this. I have read a lot of Arudhati Roy’s essays that discuss Hindu Nationalism and globalization etc. and this interests me very much. I have never thought about the parallels between Isreal’s right wing at the right wing in India but this makes enormous sense. The simultaneous admiration of Hitler and Zionism makes my head spin a bit. We understand so little about the complex cultural and historical and political forces that shape things in the world today here in the USA. About 10 years ago I assigned a reading in a freshman comp class I was teaching that was about Ghandi and half way through the small group discussions my students were having I realized most of them didn’t know who Ghandi was. How can this country even remotely try to help the world be more peaceful when we don’t understand the continuing legacy of colonialism and how the wreckage it left behind has shaped things happening today? The vast majority of people in the USA have no knowledge of things like the anti-Muslim pogroms in Gujurat. As much as I deplore terrorist strategies, we have to understand that there are real forces that drive people to extreme ideologies and tactics. Extremists don’t sprout up because they are crazy.