Let's Get Ready to Rumble

Over the past week, I watched the roiling spectacle of Terry Jones, his followers, eggers-on and lunatic fans. As a Jew, it makes me squeamish to hear the ravings of this and the many other latter-day Father Coughlins characterizing an entire religion and all its observers as evil and dangerous. Framing one’s fears into a broad and ugly stereotype is a cheap and age-old publicity stunt. It’s so easy to point at the framed portrait and tick off all the terrifying attributes one can dream up. We just have to take a cursory look back at our own enduring fear of each wave of US immigration: the Irish, the Germans, the Italians, the Jews… Were any of these groups welcomed with open arms? Well, we know the answer to that. Each was greeted with fear, suspicion and open disgust for their foreign ways. Two generations pass and the group that was once foreign and despised has been assimilated and accepted. And so it has been until now, and will be again with the vast majority of practicing Muslims. It’s just a matter of getting beyond the Terry Joneses of this world. Of course, that is easier said than done.

Terry Jones and his followers don’t understand what is staring them—and us—in the face. We are not witnessing the spectacle of Islam versus the world. That is not Islam grimacing at us: it’s the 11th century recoiling from the 21st century. Welcome to the next Hundred Years War—a war of cultures and centuries colliding on the internet and television, in the movies and at local shopping malls. This is the conflict our children, our children’s children and their children after them will be battling. It’s not about God. It’s about culture and custom. So be prepared to back the century of your choice.

In 2009 Afghani women protested newly minted government restrictions on their rights. The NY Times described it this way: “One provision makes it illegal for a woman to resist her husband’s sexual advances. A second provision requires a husband’s permission for a woman to work outside the home or go to school. And a third makes it illegal for a woman to refuse to ‘make herself up’ or ‘dress up’ if that is what her husband wants.” I ask you: What kind of government takes time off from nation-building to vote on pressing issues like ensuring that women submit to their husbands’ demands for sex and dress-up?

The protesting women were greeted by mobs of men throwing stones and calling them whores. You may have seen the fairest flowers of Afghani manhood on the news at the time. (And If that image didn’t give one both pause and dyspepsia, I don’t know what would…) It’s these Kodak moments that make me wonder if Afghani men aren’t secretly sorry that the Taliban got the boot. They were forced to hide their DVD players throughout the Taliban regime, but at least their women were securely under their boot. It was comforting to know that some things could be counted on to remain unchanged.

And now, think back to the TV image of the mob—snaggle-toothed, ragged, filthy, wild-eyed and lathering at the mouth. These are the fashion victims for whom marital laws should be enacted: sexual advances will be welcome when they’ve shaved, bathed and fixed those dreadful teeth. A job outside the home? What woman wouldn’t want a job to keep her busy when her husband spends all his free time in tea shops, taking hits from the communal hookah and reminiscing about the good ol’ days of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves? Dress up? Clean yourself up! Every girl’s crazy ‘bout a sharp dressed man.

That’s not about God. That’s about fearing the familiar world will spin off its axis and out of control. When a millennia’s worth of cultural beliefs and ancient customs—which have been mistaken for the immutable laws of physics and the will of God—are threatened, what does one do? The Afghani legislature and mob have one answer. The Taliban has its own less than humane response to life’s uncertainties. Terry Jones takes his solace in hating all things Islamic. Personally, I’m not finding many answers or much solace anywhere these days. Anne Frank’s touching and gracious statement that people are essentially good at heart tugs at my own heart to this day. Her faith in the ultimate triumph of good over evil and ignorance was a timeless, universal prayer that hasn’t been answered yet. As for me, I have no intention of ending my days swathed in a burka because some cliff-dwelling yutz is still carrying a grudge over the Crusades.

So if this clash between the 11th and 21st centuries is on, let’s get ready to rumble—through education, universal civil rights and tolerance backed with enough muscle to fend off the cliff dwellers. I will not go gentle into that burka.