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

Bush 1.

My chosen president would have responded to 9/11 by saying, "Let no more innocents die." I can hear those words in Jack Kennedy's voice. He emphasizes No and More and Innocents and Die. "Let NO MORE INNOCENTS DIE," he says in that characteristic Brookline accent with those long drawn out vowels... Bush, with his Texas style butch swagger says, "Better them than us."

You have to wonder if a man who leaves it to advisors to read the news for him has ever cracked open a New Testament. If he has, he might not realize how much more challenging it is than the twelve step prayer, that it needs to be understood both in it's historical and cultural context and heard with a spiritual ear, always remembering that Jesus' only commandment was to love. I picture those eager and naieve cabinet officials traversing the White House halls with their Bibles prominently diplayed at their sides playing Bible roulette, allowing the sacred text to fall open to one of those angry Old Testament passages promising wrath and destruction, and never once thinking to ask, them or us?

I've known people for whom the answer that pops up in their minds when they ask a question in prayer is the voice of the almighty. For them the convergence of that same opinion from close friends and associates anoints it with infallibility. Still, it seems strange that someone claiming to be a follower of Jesus hears the same command to go forth and kill as does the follower of Mohammed. Mohammed set that example, Jesus went to great pains, surrendering to death on a cross to make a point. His point? That destroying others to save yourself is not ok.

I suppose if your Christianity is limited to the twelve step prayer, the determination to be alcohol free so you can act responsibly and be nice to your loved ones; if the only gospel you hear is that derived from the weekly sermon spun by a well meaning preacher from a single Bible verse for the weekly sermon, you might very well miss the main message. Jesus did not say, would never have said, would never have advised saying, "Better them than us."

Osama 1.

Years ago I walked up to the Carmelite monastery door in Carmel, California with endless reverence for St. Theresa, their founder, and a burning question for the sister who opened to me - - what was the difference, I asked, between the paranoid schizophrenic who slapped me semi conscious for telling him his view of the world was not entirely true, and St. Theresa? They both had visions... they both believed God was their inspiration...

Without a nanosecond of hesitation she responded, "The love of God and man."

When the media ran tapes of Osama bin Laden immediately after 9/11, I was puzzled. This man, who, we were told, spends his mornings communing with his deity; whose face sometimes seems animated with a spiritual glow; who radiated loving care when bending his tall frame toward some child; who even when demonstrating the use of a machine gun did not look like a man animated by hatred or revenge, how could this man be the instigator of the murder of more than three thousand people of all nations and innocent of any intent to harm him or his? He looked nothing at all, as a matter of fact, like the fruit of his endeavors, the 9/11 terrorist he had personally chosen whose spiritually dead face sent chills up and down the spine of the border guard admitting him.

Come to think of it, he looks nothing at all like Mother Teresa either. I can easily imagine her, with that sad, careworn face and downcast eyes as a woman in whose heart of hearts there was a struggle - an anger against the rest of the world's callousness about the cost of war, the plight of the poorest of the poor, an anger over which she would never completely triumph - an anger she refused to express, substituting acts of love and kindness, words of understanding, even to the richest of the rich, as they came to get their trophy snapshots beside her.

The truth is, that in front of the camera, Osama, a man whose life has been dedicated to inspiring hundreds of thousands of his fellow Islamists to sacrifice their lives in acts of hatred and revenge looks more compassionate than Mother Teresa, the woman who picked up the dying on the streets of Calcutta and refused to leave a hospital until they were cared for, whose life and example bridged an impossible gap - inspiring Brahamans to minister to untouchables.

Both have had broad influence in the world, both have been deeply embedded in the teachings and traditions of their religious traditions as well as faithful to their individual religious inspiration. So what's the difference? One of them cherishes and worked to preserve every single individual the creator ever called forth to life, the other despises the lives of adherents and strangers alike, forfeiting them all, indiscriminately, to the service of hatred and revenge.

The sisters words help me now, clearly the difference is love...

Censorship

This blog was to start shortly after Osama Bin Laden began threatening the U.S. in January, 2006, but it is hazardous to talk about these issues. One hesitates... The pope recently quoted a 14th century emperor in an academic lecture on rationality and religious truth; Muslims responded with violent demonstrations, threatened the pope's life and shot a 70 year old nun in the back. A French columnist coined the phrase "a crime of opinion" to characterize the judgments of Muslims who make his life a living hell after writing frankly about his personal reactions to the violence of the Koran and modern Islamic behavior - Muslims determined, apparently, to prove his statements true. A Danish newspaper published cartoons depicting the dangers of Islam; Muslims rioted and killed each other in their own countries; threatened the government and people of Denmark. Newspapers all over the world ran the story of the German opera house that canceled a staging of Mozart's Ideomeneo because they believe Muslims will respond to a visual metaphor on stage with riots and murder...

Apparently there is no Koranic equivalent of "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord". You get the impression that this deity is emotionally fragile - easily offended - demanding that peoples of other faiths abide by Muslim rules. Those who do not are to be penalized by death. There is no room here for the seeker who may rail against God while working to an understanding of the divine. No room for questioning in order to come to a sounder basis of faith... Apparently, any unquestioning believer is authorized to appoint him or herself judge and executioner. When Salmon Rushdie was the target, threats were leveled against the identified perpetrator. Now these acts are committed against people who have had no part in the percieved offence.

So there is a kind of censorship growing up even in free societies, before a word is spoken or written. It is the self-censorship practiced by the experienced mental health nurse who knows the futility of contradicting a paranoid, the parent in a communist society, longing to tell his children of his values but wary of being denounced, the silence of citizens under a Saddam, a caution and wariness like that of the abused wife - a submission, if you will, to the will of the random projected Islamist.

There is another kind of censorship. It is practiced by wives and husbands, parents and children, friends and relatives who know each other well - who know where a joke, even a truth would offend pointlessly. Diaries are often suppressed for decades until those who would be offended have died - out of prudence - other diaries never record such entries. Call that last act the censorship of love.

We cannot exercise this kind of censorship without knowing something of the other person, not just things about them. And we cannot get to know the person behind the veil, in the insular community - the person whose face is set toward revenge; whose body is girded by a bomb...

Preface

When Martin Luther King came to Birmingham I was majoring in German at Birmingham-Southern College. You can see a Birmingham-Southern student in the PBS series "Eyes on the Prize". She is white, and she marches in the front - thin, kind of geeky, wearing dark horn-rimmed glasses. She was probably the only white resident of Birmingham to take part in the demonstrations. While I was driving back and forth to classes, obediently staying away from areas of conflict as instructed by the civil authorities, she walked into the face of cameras, baring witness to the fact that there were young white southerners who recognized that our society was unfair and wanted justice.

Donors called the college dean who was serving as interim president that year, threatening to withdraw funds if she continued to take part in the demonstrations. So he called her in and gave her the choice of withdrawing from the demonstrations or being expelled. I hope she withdrew.

You can't major in German without dealing with the holocaust and after graduation I read extensively about the Germany and Austria that led up to that injustice, thinking my experience as a civil-rights-era southerner might parallel, in some way, the experience of a young German/Austrian of those years. I felt the need to write about it and it seemed easier to deal with someone else's conflict.

Truth is, there would have been precious little to say - a few words about cringing as Annie Mae Abrams left our dining room and the "n" jokes began to pass my father's lips; about the morning she didn’t show up for work and he took me with him to look for her, driving over dirt roads to an unlighted house, where we had to walk around to the back to find anyone. There were four or five black women huddled over a stove in the darkened kitchen. A large pregnant dog wandering in with us... I can still see it, the back yard with only a few clumps of crabgrass, and when I do, I still feel the same sinking feeling that hollowed out my chest that afternoon.

I could say we felt generous, passing along our cast off-clothes to her rather than sending them to the Salvation Army, and that it shames me now to think of it. My best guess about the German peoples in the era leading up to the holocaust is that people in Austria and Germany were doing pretty much what we were doing in the south before the marches, living as normal lives as they could, wanting to trust their leaders, blocking out, as well as they could, Krystalnacht and the raids, hunkering down and feeling that hollow, sinking feeling in their chests when they found they couldn't ignore it any longer.

My book would have dealt with what it meant to stand by, to feel helpless to right the wrongs around one, to feel safe but impotent to do what is right.

Now it is 2006, a new struggle has eclipsed the old and this time, I am not a Southerner with a moral dilemma, feeling helpless to change the social system, I am not the German, I am the Jew, slated for extermination by an enemy with no more regard for me and mine than I would have, spreading borax in the cracks to eliminate cockroaches.