One of the strongest recruitment tools for gangs, terrorists, “radical movements” and other criminal enterprises is the ignorance many youths have about their own history, family, and culture.
One problem with “Year Zero” thinking, of starting a new day free of the shadows of yesterday, often leads to deracinated racists who will fight fanatically for a label without having the haziest understanding of the culture they claim to fight for.
It is easy to say the following:
The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down.
It is easy to say such things — and very dangerous. Christians and Muslims and Jews are not merely differentiated by identity labels, but by serious theological differences that will not go away merely by proclaiming that they don’t matter. Moreover, to even claim that these differences aren’t important is an insult to devout worshippers of each of these religions; peace is best kept by recognizing how important theological disagreements can really be.
Aboriginal tribes ought to feel the cold chills of abhorrence upon hearing a speech called “A World That Stands As One” that calls on tribal customs to be vanquished, for minority traditions to be subsumed into a homogenized culture. Any traditionalist subculture that resists the advance of “mainstream” corporate culture ought to see the threat represented by Senator Obama’s speech.
I am not fond of identity politics nor am I happy with racial barriers. In some respects, my views could be considered to be assimilationist. My views are very definitely integrationist. And yet, talk of destroying cultural differences, talk of remaking the world to tear humanity away from the bonds of tradition, talk of breaking down native resistance to the demands of invaders, such words become a declaration of cultural warfare against those who care and care deeply about cultural continuity. Can’t we let the water of time erode the lingering animosities of yesteryear instead of insisting on breaking them down with a sledgehammer? There must be space for those who refuse to stand as one with the tyranny of “Year Zero”.
Not all walls are bad. Some walls are called dikes, in Louisiana they’re called levees, and when the walls came tumbling down in New Orleans, none but a killjoy would celebrate. Senator Obama at least had the grace not to celebrate that disaster. Sometimes, a wall is all that keeps the river – or the sea – from rushing in.
I keep hearing about “a world that stands as one”. But what about freedom? Yes, America and Europe ought to cooperate, but this cooperation must be a matter of choice, not a matter of compulsion. To say that partnership and cooperation among nations is not a choice, to say it is the one way, the only way, to protect our common security and advance our common humanity, these are ominous words. Whatever else can be said about Lyndon Johnson, when Charles de Gaulle left NATO and told American troops to leave, our troops left. For an American to have told de Gaulle how “partnership and cooperation among nations is not a choice” would have be taken as an insult and rightly so.
Yes, America needs allies. But America needs willing allies. Our ideals are not that of ancient Athenian democracy that would go to war to compel the loyalty of its allies, for Americans – at least some Americans – take the ideals of liberty seriously.
Whenever the customs of others do not intrude upon basic decency, we ought to respect our differences. I’m calling for toleration, not celebration, for any call to celebrate differences all too often trivializes them. When a religion does not intrude on the laws of our land, it should be left alone, for we should not insist upon breaking down barriers merely to satisfy the lusts of the iconoclast.
Let’s not seek to erase the religious heritage of the last three thousand years merely because it becomes fashionable to do so.
(Italics are quotes from Obama’s Berlin speech.)
