I can’t.

Yes, I feel a sense of relief – relief that a source of suffering and of violence is no longer present.  But I’m not so sure that removing this particular source of violence is going to remove others – or prevent new ones from arising.

And that brings me to the dominant feeling that I, especially as a Buddhist, have around the killing of Osama Bin Laden:  sadness.

It is sorrow at seeing how inexorably the law of karma really does work.   In very basic, simple terms, the law of karma tells us that when we perform acts that hurt others, inevitably those acts will bounce back and continue to hurt us.  Evil acts produce evil results.

So when Osama Bin Laden, in his anger at what he thought the United States and its “empire” was doing to him and his cause, responded with violence, he unleashed the law of karma.  Inevitably, the violence that he resorted to caught up with him.  As Buddha tells us, when you respond to hatred with hatred, you only produce more hatred.  This is sad, so sad.

But what makes me even sadder is that we – we Americans – seem to be doing the very same thing. For the most part, our response to the hatred and violence of Al Queda has been the hatred of military violence.

Yes, we have to protect ourselves.  But we have to do more than that. It seems to me that we have never really answered the question that George Bush asked, rhetorically, shortly after 9/11:  “Why do they hate us?”

Until we can find ways to respond to hatred other than with more hatred, the law of karma will continue to produce suffering.

Or, in Jesus’ words, until we can learn to love our enemies, they will remain our enemies.

This is a great day. Twenty-one years ago today, Nelson Mandela was freed from Victor Verser Prison: this too was televised. The media has a great responsibility to the people not as our opiate but as a partner in liberation.

Mubarak has resigned.

الله أكبر

Protester faces off against police forces in Egypt

We are so accustomed in the Abrahamic tradition to see Egypt as the oppressor to be overthrown. It is a central part of the Exodus narrative, which has been crucial in Jewish history as well as African-American Christian identity. So what happens when Egypt itself yearns for freedom?

That is precisely what we are seeing now. The people of Egypt are straining against the bonds of a modern-day Pharaoh, and he’s one that the United States has nearly unequivocally supported. The Sarthanapolos blog has an excellent guide about “How Not To Say Stupid Stuff About Egypt”, which contains many corrections to the distorted view that we have had of our Muslim sisters and brothers for years. Notably, it points out that Mubarak and Nassar before him were not peace-seeking fonts of stability but repressive dictators and that the Muslim Brotherhood is not anything like Al Quaeda.

How long must we follow Constantine before we remember Christ?

More information:
Al Jazeera English’s special coverage
follow @AJELive on Twitter
NPR has coverage of Egypt and the wider Middle East

Rosa Parks' mugshot, courtesy mindfully.org

Tuesday’s New York Metro newspaper headline about the Park51 center read “You Guys Don’t Look Like Rosa Parks To Me”. The article was slightly less pugnacious, but the question remained about Ms. Parks, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Dr. King and the current predicament not only of the Park51 center but of Muslim believers in America in general.

Rosa Parks is presently an honored and cherished part of United States history. She was not in 1955. In 1955, Rosa Parks was a trouble-maker. She was not honored by the establishment for her courage, but was derided as disruptive. Why couldn’t she just let the system exist in peace? Why did she have to remind the white citizens of Montgomery that there were black citizens in their midst who paid the same taxes and the same fares on the city bus?

So too, unfortunately, today. Why does Park51 have to be in lower Manhattan? Why can’t these troublesome Muslims just exist somewhere out of sight where we don’t have to do anything more than pay lip-service to the plurality of cultures in our nation? Why indeed.

The why is the same for Rosa Parks and for Park51. The why is because it is hypocrisy to say that those different from the majority can only exist if they are out of sight and do not trouble our conscience.

Our breakfast gathering with the Imam numbered a couple hundred people, so things could not get too intricate or intimate.  Imam Rauf was eloquent and engaging as he explained the pain he was experiencing around the controversy between “the religion that I love and the country that I love.”

But a question, raised by Richard Haass, the President of the Council, touched on one of the main issues that I think are fueling the fire of controversy around the Center.

When the Imam, taking his typical moderate and irenic position, pointed out that 99% of Muslims around the world are not terrorists, Haass agreed, but responded that for many people it seems that 99% of the terrorists who march across television screens or headlines every day are Muslim.

Haass’s statement is overstated and certainly needs refining.  Still, his claim is stark and sobering: Yes, the majority of Muslims are not terrorists. But it seems that so many of the terrorists are Muslims.

Why?  — That was Haass’s question – and I suspect the question that perturbs a lot of people opposing Park 51.

Imam Rauf’s answer was, in my view, right on: The primary reasons driving some Muslims to violence in the name of their religion are not at all religious. They are, rather, economic and political – the anger and frustration of feeling pushed aside, taken advantage of, subjected to oppressive systems which are supported by Western powers.

All this is true. But it’s not the whole truth.  There are also religious reasons, or religious motivations, behind this turn to violence.   And these religious ingredients in terrorism have to be faced.

Here Islam is not at all unique.   One can find justification for, even explicit calls to, violence in all the religions of the world – especially, I would add, in the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.   In all of the sacred scriptures of these “peoples of the book,” there are examples of Jahweh,  or God, or Allah approving or endorsing the use of violence against the perpetrators of injustice and oppression.

Muslims, together with Jews and Christians, have to face the fact that the God whom they believe in has allowed violence. And to allow violence is to prepare the ground for terrorism.

Unless religious people own up to the fact that their religious traditions have been violent, and unless they try to do something about this, they will not really be providing an adequate, and an honest, response to the critics of religion.

And that includes the critics of Park 51.

I’ve been surprised to be on the outside of that consideration before. My wife jokes that I’m a “heathen Protestant”, but that’s in good fun. I did have a professor remark that we were all Christians in a classroom, with the aside “or near enough to it” directed my way referencing my Quaker beliefs. Sure, I could have argued that George Fox was pretty thorough-going as a Christian and that the majority of Meetings worldwide are more likely to be mistaken for a Methodist Church than anything outside the umbrella of generally considered “Christian” belief, but frankly I’m tired of doing so. When I first started attending Meeting in the mid-1990s, I had to explain to my mother that yes: Quakers believe in Jesus Christ. Generally. We’re just not compelled to do so by authority. And that’s where it gets complicated.

To my reading of the Gospels, Jesus didn’t lay out too many dogmatic guidelines for a church to follow his teachings. Anything we have that we can turn to for such guidance comes from at least twenty to thirty years after the crucifixion: a very long time indeed in an oral culture. So without firm guidelines, we turn to a version of the “No True Scotsman” fallacy in defining the beliefs of others for them. For those unfamiliar, this circular argument runs as follows:

• No Scotsman eats sugar in his porridge.
• Angus from Glasgow eats sugar in his porridge.
• OK, fine then. No TRUE Scotsman eats sugar in his porridge.

And we do this all the time in Christian communities. “No Christian would do or believe X” becomes “No TRUE Christian would do or believe X” when confronted with a Christian who has in fact done or believed X. So Billy Graham’s son has decided that no TRUE Christian can behave or believe as Barack Obama does. Thankfully, it’s not up to Franklin Graham to decide what does or does not constitute a true Christian. And quite frankly if being a TRUE Christian means following Franklin Graham, I’d rather be false.

It turns out that I was too quick to criticize and challenge him in my last blog about not really “speaking his mind” concerning the Muslim Center in lower Manhattan. Two days after I posted the blog, in which I quoted from his speech in Cairo and implored him to, more or less, give the same speech here in the States, the New York Times, in today’s edition, announced that the President, at an Iftar dinner at the White House, came out clearly, strongly, courageously in support of the Muslim Center.

Obama explained that he didn’t speak up earlier because he “did not want to weigh in until local authorities made a decision on the proposal.”   I should have thought of that.

In my previous blog, I urged Obama to provide the presidential leadership he promised in his Cairo speech “ to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.”

He has provided such leadership.  And we are all grateful.

On Aug 3, your press secretary, Robert Gibbs, speaking for your administration, said that you did not want to take a position on the controversy surrounding plans to build a Muslim Center near Ground Zero.   When asked what was the opinion of your administration, Mr. Gibbs replied that it was “a matter for New York” and that you did not want “to get involved in local decision-making.”

That’s hard to believe.  I suspect – no, I’m quite certain – that you do want to get involved,  but that you, or your advisers, are afraid of the political repercussions from the growing anti-Muslim movement on the right. (It was a Tea-Party group that first sounded the conservative attack on the Manhattan Muslim Center.)

I am convinced that you really do want to come out publicly and defend the rights of our Muslim fellow-citizens to establish a center close to Ground Zero  – a center that is intended to provide space for dialogue between Christian Americans and Muslim Americans and that will show a different and more authentic face of Islam rather than the one embodied in the actions of extremists.

Why am I so certain that you want to so speak publicly on such an issue?  Because you said so!

May I quote for you what you said in your speech in Cairo on June 4, 2009?  And allow me to nudge your conscience on each of these statements:

• “The attacks of September 11th, 2001 and the continued efforts of these extremists to engage in violence against civilians has led some in my country to view Islam as inevitably hostile not only to America and Western countries, but also to human rights. This has bred more fear and mistrust.” –  (Such fear and mistrust are being fostered by the ugly rhetoric of the opponents of the Center.)

• “So long as our relationship is defined by our differences, we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace, and who promote conflict rather than the cooperation that can help all of our people achieve justice and prosperity. This cycle of suspicion and discord must end.” –  (You have an opportunity to help end this suspicion and discord by taking a clear and strong stand for the rights of our Muslim fellow-citizens.)

• “I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world; one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect; and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles – principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.” –  (You said this in Cairo to Egyptians.  I beg you to now say it now in Washington, D.C. to Americans.)

• “I am convinced that in order to move forward, we must say openly the things we hold in our hearts, and that too often are said only behind closed doors. There must be a sustained effort to listen to each other; to learn from each other; to respect one another; and to seek common ground.” –  (Please, say openly these things that you hold in your heart. Call all sides involved in this controversy to listen, learn, respect, and seek common ground.  It is so important, it would be so helpful, for you to pronounce just these words in the midst of this controversy.)

• “ It is my conviction that partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn’t. And I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.” — (Such negative stereotypes of Islam are rampant in most of the public statements of those opposed to the Muslim Center.   Please, carry out your “responsibility as President of the United States.” )

Mr. President, we need your leadership.  Please, speak your mind!

A priest, a terrorist, an FBI agent and a covert alien on TV's "V"

I have written before about the TV show “V” and its use of religious people and imagery in a plot about aliens visiting the Earth with sinister intentions. In the wake of continued coverage of the Times Square bombing attempt, and the continuing links between the failed bomber and some radicalized militant strain of Islam, this week’s episode seemed more sinister. Allow me first to recap some salient points of the show.

An alien race who looks to be human and is called the Visitors, or V for short, arrives unannounced in major cities around the world. They declare themselves to be “of peace, always” but a few bright-eyed Americans aren’t so sure of their good intentions. Sure enough, the V are up to no good and are actually lizard-like creatures in human skin. Their claims to be peaceful are hypocritical at least and apocalyptically sinister at most. Our heroes are a TV-friendly rag-tag bunch: a terrorist, a V who has turned against their sinister machinations, an FBI agent and a Catholic priest.

This week’s episode has our heroes blow up a shuttle which they thought would be full of only evil aliens. It seems that they’ve been misinformed, as all they find in the wreckage is human remains. But wait! There’s a twist: the V learned of their plans and put 20 or so already dead humans on the shuttle instead. The guilt of our heroes is assuaged, and the priest–who had quit over the shuttle blowup–comes back to the group. Here’s where a strangely coded message comes in. Are we talking about space lizards or Muslims here?

Anyone who has studied the Islamic faith or even spoken with its adherents will be able to tell you that the official and orthodox rendering of Islam is that it is a religion of peace. People like Faisal Shahzad do not represent mainstream Islam any more than the Hutaree Militia represent mainstream Christianity. Note, however, the similarity between the message of the evil-doers on the show (“We are of peace, always”) and the message many of us try to express about Islam as a peaceful religion despite what some would do in its name.

That’s not where the between-the-lines messages begin or end. In the show, a few good people with God on their side (remember, there’s a priest!) are fighting an evil that hides among us and looks like us but isn’t even human. Their foe professes to be peaceful, but is in fact quite sinister. Their foe sees no value in human life, but our heroes have deep consciences. The priest quit fighting when he thought he had been involved in killing innocent humans. One more thing our heroes have done? They have tortured an enemy combatant to get valuable information that might save lives.

If I were a more cynical person, I might watch for Dick Cheney’s name in the end credits of the show. After all, how different is the conflict between humans and aliens on this fictional program than the conflict described by our government and media when speaking of terrorism? The enemy says that they are peaceful, but they are not; the enemy can look like anyone; the enemy isn’t even really human; we value life more than they do; we might have to get our hands dirty and permit torture to get information out of them. It’s either the hawkish line on Al Quaeda or the plot of a weekly sci-fi show.

So why does this matter anyhow? We turn to TV fictions to escape the fears and stresses of our daily lives. When we are fed a veiled narrative about what most of our nation sees as an existential struggle, those messages can seep in. I am not proposing that this program is outright propaganda. What I am saying is that the line of argumentation advanced by the government and media about the struggle with terrorism is so pervasive that it echoes through our recreation time. I don’t know if this show was purposely written to tap into that anxiety or if the anxiety itself makes these themes pop out from wherever they might hide.

I’d be interested in hearing other people’s takes on the intertwining of fiction and non-fiction narratives in the comments.

Links:

• V on ABC
• V on Hulu
• “Evidence Mounts for Taliban Role in Car Bomb Plot” NYTimes.com
• “Money Woes, Long Silences and a Zeal for Islam” NYTimes.com

Rabbi Moses ben Maimon a/k/a Maimonides

The New York Times features an op-ed piece from Andrew Baker this morning that should serve as a stirring reminder of the importance of shared religious heritage and diversity. It regards the difficulty of restoring the yeshiva and synagogue of Maimonides in Cairo, Egypt.

This is not, however, simply a story of how difficult it is to secure government funding for historical or architectural restoration. At least, it is not only that kind of a story. The story of restoring Maimonides’ yeshiva carries important messages about history and religious diversity. All in one building, we can see a microcosm of conflict between what we’ve dubbed a shining star of the modern Islamic state (that is, Egypt) and its troubled relationship with its own Jewish heritage.

Baker’s article aptly lays out the history of Maimonides and of the Jewish population of Cairo, so I will not belabor that history in this short article. I do want to point up the narrative nature of history here. We must endeavor to preserve the fact of humanity’s religious diversity in history from the narrative aims of a dominant state apparatus. This is not only true for the Islamic-Jewish tension in Egypt: it is equally true for the United States. We must continue to write humanity’s religious diversity back into the dominant narrative of history at every opportunity or we risk really and truly losing that rich expression of human longing for connection with the transcendent.