"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.

Ramadan Night 25 - The Eighth Entry

To thee have We
Granted the abundance.
Therefore to thy Lord
Turn in prayer
And sacrifice.
For he who hateth thee,
He will be cut off
(From future hope).
S.108 A.1-3

I have mentioned several times that I am grateful for the goodness God had laid in my heart, but I haven't given Him proper praise for the lack of hatred in my heart also.  I have never harbored hate in my heart for anyone, though there has been resentment and pain.  I also may not forgive as quickly as I should, but I do not hate. I do not wish harm to anyone, at least not longer than an impulse that I shut down harshly a few seconds later.  I have been hated, I think, and I have marvelled at the energy it requires.  Hatred seems so incompatible with everything else I want in my heart - love, forgiveness, charity, and hope. I am blessed I know, and I pray that I never learn the lesson of hatred, knowing I would never put it down if I did. 

Politics: The Distillation of Isms

The most luscious application of hate is public and it is loud. It is a declaration of power, and is unadulterated by any need for reason or equity. It needs only a thin veneer of anonymity or generalization to distinguish itself from thuggery and vicious malice. And, in most cases, deftly sidesteps the obvious scrutiny that dares to inquire as to its etiology - not a reflection projected in defense of an outer obscenity but the bitter resonance of an inner mephitic decay. Sadly it seems, as a species, we need this luxury to hate and to languish in it amidst footlights.
In my lifetime, I have seen the arena for this malevolent play shift from faceless foes in war, to disenfranchised groups, to rival teams, and finally to the dichotomous rift our kind call politics.
I remember my youthful naivete almost willing to root for the gooks and slopeheads not for my sense of their virtue or cause, but my honest disdain for the cruel curled snarls of those who pronounced these epithets with such vituperative pleasure. I hadn't yet met anyone from Vietnam, and had no way of understanding whether or not they deserved my hatred, I just learned early on that the sources spewing this propaganda hadn't impressed me in their other professed areas of expertise. As a child of violence, I intuitively knew where this ugliness came from, and it wasn't half a world away - it was buried deeply in the chests of the adults gloating noisly with impunity in my presence, I saw it clearly on their faces.
I remember the Polish jokes, the Black jokes, the Blonde jokes, and a thousand others aimed passionately at a group either not directly present, or yet to be allowed to square off fairly with the bully in the room. Again, it was the cruelty scribed across the faces, the subtle incongruity of the contrived smile and snide context. I did not have to wait to learn about low self-esteem and insecurity in my college psychology class, the humor of my elders enlightened me.
As a male, I inherited "my teams" from my step-father, grandfather, and my geography. Logically, not a very cogent excuse to assign the closest thing to love that I owned at the time. I lived and died with my teams, I never hated their foes, but I did get angry at them when they prevailed. They were the enemies for 48 to 60 minutes depending on the league, but no longer. I never rooted against a rival in other engagements, or took pleasure in their misfortune. I never felt the need to curse, hurl projectiles at, or to make death threats to their players (let alone their family members). I never felt like burning something in the street after a win or loss, and I somehow failed to develop the American virtues of internalizing the "heroic" deeds of my sports idols and rationalizing away their defects. At worst though, I was mildly bemused by the vehement vitriol produced against athletes, coaches, cities, and fans of opposing sides. Perhaps I was a poor fan. I did notice however, the unabashed hatred directed in these largely meaningless fracases. Once again, I sensed an intrinsic malady publicly exalted, deemed innocuous by a society racked in violence and hatred. Hatred is good, I guess, in the right places, not at the wrong faces.
I have a private theory that the appeal and futile and puerile functions of sport have drifted directly to the camp of politics, in part due to the advent of free agency. I remember my teams as groups of guys, not an emblem on a city's franchise. I loved the "team" not the landlord. It is hard for me to cheer on a temporal amalgamation of spoiled and selfish athletes. Heck, you can't even count on four years anymore out of your collegiate luminaries. So if you are not engaged to a city (really one or more really rich white guys), what do you do? You may choose to focus your fealty on a political party - there are only really two, yet they yield a a plethora of contests, a profusion of public engagements(elections, debates, forums, innumerable media frays). And the good news, your guys (and gals) seldom switch sides. They are yours forever! Or until a fan of the other team shoots them in the head.
This partisan contrivance we have constructed is the perfect vehicle to showcase our brazen expressions of hatred. Just listen to the tone, watch that lip curl, notice the smug self-righteousness of the detractor. Turn the volume off, and you may not be able to differentiate the monikers of the targets: Democrat, Republican, Jew, Nigger, Liberal, Conservative, Towel Head, Spic, etc, etc, etc. Political dialogue has all the hallmarks of hate speech, without the ism marking it out of bounds. From the flat and unilateral illusion of consensus on either side, to the remarkably unambiguous derision leveled at all things other. I marvel at grownups who have developed the ability to believe that two entities can be so permanently polar, so pedantically right and wrong, wrong and right, blue and red. Yet this playground might just be the last refuge for our inner ugliness, our need to disparage, denigrate, deprecate, deride, and decry openly and proudly. Our pride is now measured by our propensity to hate successfully - just not at the wrong people or the wrong groups. Is it any wonder that our society mourns the proliferation of bullying in our schools? Perhaps our children just haven't learned the etiquette and sportsmanship of hating yet.