Politics on the Train

En route from Fex to Rabat, I was in a train compartment with two American Muslims, a professor from Sale, and some miscellaneous Moroccans. The discussion turned to politics, mainly because of the professor, who thought people were blaming so much on President Bush personally they were forgetting all the deeper problems (from the Moroccan perspective, of course) with American foreign policy in general. Anyway, the issue also turned to whether the two American Muslims were oppressed in the U.S. - they didn't seem to really think so, but the professor argued that they were using logic that reminded me a lot of Tacitus's posts on religious minorities in the Islamic world. That struck me as an interesting comparison between commentators =) The next logical step would have been to take his assessment that Morocco didn't have any minorities frowned upon by society in general (something like that anyway...my understanding was vague in places) and relate that to his wondering if Bush's foreign policy had too much Jewish influence.