THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA – THE NEW SOVIET UNION AND GUANTANO BAY THE NEW SIBERIA?

…THIS COUNTRY WHICH HAD REDUCED THE FORMER SOVIET UNION TO ASHES, IS NOW EXHIBITING ALMOST THE SAME STYLES AND TRAITS OF THE SOVIETS.

By Mansor Puteh

If white is the new black; then why can’t America be the New Soviet Union?

The most ironic of it all is how more and more countries are now trying to copy America by opening up of whatever spaces that had been closed to their citizens for so long.

Yet, America, the so-called beacon of democracy, is slowly closing up those spaces that they had bared open all this while.

Their media has been muffled so long and their intellectualism stifled.

Where are the smart Americans who dare to are voice their opinions on sensitive issues?

The Zionist or Z-word is not for discussion, much less, for debate.

America does not condone anyone from uttering anti-Semitic slurs or statements; but it does not care for Zionist aggression on the Palestinians, who are also Semites as all Arabs are.

It is also ironic when the destroyers of Soviet Communism are now showing traits and styles that it had tried to remove. America or the United States of America can be described as the ‘New Soviet Union’, where one is Big Brother sees everything and everyone – especially Arabs and Arab-looking folks and other Muslims.

Going to America these days is like going to the former Soviet Union and for that matter, to the other East European and other Communist countries, including China.

It is a pity how America has come to this level. It is not funny. It’s almost a joke.

And it’s all because and due to America being influenced by the Zionists who is so bent on sustaining the existence of the Zionist state, that it had allowed itself to forgo all the principles of democracy that their founding fathers had laid.

If this problem is not checked, chances are America will be the New Soviet Union. It will be a repressive regime which does not brook dissent or the freedom of travel, of assembly and free speech.

I did not get to visit the former Soviet Union then, but I had a small experience being at Moscow Airport and being processed by some of their immigrations staff who did not smile.

I was in America for three years and had wonderful experiences with the staff at the airports where I had landed at; they seemed to be a happy lot and could crack jokes with passengers.

But the situation is not the same at the airports in America now; where the staff does not smile; they suspect any Muslim, even those who are not Arabs but Oriental-looking as being a potential threat to the security of their country.

I was able to establish rapport with the staff of the American embassy in Malaysia and was often invited to attend their social and cultural functions held at their embassy in Jalan Tun Razak and sometimes at the residence of their cultural attaché.

And I would also often visit their Lincoln Resource Center to read books, etc.

But that was long ago.

Now I only drive pass the embassy building to go to the blood center to donate blood every two weeks.

The American embassy complex looks eerie.

Whereas the former embassy of the former Soviet Union, now embassy of Russia does not look like this. They did look like that before the collapse of Soviet Communism.

So no wonder not many Malaysians who would want to even go to their Soviet Cultural Center.

I braved myself to go there few times, because I knew their cultural officer who had at that time wanted to send my film to the Moscow Film Festival.

The last time I had to go to the American embassy was to apply for my visa, when they terminated the one I had which they had gladly offered me for live. They then shortened it to ten years.

So when it expired I had to apply for a new visa in case if I had to make an urgent trip to America.

I was lucky to be given some preferential treatment from the senior staff of the embassy who even waited at the main entrance to bring me into their consular office when I told them I might be late and arrive after their office hours.

Because I had some public profile and had studied in America at one of their prestigious universities, they tended to have some admiration for me because of that and also because of the potentials they thought I might have, since at that time I wanted to return to America with a small production team to shoot the first Malaysian feature film to be set in that country.

Unfortunately, this did not happen. Chances of it happening in the near future are bleak, with new laws and regulations that their country had introduced, which can cause untold hardship.

America has changed. The former Soviet Union had disappeared.

And many Malaysians who are friends of America are feeling anxious. They do not know what they can write or talk about anymore of America without getting the wrong reaction from their officers.

And if they are Muslims, they fear that they may not be welcome to the country anymore because they see America as being the Neo-Communist state where their own American-Muslims can’t build their masjid anywhere they like without being harassed.

Maybe they are taking the cue from the authorities in China which did not allow the American fast-food restaurants to be in the premises of their Tiananmen Square or the Saudi Arabian authorities not allowing those restaurants to be located near the Masjidil Haram or Grand Masjid in Makkah.

The last time I was in America was for two weeks in April, 1999 when my short film was shown in the Taos Talking Picture Festival in Taos, New Mexico.

I took the opportunity to travel around America and also entered the border towns in Mexico and also a brief trip to Toronto in Canada.

It was fun to be able to be welcome at the Tom Bradley Airport outside of Los Angeles and to be able to move about totally unhindered with no fear of being harassed at anytime.

Bill Clinton was president; but like all American presidents, their foreign policies are being dictated by a small group of people in the Pentagon and CIA and the Jewish lobby in Washington DC who spoil the fun for anyone who is president by turning him into no more than their public relations officer of the United States of America.