Cartoon violence

Hysteria is one of the least attractive human qualities. Unfortunately, because hysteria makes good video and (sometimes) good copy, it is constantly showcased  on TV news, talk radio, and the Internet. One might even say that we live in the Age of Hysteria - if the statement itself didn't sound like an emotional overreaction.

The latest outburst of hysteria involves the publication of some cartoons depicting Mohammed. A Danish newspaper printed the rather mild caricatures, and a few other European publications followed suit. Because many Muslims find any representation of their prophet to be offensive, the cartoons ignited a literal firestorm, with angry mobs torching embassies around the globe.

The response of some commentators has also been tinged with a certain hysteria. More than one conservative blogger has declared that this latest clash between Islam and the West constitutes a "war." Some of them are the same folks who had already dubbed the US counterterror operation "World War III." A few, having given that designation to the Cold War, are calling the present "war on terror" World War IV.

Who would have thought that so many people would be so eager for another world war? Weren't two global shooting matches enough?

In all this, it is a good idea to retain some perspective. The cartoon controversy is not the first issue to divide the largely secular West from the militant anti-secularists who comprise part (but by no means all) of Islam. And it won't be the last. Nor is it the end of the world. What's needed is not invective and abuse, which are about as helpful as pouring gasoline on a fire. What's needed is context.

People who are understandably appalled by the riots and arson may say things like, "That's not the way we settle our differences here in the (civilized) West." But, sadly, sometimes it is. Consider:

• I grew up near Asbury Park, New Jersey, a coastal town that was wiped out by race riots in the 1960s and has never recovered. To this day, some of the choicest real estate on the Jersey Shore sits unused, occupied by abandoned buildings that are homes only to squatters and drug dealers.
• In 1992, I was living in Los Angeles when the Rodney King riots set that city ablaze. Through my bedroom window I could smell the distant smoke.
• More recently, there were numerous acts of violence during the last election - gunshots fired at campaign offices, vandalism, and in one case, the invasion of a Republican storefront office by a mob of "activists" who trashed the place and injured one of the volunteers.

These are just the events that I remember personally. There have been countless others - coal miners clashing with the company "security guards," union workers scuffling with the police, immigrants tangling with those who arrived on these shores a few generations earlier. There have been quite a few political assassinations. And there was a little dustup called the Civil War. American history is full of violent disputes. Let's not pretend it can't happen here.

Some commentators insist that the actions of some riled-up mobs prove that we are engaged in a war between civilization and barbarism, or as they sometimes put it, "between civilization and the Middle Ages." (This latter formulation implies that the Middle Ages was not a civilization, when of course it was. One might even argue that a culture that produced the Gothic cathedrals, Roger Bacon, Geoffrey Chaucer, and the troubadours was, in some respects, superior to one known largely for Frank Gehry, Richard Dawkins, Truman Capote, and Britney Spears. But I digress.)

What is more correct is that we are seeing a clash of cultures, which is basically a clash of modernity with a very aggressive brand of traditionalism. As far as it goes, this is true, but the implied corollary is that modernity is entirely good and traditionalism is entirely bad. Stated this baldly, the proposition would not win universal assent even in our own country - which is why it is rarely stated at all. Not every aspect of a traditional, religion-based culture is bad, and not every aspect of a secular humanist, hedonist, materialist society is good.

Why would I say such a thing, which only serves to undermine our moral superiority in the struggle? I would say it precisely because it undermines our moral superiority - and aggressive self-righteousness is not the most helpful attitude to take in resolving conflict. It doesn't do us much good to think in broadly simplistic terms that "we" are Good and "they" are Bad. In fact, as Bob Wallace points out in an online essay, this black-and-white worldview is exactly the way terrorists and their sympathizers think. As Wallace further points out,  the typical terrorist (or, in this case, rioter) is someone who is marginalized, powerless, frustrated, and deeply angry about it. Such a person's self-esteem is too fragile to bear the weight of responsibility for his own failings, so he will look beyond himself and his immediate community, seeking somebody else to blame for his problems. Having found a scapegoat, he will seek to lash out against the target in any way he can.

If we want to combat this mindset, the last thing we should be encouraged to do is to fall into it ourselves.

It's also worth remembering that many of these rioters and their supporters have been deliberately misled by their own leaders. They have been shown phony cartoons that are far more offensive than the ones that were actually printed. They have been told that Americans (or others) are burning the Koran in the street and dancing on the ashes.  (Most Americans, of course, have never even seen a copy of the Koran.) These are the same people who have been told, since earliest childhood, that "the Jews" literally kill babies and drink their blood. Ignorant, confused, impoverished, powerless people can be whipped up into a state of hysteria easily enough. There's nothing new about it.

Some people voice the worry that "Hitler got his start this way," and that any attempt to accommodate the offended Muslims will be a step down the road of appeasement, leading inexorably to war. Certainly there are  similarities between the embassy-burning crowds and Hitler's followers - in both cases, we see enraged mobs chanting slogans against the US, the democratic West, and "the Jews." But let's not overlook the differences. Hitler came to power because his message resonated with a large part of the German electorate, especially the middle-class burghers who constituted the core of the Nazi Party in its formative years. The Islamist rioters have almost no political power in Europe, which is one reason they are so frustrated, and their message does not resonate with a plurality of voters in Western countries. Hitler, upon attaining office, was able to rebuild the German war machine in a few years and quickly became a genuine military threat to his neighbors. There is no Islamic country today that has a "war machine" worthy of the name, and the only one that might conceivably pose a military threat to the West is Iran - if it can cobble together an arsenal of nukes. That's a development we in the West can prevent, assuming we have the nerve.

At a time when hysteria seems to be in fashion, it is more necessary than ever to take a deep breath and see the bigger picture. This is not World War III, let alone World War IV, even if some would wish it to be.

In this era, it's good to remember the opening words of Kipling's great poem If - words that take on an unintended irony in a time of videotaped decapitations:

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you ...

 

Comments

[Henry James]

2006-02-02 Cartoons, movies and the total cold war
2006-02-05 Russian liberals and Danish cartoons

[Bob Wallace]

Mike,

Thanks for the plug about my article. After re-reading it, I rewrote it a bit, since it wasn't as clear as I wanted to be (unfortunately, I have to repeat the same things over and over in many articles).

Unfortunately, Islam splits the world into the House of Islam and the House of War. That makes it pretty darn narcissistic. Coupled with the fact it's quite far behind the West, they're going to be really touchy about insults, such as those unnecessary cartoons,

We've got the same kind of people in the West, in the form of Christian Zionists, who think the Islamic world is evil and is going to be wiped out during an Armageddon that brings Jesus back. So, we're looking at what could be some very bad problems, which is why I refer to next few decades as the Wars of Perverted Religion.

I really hope I'm wrong, though.

[Henry James]

2006-02-08 "Iranian WMD" and cartoongate