Religion

Austin Bay has a thoughtful essay posted over at Strategypage.com. The subject is the role of rhetoric in the political process.

Ancient Greek rhetoricians admired — and feared — powerful speakers who had the gift of emotional appeal and exhortation. My worn copy of “A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms” lists over 50 types of emotional appeals. From “amphidiorthosis” (“to hedge or qualify” a dangerous or bold position ) to “threnos” (a lament), thoughtful minds in the fourth century B.C. had analyzed every plea, supplication, ploy and gambit.

Yet there’s strong evidence a healthy democracy requires rhetorical showmanship and convincing verbal drama. (Hesoid argued that effective justice also requires it, since a ruling judge must persuade aggrieved parties justice has been served and not partisan interest.)

So Bay starts out by pointing out that artistic use of language is necessary for grand political debate, and that debate is necessary for democracy. He then uses recent remarks by Pat Robertson and Ted Kennedy as examples of how this process can go wrong.

Bay’s essay is insightful and to the point, and I urge everyone to click the link and give it a read. But what struck me was the way that these incidents have been handled in the media. Both Robertson’s and Kennedy’s remarks were hateful and should never have been uttered. I notice, however, that the press condemned Robertson while giving Kennedy a pass even though Kennedy was uttering actual lies while Robertson was merely expressing an opinion.

Why is this so?

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“The Struggle for Islam’s Soul” tells us what we already knew: True Believers tend to eat their own and rewrite their own history. Ziauddin Sardar notes they do that first and last, so their own always have the most to fear. Then he describes “three inherent characteristics” in the tradition which “nourishes the mentality of the extremists.” This essay describes what we have to fear now, but also makes generalizations we can recognize (& fear) in other settings: 1) It is ahistorical; 2) monolithic; 3) aggressively self-righteous; and insists on imposing its notion of righteousness on others.

Original sin is a useful concept to counter this tradition because it teaches us humility. The politician who would clap not for what America is but what it might be has been seduced by True Belief. And lacks humility.

Unfortunately, the old human habit of equating fear and intimidation with respect does not easily die. We see this every day in power relations. China doesn’t feel respected by the US, so it bullies Taiwan. France doesn’t feel respected by the US, so it bullies Germany. Islam doesn’t feel respected by non-Muslims; so radicals try to intimidate infidels and apostates. Think this is fantasy? Ali al-Ahmed, director of the Saudi Institute in Washington, sets the record straight, at least with regard to the dismal situation in Saudi Arabia:

Although considered as holy in Islam and mentioned in the Quran dozens of times, the Bible is banned in Saudi Arabia. This would seem curious to most people because of the fact that to most Muslims, the Bible is a holy book. But when it comes to Saudi Arabia we are not talking about most Muslims, but a tiny minority of hard-liners who constitute the Wahhabi Sect.

The Bible in Saudi Arabia may get a person killed, arrested, or deported. In September 1993, Sadeq Mallallah, 23, was beheaded in Qateef on a charge of apostasy for owning a Bible. The State Department’s annual human rights reports detail the arrest and deportation of many Christian worshipers every year. Just days before Crown Prince Abdullah met President Bush last month, two Christian gatherings were stormed in Riyadh. Bibles and crosses were confiscated, and will be incinerated. (The Saudi government does not even spare the Quran from desecration. On Oct. 14, 2004, dozens of Saudi men and women carried copies of the Quran as they protested in support of reformers in the capital, Riyadh. Although they carried the Qurans in part to protect themselves from assault by police, they were charged by hundreds of riot police, who stepped on the books with their shoes, according to one of the protesters.)

As Muslims, we have not been as generous as our Christian and Jewish counterparts in respecting others’ holy books and religious symbols. Saudi Arabia bans the importation or the display of crosses, Stars of David or any other religious symbols not approved by the Wahhabi establishment. TV programs that show Christian clergymen, crosses or Stars of David are censored.

…

The lesson here is simple: If Muslims wish other religions to respect their beliefs and their Holy book, they should lead by example.

Indeed, good faith is the best way to peace and harmony. Each faith can be cordial and respectful of others without betraying its own teachings. Indeed, the late Pope John Paul II showed the world that this was indeed possible. There’s already too much for human beings to quarrel over.

Just one other thing: The West has alrady made several overtures to Islam. It is time for Islam to reciprocate, or at least resolve the problem of those who advocate war. Why? Because, Old Europe notwithstanding, the West has the balls to back it up, so if it must be the hard road, rest assured that the West is ready to rumble.

[Cross-posted at Between Worlds]

Mark Steyn has some interesting comments in this interview. His central point is that the papal selection process is closed to outsiders, which means that none of the people who are speculating in the press knows any more than the rest of us do.

For market odds, which I suspect are much more accurate than the press, see our Intrade quote board or here.

-Treaty of Tripoli, Article 11: Written during the administration of George Washington and signed into law by John Adams:
“The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.”

-Thomas Jefferson to Jeremiah Moore, August 14, 1800:
“The clergy, by getting themselves established by law, & ingrafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man.”

to Alexander von Humboldt, December 6, 1813:
“History I believe furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government.”

-Tom Paine:
All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.

Of all tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst.

–Amendment I of the United States Constitution: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

By going to John Paul II’s funeral George Bush may not have broken the supreme law of the land but he has shown disrespect for one of the most cherished liberties of our nation, a liberty that trumps every virtue that established religions stand for today. History will make its own judgment on JPII and I do not deny the fact that he was a decent and charismatic leader who put human dignity above all socio-economic systems, particularly Soviet communism. However, JPII did not take a stand against communism to defend the empire of liberty. His motivation was to preserve and expand church’s authority over a social system that had foolishly declared war against religion. Vatican only found out about religious tolerance and human dignity when it was no longer able to extend its interest by force, as it had for centuries, and had to start competing with other religions in a secular free market.

GWB represents all of America – an incredibly diverse nation thanks to its secular institutions – when he travels abroad. To vast majority of Americans who do not subscribe to the Catholic church’s brand of spirituality GWB’s action was disrespectful, if not an insult. Perhaps, the president should have sent a personal representative instead of flying aboard Air Force One.

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P.S. Here is a British take on the same subject — It’s as if the Reformation had never happened