Thomas Friedman: Steal This Movie
"It’s clear to me that the war in Gaza was justified—no country can allow itself to be fired at with Qassam rockets—but I did not see many people pained by the loss of life on the Palestinian side," Eldar told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. "Because we were so angry at Hamas, all the Israeli public wanted was to [expletive] Gaza. ... It wasn’t until after the incident of Dr. Abu al-Aish—the Gaza physician I spoke with on live TV immediately after a shell struck his house and caused the death of his daughters and he was shouting with grief and fear—that I discovered the [Israeli] silent majority that has compassion for people, including Palestinians. I found that many Israeli viewers shared my feelings." So Eldar finished the documentary about how Mohammed’s life was saved in Israel.
His raw film reflects the Middle East I know—one full of amazing compassion, even among enemies, and breathtaking cruelty, even among neighbors.
Stark Choices
You face a nasty choice over the Middle East. You can be "practical", you can be a "realist", and thus you can hate, despise, oppress, and kill the enemy, and fund others who do likewise; or you can look past the hatred and violence to those who have compassion even for the haters. Of course makes you an "anti-Semite" and a "supporter of terrorism", like Pres. Jimmy Carter and Judge Richard Goldstone. Of course, this is nothing to the choices that people on the ground have to make.
Hating is easy, and the rewards are obvious in personal self-satisfaction as well as in politics. Compassion is hard, and rarely receives any public reward. In any case, what does even a Nobel Peace Prize count against the fact that we do not have peace? No, if you want to follow the road of compassion, you have to be able to take compassion itself as your reward, and not look elsewhere.
The choice in the Middle East is the same choice as everywhere else, just starker than most. (We can discuss North Korea, Burma, and a few others, but not in this Diary today.) In the United States we have exactly the same kinds of haters and—what should I call them? "Compassioners" isn't English, and "lovers" means something quite different. I shall adopt a Buddhist term, and call them Bodhisattvas. (That's Sanskrit, not English, but it as least is some language.) Roughly, this means people moving along the path of compassion and related ideas and practices in the direction of Enlightenment, who refuse to enter Nirvana without the rest of us, and who direct their energies to relieving suffering in the world. Close enough, particularly since it refers to what you do, not what you know or what you think you believe (sic).
Daily Kos is all about stopping the haters, or at a minimum standing up to them and calling them out, with room for any Bodhisattvas who might turn up. Of course, we spend a lot of time hating the haters, especially those who hate us, but I'm going to put that aside.
Hate has a dynamic that can keep it alive for centuries. Look at the British conquest of Ireland in the 15th century, or the Crusades starting in the 11th century, or the Mongol conquests in China, Russia (actually conquered Tatars working for the Mongols), Afghanistan, and India, or the Unequal Treaties period in European/Chinese relations. Then go look at the hatreds recorded in the Bible, some going back more than three millennia and continuing to this very day. This one is a bit later. (Amos 1)
6 Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Gaza, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof;…
7 But I will send a fire on the wall of Gaza, which shall devour the palaces thereof:
It's quite surprising where Amos goes with this.
A Different Choice
The Bodhisattva path also has a dynamic that can keep going for centuries, even millennia, as in much of Asia, although there exists hate-filled Fundamentalist Buddhism as well. A particularly notable instance of Bodhisattva action is the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement in Sri Lanka, which has been building up villages and breaking down barriers between Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, and Christians for decades, and provided the best emergency services to villages after the Christmas tsunami hit 70% of Sri Lanka's coastline. I must tell you about them sometime. They were one of Science Fiction author Arthur Clarke's favorite NGOs. For now, I will just leave it that Sarvodaya has on several instances gotten interfaith groups of as many as 100,000 people sitting down together to meditate on each other's welfare.
- Loving-kindness (Pāli: metta, Sanskrit: maitri) towards all: the hope that a person will be well; "the wish that all sentient beings, without any exception, be happy."
- Compassion (Pāli and Sanskrit: karuṇā): the hope that a person's sufferings will diminish; "the wish for all sentient beings to be free from suffering."
- Joy (Pāli and Sanskrit: mudita): joy in the accomplishments of a person—oneself or another; sympathetic joy; "the wholesome attitude of rejoicing in the happiness and virtues of all sentient beings."
- Equanimity (Pāli: upekkhā, Sanskrit: upekṣā): learning to accept loss and gain, praise and blame, and success and failure, all with detachment, equally, for oneself and for others. Equanimity is "not to distinguish between friend, enemy or stranger, but regard every sentient being as equal. It is a clear-minded tranquil state of mind—not being overpowered by delusions, mental dullness or agitation."
Sarvodaya is opposed by the central government, under the influence of racist Sinhalatva Buddhism. They have more or less agreed to leave each other alone for several decades, with the government in the cities, and Sarvodaya in the villages.
The Starkest Confrontation of Choice
In the Middle East, the dynamic of hatred was and is fueled by ideas drawn out of (perversions of) Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, but even more so today by political agitation and by money. We have a professional terrorist class, and a professional refugee class, and assorted professional political and ruling classes in many countries all weighing in. As Upton Sinclair put it,
It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!
This is for those whose salaries do not depend on misunderstanding.
Thomas Friedman explained to us that the moviemaker, Shlomi Eldar, was making a documentary, Precious Life, about an Arab infant brought into Israel for life-saving medical treatment. The boy's mother then told Eldar that she hoped her son would grow up to be a suicide bomber.
At that point, Eldar, in despair, was ready to give up making the movie, as he tells us at length. He says, also at length, that it was only the discovery of the hidden compassion of many Israelis that allowed him to continue and to finish the movie.
Dealing with Hatred
How do you break down hatred? The most general method, explained in The Evolution of Cooperation, by Robert Axelrod, is to make it possible for people to get to know and trust each other over a long period of time, not too much interrupted by interfering outsiders. As in the famous English/German Christmas party in No-Man's Land during World War I, which came about because the same forces faced each other from their respective trenches for many months, and gradually stopped shooting at each other.
Naturally the war-and-fear-mongers do everything they can think of to prevent such accommodations. Just as the British and German higher-ups made sure to rotate troops after that one Christmas party, and never let them face the same enemy for long stretches of time. Have to keep up the ferocity, you know. Can't have the troops regarding the enemy as real people.
The UN is starting a project in education and cooperation, using half a million One Laptop Per Child XO computers for children in Palestinian refugee camps, Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria. How that will work, I can't tell you yet, because it is barely started. In principle, putting these children into contact with each other and with the rest of the world could have a potent effect, but it will take at least a decade for these children to graduate and begin taking adult places in their societies.
A more particular method of dealing with this level of hatred is supposed to be due to Gandhi, from the time of the so-called Communal Violence in India and Pakistan, after Partition and Independence. Today we would call that ethnic cleansing or genocide. As the story goes, when a Hindu asked how to remove hatred from his heart, Gandhi recommended that he find a Muslim orphan of the violence and adopt the child as his own. The Hindu immediately agreed. Then Gandhi continued, "Only be sure that you raise him as a Muslim." (This would be excellent advice for both Israel and the US. And the reverse, for Muslims adopting Jewish or Christian orphans.) At least, so the story runs. It is in the generally excellent movie Gandhi, which you should remember is a movie and not 100% factual.
Teaching and Learning Aids
A fiction along these lines is Monsieur Ibrahim, with Omar Sharif. A Jewish boy in France encounters a Muslim shopkeeper. No spoilers. Just go see it. Sharif has Jews in his family in real life.
Also, let us know of anything else you find worth doing in this line, whether in the real world or in edifying fiction. I recommend Partners in Health and microfinance in general.
Here are a few other tales in which overcoming hatred and prejudice of one sort or another plays an essential part. Pay attention. The writers of these pieces are subtle. The setups for the conversions take a long time, running through most of each tale, but there is usually a sudden and dramatic conversion somewhere along the line. And then a lot more work to integrate the new viewpoint into overything you do.
- Silas Marner, by George Eliot (novel); six movies and TV adaptations
- The Keys of the Kingdom, by A.J. Cronin (novel), Joseph L. Mankiewicz and Nunnally Johnson(screenplay)
- Kim, by Rudyard Kipling (novel); movie and TV 1955, 1984
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain (novel); seven movie and TV versions
- The Stars My Destination, aka Tiger, Tiger, by Alfred Bester (novel)
- Dingaka, written and directed by Jamie Uys
- In the Heat of the Night, by John Ball (novel); movie and TV series
- Babylon 5, by J. Michael Straczynski (TV series)
- Serenity, by Joss Whedon (Movie, sequel to TV series Firefly)
The career of Rev. John Henry Newton, the slave-ship captain who wrote the hymn Amazing Grace, and turned abolitionist, is historical. There are numerous portrayals of Newton in movies, TV, and theater, and numerous more or less factual accounts of his life and work.
The Indian Emperor Ashoka is the principal historical example of a warrior and conqueror turned peacemaker.
There have been numerous peace treaties, peace processes, Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, and so on. The peace process in Northern Ireland, the reunification of Germany, the end of Apartheid in South Africa, and the slow process continuing in the Koreas are among the best examples. More often, warmongers and tyrants die off, and their empires collapse, but by no means always. The very gradually accelerating decay of racism in the US since the Civil War merits a library of studies. We appear to be at a tipping point on Gay Marriage and Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and a few years from a decisive tipping in the Senate away from the Old South, but only because of the supermajority filibuster rules. The populace as a whole tipped some time ago.
Israel and the Palestinians will take longer.