In the wake of 9/11, Dr. Charles Kimball, then of Wake forest University, educated all of us with his terrific book When Religion Becomes Evil. Yesterday, Huffington Post (I Know, I know), published a great article by Dr. Kimball about the current political turmoil in the Middle East. Follow me below.
In "The Fallacy of the 'Clash of Civilizations'" Kimball explains how the falsehood of this view has been exposed by recent events in Egypt.
The massive media coverage in Egypt has helped to educate everyone across the political spectrum -- from viewers of FOX News to the CNN and MSNBC faithful. Sound-bite questions and answers have given way to powerful truths. And these truths demand new and more coherent frameworks for understanding what in the world is going on ... and why.
We can now see clearly that the values and aspirations for which hundreds of thousands of Egyptians risked their lives -- freedom of expression, basic human rights, participatory government, economic opportunity and an end to systemic corruption -- are values that most people in the U.S. hold dear. Rather than "us" versus "them," it is now obvious how much "we all" have in common.
I remember how much I used to hate the old Bush line "The hate us because we're free." I used to scream at the television, "No they don't you nitwit, they dont' hate us because we're free, they hate us because they're not." I was not entirely right of course. They don't hate us. They are angry because they are not free and we have played a role in that. But Kimball reminds us poignantly above that there is not and "us" and "them."
The people of Egypt -- Muslims, Christians, doctors, vendors, construction workers, students -- do not hate Americans. Rather, they long for the freedom, rights and opportunities we enjoy. But many in Egypt and elsewhere have been angry and frustrated by disconnect between the values the U.S. government espouses and the actual policies that too often have empowered "useful autocrats."
Well said.
Note: My first DK4 diary. The frustration almost stopped me twice.