LETTER from CHIP NORTHRUP
Many Owe Their Lives
To Muslim Immigrants
To the Editor:
The COVID vaccine I got today was invented by a husband and wife team of Turkish Muslim immigrants.
They live modestly in an apartment and ride their bicycles to work at their company, BioNTech. They were the first to decode the C-19 virus and developed the vaccine made by Pfizer.
So, like many people the world over, I owe my life to a Turk. Maybe you will too.
Somehow this does not come as a complete surprise. The prescription drugs I take are made in Turkey. Turkish Muslim immigrants work in the factories that built our cars. A Turkish immigrant founded the company that makes our yogurt. Our favorite waiter at the Mingo is a Turk. The doorman at the Harvard Club is a Turk.
The steel in our boatshed was made in Turkey, as was my shotgun’s stock. The laptop I write this on was made by a company founded by the son of a Syrian Muslim immigrant, Steve Jobs.
And so it goes. So much for Trump’s “travel ban on Moslems.” Something that Joe Biden, the great x3 grandson of an Irish immigrant, got rid of on Day 1.
If you’re lucky enough to make it to the end of 2021, thank a Muslim. Tell them “Allahu Akbar.” It means “God is most great.”
Imagine that.
CHIP NORTHRUP
Cooperstown
