assumption is that the same national curriculum will breed a similar nationalism. This model is restrictive and oppressive, and it has not been proved to work in any environment.
Americans took a different tack in educating children. Instead of pushing a national syllabus, schools must come to their own educational solutions with very general guidelines from the state. To this end, the intellectuals and writers of textbooks become more powerful than the teachers themselves. From year to year, course to course, children are bombarded with different ideas that give them the opportunity to come to the best conclusion themselves.
Neither the teacher nor the state has hegemony over the children’s minds. ...
ActivistChat (Iranian):
Happy Birthday America.
Happy 4th of July to all.
Happy 4th of July to the people of America.
Happy 4th of July to the oppressed nations
and the freedom loving people of the world.
We honour the 4th of July, 1776,
and solute Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin,
John Adams, Roger Sherman and Robert R. Livingston,
the members of the committee which drafted the
Declaration of Independence on that memorable day.
We salute the great people of America in their courageous move to kick the greedy British out of their great country
and we solute the people of America
for their contribution to end that filthy tyrannical empire.
+++++++++++++++++++++++
4th of July was officially declared as public holiday by the US congress in 1941,
but in reality it is truly an international event that should be honoured by all. ...
On December 25, 1776, General George Washington led his troops in a surprise attack against the British, who had settled into winter quarters in New Jersey. The American forces crossed the Delaware River at night and defeated the British troops first at Trenton and then at Princeton. These victories, although minor, dramatically improved the morale of the American forces.
Iranian people should be prepared for final battle of freeing their homeland ....
Nadz (Palestinian-American)
I grew up hearing more bad things about America than good, and even though I have always been an American citizen, I used to join in on the blame-America-first rhetoric in order to avoid ugly arguments. Not anymore.
I'm proud to say that I'm a citizen of the greatest country on earth. It is a country of ideas, and universal ones at that. Whether it is a monarchy, a communist state or a democracy, China will always be China, Germany will always be Germany and so on. In the case of the United States, it started with principles and ideas on which the nation was then founded. America is unique in that regard - our democracy is what makes America.
No matter how many American flags people burn from Karachi to Mardrid, people know this and are itching to benefit from the opportunities they create. We are not always perfect. We make mistakes. But we should not apologize for being the greatest country on earth and I'll drink an extra beer to that. ...
Happy Fourth of July!
