"They Hate Us Because We Are Free"

I have thought about this post all day, maybe all  my life. I have also come to the conclusion that if write this well, it will not be a popular post, but once again I am trying to express some very complex thoughts I have about American culture, Islam, terrorism, and the human heart.

I remember President Bush saying this quite awhile ago, and I remember having mixed thoughts about this declaration.  Mixed in that I know no one hates us because we are free, I wasn't sure who "they" were, I have no real idea what motivates the mind and heart of a terrorist, and I don't know what you tell your people in times like that when you are the president.  I must say, as I have before, that every American president is "my" president.  I can't pick and choose my leaders and pretend that I am not part of this society, yet qualify as beneficiary of its many advantages, and not culpable too for its sins.

I am writing this post today, as I heard that provocative statement on a commercial at the same time I was contemplating the many protests and revolutions occurring in the Middle East.  Do these people who are risking their lives in Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Libya, Yemen and other places hate freedom?  When was the last time an average American in the USA had to risk his life for his freedom?  Patriotism without risk, freedom without fear, liberty without peril, combine to make a vapid mind, one long since shuck of the true sacrifices of its heroic ancestors. Maybe "we"  hate "them" for their valor and courage in their quest for freedom - we may think that we would do the same, what our forefathers did, what hundreds of thousands are doing in the Middle East, but we just don't know. Maybe we have been shamed, and we hate or despise ourselves.

I have never met a "freedom hater" in my many travels.  I have met people who hate Americans, at least those vocal ones who travel like petulant divas, or the many who stay at home spewing malice and incredible ignorance about the world around them from their rusted and corrupted epicenters. No they don't hate us because we are free, but they and we might hate us for the unconscionable act of usurping the term, treating it like a dime store badge, and then professing the strawman we have built as a shining model for the world.  They don't hate us because we are free, but perhaps they hate us for squandering the treasure that their sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, friends and peers die for everyday.

I don't begrudge President Bush's attempt to assuage our terrible pain and grief, for to speculate any sort of critical or complex thought at that moment would have been disastrous - our pain demands hate and loathes love.  As I mentioned earlier, I cannot replace his attribution for terrorism with another, as I have no idea why these men who kill innocents with zeal do so. Perhaps it is just the "they" I keep coming back to, not knowing how inclusive the term was intended to be. Once again our pain seems to prefer undifferentiated and unilateral retribution, rather than the redemptive process of a patient and ethical sorting of good and bad constituents on either "side" of this war. But the latter would destroy the notion of sides, and the excruciating ambivalence would be far too great a burden to sustain the negative nurturing of our pain.

Perhaps it is time to examine this term "pain."  I am sure there are many people in America and around the world who have felt genuine and devastating levels of pain over the horrific results of terrorism. Theirs is not the sort of pain I spoke of above, or that which I will address now - they will deal with their pain, and the loss of innocent and guilty lives will play no part in their recovery. But there are those who profess pain for these terrible events, who secretly smile, knowing that the authentic pain of others may just be enough of a distraction for them to slide in their hatred and vitriol up under the grief, creating a simple answer, a simple suspect for an incomprehensible crime.

I am very tired these days, and my patience is gone.  Anyone who starts a sentence with "Muslims" is most likely an idiot - whether the subsequent syntax suggests positive or negative assignations to the faith, or at the very least, is incredibly ignorant.  Maybe each of us needs to hate, feel better about it when we find kindred souls "we" and necessarily need the anonymity of "them" to keep it hot and eternal. Whatever the reason, whatever the need, freedom has nothing at all to do with it, and to suggest so denigrates the one secular concept that could save us all.