My cousin recently forwarded me a really nasty piece of business fomenting fear about a radical Muslim takeover of America, where women will be treated as they are by the sickest of the Taliban, as the law of the land. My first reaction was sheer disgust and anger. Knowing that I had something to learn here, I walked away from it for a bit, then sat down and looked at my cousin’s fearful reaction AND my desire to lash out.
We’re most susceptible to fear and nasty stereotyping when we know very little about the people in question. In this case, we simply don’t know enough regular, peace-loving Muslims to see that they make up at least as big a majority of their population as peaceful folks do in ours. I think that extreme radicals are definitely scary. For instance, I firmly believe that the bombing in Oklahoma City demonstrated that the U.S. could be bombed. Without that, I would argue that it would have been many more years before outsiders would have felt confident that they could successfully attack the U.S. We were undone by radical Christians who showed others what could be done.
So the question then becomes, who are these violent radicals? The so-called Christian men that killed hundreds of innocents in OKC represent people who feel like they have no other power to stop the changes they fear in their world. Others, in Ireland, Iraq, or elsewhere, tend to feel the same– they have no power to constructively oppose what is happening around them, so they resort to extreme violence, often exhorted by so-called men of the cloth. Like the men who stalk and shoot doctors who are running fertility clinics and performing abortions completely within the law, they are radicals who believe they are above the law and who personally “know the will of the Lord”. Scariest people on earth.
One thing that I have great hope for, in the Muslim world, is the wave of revolt against the despot dictators who have tyrannized so much of the Arab world. They were directly and indirectly supported by the West, because they would guarantee us access to their oil. We have been seen as the puppet masters who directed the misery experienced by hundreds of millions of people in those countries. Now that many of those regimes are falling, those people can turn their focus back on their home countries, where so many will be, for the first time, engaged in truly democratic processes. If we can just resist the temptation to latch onto the first strongman to step up and guarantee oil, we just might be able to fundamentally alter our relationship with the Middle East by supporting true democracy and widespread economic development on the ground. That means accepting more uncertainty than we like, being honest and transparent in our dealings with other governments and peoples, and probably, paying more, in the long run, for their oil than we want to. Time to grow up.
Once we do return to being a beacon of democracy, fairness and prosperity for all, I believe that the radicals will see and take opportunities settle down, get a job, marry and raise families with real hope for the future– something that those corrupt post-colonial systems have denied them for far too long. Strong middle-class societies don’t support radicals. That’s something we might want to remember when we allow a tiny group of rich people and their mega-corporations to become so so so much richer while our middle class shrinks more every day.
My real fear, however, is that just at the moment when we might be able to turn the corner, people here will stir up a crazed mob mentality that will do something really stupid, like attack Iran, and absolutely prove to people who were just starting to like us again, that we are, in fact, the Devil incarnate. For their own political ends, we have a great many self-serving egomaniacs on the airwaves and using the internet to play on our fears in order to get votes, incite anger, and manipulate us in ways that keep us from focusing on what we can do to effect positive change in the world.
Such as? Such as insisting that every working man and woman in the U.S. can rest assured that their children will have access to a doctor, a good education, and work that pays a living wage.
Such as working to reduce our dependence on oil and coal and developing the alternative approaches to energy that will sustain our economy and our physical health well into the future.
Such as educating girls and women worldwide and providing them with the microcredit they need to become self-sufficient income producers and community leaders. Where women have such opportunities, communities thrive, children grow up with hope, and peace becomes the norm.
So, my reaction to people who want us to believe that a few failing backward tribal societies that are basically living in the Middle Ages are going to take over the world is really based in my fear that our own radicals will take over and drag the country into yet another impossible war that will stymie all the good that we could do in the world. Most days, I believe more in my children and my friends and the people all around me as evidence of our positive potential as a people and a species than I worry about our penchant for self-destruction. When I run up on the hate-mongers, I must say, my innate optimism is challenged. Lately I’m getting a daily opportunity to ask myself ,”Which will I choose to feed, my hope or my fear?” Today, hope wins. May it be so, tomorrow!
