Peace

A decade or so ago, we used to see tv shows that superimposed the black American's quandary on the frontier American Indian's situation. It fit like a sumo wrestler's outfit on an Olympic swimmer, which is to say, not at all. The truth is, a great deal of the truth is lost when, for example, strident feminists try to understand their pious and sweetly manipulative great grandmothers; when a person from one culture tries to understand the values and goals of peoples in a different culture; even when translating even ordinary speech from one language to another. When we are told that the Koran translated, is no longer the Koran we need to recognize that a great deal is lost in translation. Take the word peace, for example...

Just after 9/11 a number of Muslim scholars were recruited to stand in front of cameras and tell us what they truly believe, that Islam means peace. Mr. George Bush said Islam was a "peaceful religion". Since 9/11, Islamic violence has continued to grow throughout the entire world, as more and more innocent victims are caught in the crossfire of what appears to be devotion to hatred and revenge. Hardly anyone has the courage to pipe up and, like the little boy in the Hans Christian Anderson fairytale, say, "The king is in the altogether..."

For those of us who speak English, and who respect the integrity of the Muslim scholars blinking in front of those cameras, assuring us that Islam, indeed, means peace, this statement is at best puzzling. The people saying this, we might conclude, are lost in the antiquities of ancient tomes, reciting etymologies of what might once have been - out of touch with reality; denying the truth from a psychological compulsion like that of the villagers admiring the king's new clothes in the fairy tale.

Here's a suggestion - what if it is the conventional ways of translating Arabic into English that is at fault rather than the scholars themselves? What about the connotations of the word that are lost when it is translated into English?

Mulling over the Hitler years after my graduation, it began to occur to me that the word "Fuehrer", commonly translated "leader" in English, really doesn't mean leader as we understand it. Look up the definition in a German/English dictionary and you will find "leader" way down on the list, behind captain and headman. Look up the verb fuehren, which describes the activity of a "Fuehrer" and you find "lead" farther down on the list, after administrate, conduct, control, direct and drive. To call Hitler "The Leader" does not convey any sense of the role he played in the German cultural schematic. It ignores the compulsion built into the Nazi order. The followers of a leader do so voluntarily; German culture at the time was all about commands and absolute obedience.

So what about this Arabic word commonly translated by the English word peace? Both can be used to mean the absence of war; what about the ambiance, if you will, of the concept?

The English word "peace" connotes absence - the absence of violent behavior such as war and acts of revenge; absence of the inner violence of hatred and thoughts of revenge, the absence of anxiety and fear. In English we can talk about the peace of the grave, where, apparently, nothing at all is happening.

The Hebrew word shalom, which derives from the same root as the word Islam has an interesting difference. Rather than connoting the absence of bad things, it connotes the presence of joy, peace, happiness. If our word "Peace" is something of a shadowy grey substance, "shalom" shines with vivid color - an important difference for understanding what the users of these words mean, wouldn't you agree?

So what about the Arabic word? Look up the word "Peace" in an Arabic dictionary and you will find multitudes of meanings interlaced with submission. So let's take a stab at this - Islam means the peace of submission, perhaps?

What does factoring in the culture of the Middle East, the behavior of Islamists tell us? We hear about Middle Eastern resentment of the U.S.'s support for oppressive dictators, such as Saddam. What happened when he was removed? The same thing that happens when you take the lid off of anything under enormous pressure - chaos. When Iraqis were no longer forced to submit to Saddam, all sectors began trying to dominate those who differed from them. Chalabi, the Iraqi expatriate who advised Bush to overthrow Saddam, wanted Iraqis to take over after the initial invasion. He projected that an Iraqi government would have acted, "harshly, even brutally to regain control"... They would have appreciated the firm hand.*

They would have appreciated the firm hand that created peace by forcing submission? The peace Chalabi envisioned for his country would have differed from the peace under Saddam only by the substitution of his friends for Saddams'. It would have resulted in a majority oppressing a minority, rather than the other way around. That goal was worlds away from the individual peace and freedom of choice conjured up in the imaginations of those enthusiastic gentlemen in suits, self consciously clutching their Bibles in hand as they scurried to their appointments in the White House, confident that they were right in every "prayed through" decision.

A great deal, indeed, had been lost in translation.


*Dexter Filkins, The New York Times, November 5, 2006