On "All Things Considered,"
Professor Noah Feldman remarked in the context of the rioting and violence against the video that has now morphed into anti-American rage:
We've tended to be extremely permissive, and that does make us very
different from other countries. It's actually a problem when people
elsewhere actually think, including reasonable people, that the United
States government must be complicit in something like the anti-Muslim
film because we haven't prohibited it.
I wish he and many others would repeat that as often as they can. The distinction is huge: in the US, the free rights we have are not because the US government has not prohibited them, but because the Constitution has made sure we will have those rights. These rights are not granted to us by the government for it to take them away, but these are our inalienable rights. We voluntarily empower the government.
Such an understanding of rights might be, understandably, incomprehensible in societies where a dictator, or an authoritarian government, might decide what is permissible and what is not. Similar to the old joke about the USSR: whatever was not banned was prohibited! (Though, of course,
the recent Pussy Riot controversy makes it clear that rights are severely constrained in
Putin's Russia.)
Thus, with every act of free speech, especially the (ir)religious ones, that offend somebody somewhere else, the suspicion that the US government is in on it deepens. That this offensive speech is somehow state-certified.
Making things worse are the maniacal arguments that this country was founded as a Christian nation and that the ills are because we have moved away from religion in government. It is not difficult to imagine that already enraged people in Pakistan or Libya would get even more pissed off when they come to know that
Governor Rick Perry said this even as the anti-American violence was escalating in many countries:
“Satan runs across the world with his doubt and with his untruths and
what have you and one of the untruths out there that is driven is that
people of faith should not be involved in the public arena,” Perry said
during the call on Tuesday, organized by the Rev. Rick Scarborough.
Perry said the separation of religious and civic institutions in the
U.S. began with a “narrative” that first took root in the 1960s.
“Somehow or another there’s this, ya know, steel wall, this iron
curtain or whatever you want to call it between the church and people of
faith and this separation of church and state is just false on its
face,” the governor said. “We have a biblical responsibility to be
involved in the public arena proclaiming God’s truth.”
Satan causing the separation of church and state? God's truth in the public space? The only good thing here is that Perry is not the GOP's presidential candidate!
Quite a few years ago, Bernard Lewis wrote that the fundamentalist Islam didn't worry much about the godless USSR but, in fact, gladly embraced the Soviet Union as a check against the US. Quite a contradiction it seems like at the surface, but there is a deep reason: the fundamentalists were confident that their people won't get swayed by the godless commies. The US is viewed as threat because
from its founding, it continues to be a symbol and a real driver of the two profound changes that have characterized recent history:
Ultimately, the struggle of the fundamentalists is against two enemies,
secularism and modernism. The war against secularism is conscious and explicit,
and there is by now a whole literature denouncing secularism as an evil neo-pagan
force in the modern world and attributing it variously to the Jews, the West, and the United
States. The war against modernity is for the most part neither conscious nor
explicit, and is directed against the whole process of change that has taken
place in the Islamic world in the past century or more and has transformed the
political, economic, social, and even cultural structures of Muslim countries.
Islamic fundamentalism has given an aim and a form to the otherwise aimless and
formless resentment and anger of the Muslim masses at the forces that have
devalued their traditional values and loyalties and, in the final analysis,
robbed them of their beliefs, their aspirations, their dignity, and to an
increasing extent even their livelihood.
There is something in the religious culture of Islam which inspired, in
even
the humblest peasant or peddler, a dignity and a courtesy toward others
never exceeded and rarely equalled in other civilizations. And
yet, in moments of upheaval and disruption, when the deeper passions are
stirred, this dignity and courtesy toward others can give way to an
explosive
mixture of rage and hatred which impels even the government of an
ancient and
civilized country—even the spokesman of a great spiritual and ethical
religion—to espouse kidnapping and assassination, and try to find, in
the
life of their Prophet, approval and indeed precedent for such actions.
If not convinced yet that it this struggle that fuels that rage against the US, Lewis explained:
The instinct of the masses is not false in locating the ultimate source of
these cataclysmic changes in the West and in attributing the disruption of
their old way of life to the impact of Western domination, Western influence,
or Western precept and example. And since the United States is the legitimate
heir of European civilization and the recognized and unchallenged leader of the West, the United States has
inherited the resulting grievances and become the focus for the pent-up
hate and anger.
Governor Perry, and all those folks who think that the separation of church and state is satanic are then clearly attempting to make this struggle in the Islamic world a modern day version of the crusades! If only somebody could force them to read the following concluding points from Lewis:
To this end we must strive to achieve a better appreciation of other religious
and political cultures, through the study of their history, their literature,
and their achievements. At the same time, we may hope that they will try to
achieve a better understanding of ours, and especially that they will
understand and respect, even if they do not choose to adopt for themselves, our
Western perception of the proper relationship between religion and politics. To
describe this perception I shall end as I began, with a quotation from an
American President, this time not the justly celebrated Thomas Jefferson but
the somewhat unjustly neglected John Tyler, who, in a letter dated July 10,
1843, gave eloquent and indeed prophetic expression to the principle of
religious freedom:
The United States have adventured upon a great and noble experiment, which is
believed to have been hazarded in the absence of all previous precedent—that
of total separation of Church and State. No religious establishment by law exists among us. The conscience is left free from all restraint and each is
permitted to worship his Maker after his own judgement. The offices of the
Government are open alike to all. No tithes are levied to support an
established Hierarchy, nor is the fallible judgement of man set up as the sure
and infallible creed of faith. The Mahommedan, if he will to come among us
would have the privilege guaranteed to him by the constitution to worship
according to the Koran; and the East Indian might erect a shrine to Brahma if
it so pleased him. Such is the spirit of toleration inculcated by our political
Institutions.... The Hebrew persecuted and down trodden in other regions takes
up his abode among us with none to make him afraid.... and the Aegis of the
Government is over him to defend and protect him. Such is the great experiment
which we have tried, and such are the happy fruits which have resulted from it;
our system of free government would be imperfect without it.
The body may be oppressed and manacled and yet survive; but if the mind of man
be fettered, its energies and faculties perish, and what remains is of the
earth, earthly. Mind should be free as the light or as the air.
It is a shame that from the likes of Jefferson and Tyler we have come down to the likes of Perry!
