Cultural Alienation - the peculiar case of Dinesh D'Souza
Dinesh D'Souza is widely believed to be a racist and a soft bigot. I wish I did not have to say this, but the fact of the matter is there is no other way to portray him.
Last year, he claimed that African-Americans are better off because their ancestors were 'hauled from Africa to America'. "Did
He supports the European colonization of
He also does not find any fault as to how the Native Americans (improperly called the American Indians) were treated in the
D'Souza has argued that the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal was a result of "the sexual immodesty of liberal
I wonder if he had ever visited and lived in any Middle Eastern country.
Naturally, with such provocative remarks, he's a darling to the loonies of the Murdoch Empire!
D'Souza reminds me somewhat of another misfit - V.S. Naipaul from the Caribbean Island of Trinidad. As you may know Naipaul was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 2001, which I consider to have been given wrongly. Although he came from a Third World kind of state, Trinidad, and was the grandson of indentured servants brought from
By the way, I am not alone in this harsh evaluation of the author.
Naipaul's fiction and especially his travel writing have been criticized for their unsympathetic portrayal of the
Naipaul had a very flawed character, frequenting prostitutes for sexual gratification although he was married then to Patricia who materially supported him for many years.
So, what about D'Souza? Dinesh is a Goanese Christian who was born in
One would expect the conservative values to include honesty and family values. Unfortunately, D'Souza meets none of those important ingredients. He pleaded guilty last year to violating a federal campaign finance law after making illegal campaign contributions to Republican Senate candidate Wendy Long in 2012 and then providing false statements to the Federal Election Commission.
D’Souza narrowly escaped prison, and instead was sentenced to five years of probation, a $30,000 fine, and eight months in a “community confinement center.” He continues to blame everyone but himself for his troubles.
In recent years, we have seen so many of these filthy rich guys who hitherto had come from less than modest income families to become die-hard Republicans or supporters of the so-called neo-conservative causes once they became rich. Interestingly, many of them are utterly morally corrupt. They may preach family values but internally they have none. D'Souza exhibits similar hypocrisy.
Back in 2012 Dinesh D’Souza demonstrated his outspoken dedication to Family Values by sleeping with another woman while both he and the other woman were married. On October 18, 2012, after claims became public that he had stayed in a hotel with a new girlfriend though not yet divorced from his wife, D'Souza resigned his post at The King's College where he was named president.
Last year, according to Talking Points Memo, his ex-wife, Dixie, alleged in a letter sent to the federal court that heard his criminal case that "D’Souza was abusive, that he lied in his defense against the criminal charges, and implied D’Souza had manipulated the couple’s daughter into making positive public statements about him.”
Dinesh although was married to
In the letter, she attested to what she called D’Souza’s “abusive nature”:
"It is my husband who has an abusive nature. In one instance, it was my husband who physically abused me in April 2012 when he, using purple belt karate skills, kicked me in the head and shoulder, knocking me to the ground and creating injuries that pain me to this day."
To quote Hrafnkell Haraldsson, writing for the PoliticusUSA, "Who knows how many lies and scandals an impassioned, hypocritical liar who has demonstrated absolutely no moral compass, can invent, not to mention how many mistresses he can bed, and women he can abuse, between now and election day? Nothing disabuses the world of Republican notions of ‘traditional family values’ like the story of Dinesh D’Souza, an exemplar of corruption, dishonesty, infidelity, and a complete denial of personal responsibility. And don’t forget the tinfoil hat. D’Souza isn’t contrite. He doesn’t apologize; he doesn’t ask for forgiveness."
When one hears D'Souza in conservative and anti-immigrant media outlets like the Fox News, one cannot but sense a clear symptom of cultural alienation in him, much like the other playboy Naipaul. I used the term 'alienation' and not 'assimilation' for him in the sociological sense, because that is what truly characterizes D'Souza. He is hostile to the very third world culture in which he was raised.
Probably some explanation is necessary. D'Souza reminds me here of the crow in Aesop's story who did not like his feathers. "I wish I were a peacock!" he would say. One day, the self-hating crow found some of the peacock feathers laying on the ground and stuck the feathers into his wings and tail. He attached a few sticking up from his head.
"Now I am as beautiful as a peacock," he said.
But, when he went to join them in their strutting, the peacocks poked him and pecked him. What a fuss!
"You are not a peacock," they said, "Don't imitate us!"
Bruised and still dragging some broken peacock feathers in his tail, he returned home.
After all his insults, no one wanted his company!
As he sat alone, the other crows said, "It's foolish to try and be what you're not. Learn to love the feathers you've got!"
I wish D'Souza had learned to love 'the feathers' he grew up with and not imitate others. But with all the notoriety he is generating and the wealth he is amassing from his imitation, it may be a tall order for him to modify. [And that is a sad observation given the fact that most Goanese are descendants of enslaved people by the Magh-Portuguese pirates who devastated vast territories of southern Bengal and north-eastern
So what's next for D'Souza?
We are informed by anti-Muslim demagogue Brigitte Gabriel that she has future plans to work with disgraced conservative author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza. She has previously said “every practicing Muslim is a radical Muslim.” She has also suggested a practicing Muslim “cannot be a loyal citizen to the
We’ll just have to “stay tuned” to see what these two conniving zealots will do!
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