By Tehran Times' correspondent from Washington
On November 26th, many millions of American families tried to maintain a semblance of normalcy and tradition by observing the holiday commonly known as Thanksgiving. Various versions of the “first Thanksgiving” story continue to be taught in popular culture all over the U.S., with varying degrees of accuracy—mostly very little.
British colonials arrived in the New World very ill prepared for the challenges. Without help from the Indigenous people who had lived there for several thousand years, the first winter would have been the end of the European settlers (remember that Christopher Columbus never set foot on what would become the United States of America, but he enslaved the natives of South America to gain his goals). Both groups of indigenous people gave generously to the invading Europeans and when that wasn’t enough, both groups of settlers stole and pillaged the rest. After one such pillage, the authorities of the Massachusetts colony decided to call for an official day of Thanksgiving to celebrate that victory, and more than a century later, during the administration of Abraham Lincoln, one such day was finally set aside to remember the relationship between America’s Native People and the European invaders.
Modern day Americans will observe the traditional holiday with a family meal of roasted turkey with all the trimmings plus numerous desserts. For the people who don’t usually spend much time preparing an elaborate meal such as this one, there are recipes and helpful suggestions in newspapers, magazines, and online blogs. Like all the rest of the humans on planet earth who are tired of dealing with the Covid19 pandemic, Americans want to travel for a holiday visit with friends and family, and many hundreds of thousands of them have filled the airports to do just that, despite warnings from Dr. Anthony Fauci and others to stay home and avoid crowds.
How much “thanks” will come from households that continue to struggle from losing their jobs due to pandemic shutdowns? How many traditional feasts can be found on the tables of America’s working poor? How many “woke” progressives will take action to support the minorities whose lands were occupied in the cause of Manifest Destiny, making the continental United States a reality?
Four hundred years after the various tribes of New England dealt with British settlers, six Native American representatives were voted into Congress in the November 2020 elections—a record number, however that has not repaired the hundreds of treaties that the American government has broken in its dealings with tribes from the east coast to the west coast of North America.
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