Commentary:
I have to step back from the fray, back from the interminable (and frustrating) dissection of American Foreign Policy, Victory over Terrorism, and where is Osama Bin Laden hiding.
There is some thing far more sinister than even the so-called Patriot Act that demands you surrender your civil rights in "the face of a greater threat to democracy." Pretty ghoulish that those who agree to "surrender" are never the ones being grilled by the authorities, never the ones who might be hauled off in the middle of the night Gestapo-style to some prison where they will be held incommunicado waiting be "judged" by a military tribunal.
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Americans keep asking: "What did we do to make people hate us?" The question is pure rubbish. |
Americans keep asking: "What did we do to make people hate us." Legions of journalists, philosophers, and sundry pundits ponder the same question. The question is pure rubbish.
Stand back and ask: what is the Pathology of Hate. It has nothing to do with religious principles, even less to do with the perceived evil being visited by America or by Israel or by all the servants of democracy. However flawed American democracy may be, it is a far cry from the autocracy of Saudi Arabia or the madness of Indonesia.
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These people have been neglected by us of course, but even more by their own leaders who are content to arouse their passions. It's cheaper than feeding them. |
The "haters" are helpless innocents manoeuvred and manipulated by puppet masters - Kings or Mullahs or Dictators. There is so much poverty among the Islamic masses of the Arab world that their only distraction is to be fed hate. So Hamas feeds the children in their schools hate and turns them into warriors who will become suicide bombers and be transported to heaven. So the Taliban rise on the back of misery and give them, not food, not shelter, not education but a focus for all their anger. And they are angry. They are poor. So they are fed a scapegoat.
A scapegoat makes an easier target than the reality of suffering. Project your hatred, not at those who suppress and enslave you but on all those villains you are persuaded keep you from your place in Heaven.
For Americans, for Jews, for anyone with a roof over their head and a job to feel guilty and to keep asking painfully: "What did I do to make people hate me?" You did nothing but be even in a limited way, successful.
The fellah in the dust and despair of his lost world has nothing better to do than hate. And his masters serve him hate instead of food, or health, or a job, or shelter.
All the aid and reconstruction that will flow (and it must) from the developed world will not persuade these people that we are not infidels and unworthy. We are confusing justice and blind prejudice. These people have been neglected by us of course, but even more by their own leaders who are content to arouse their passions. It's cheaper than feeding them.
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Of course Hechtman is not a journalist. But it is renegades like him who make us think. |
If you read Rosie DiManno in The Star December 5 you read that estimable journalist (I love her work) trashing Straight Goods' Hechtman for not being a "real" journalist. Of course Hechtman is not a journalist. Of course he put himself foolishly in harm's way. But it is renegades like him who make us think. The Toronto Star spends too much time trying to make us feel better about ourselves. And Rosie made herself feel better about being a good journalist. For me she needed no such validation. Demeaning Hechtman tarnished her, not Straight Goods.
Under the heading Nothing to Do With Terror, Mike Harris declared his marriage reconciliation didn't work. A worthy man gave it a worthy try. Nonsense. Is anyone else willing to bet the Harris peace initiative was doomed from the start? Would you agree further that probably Mike and Janet probably didn't put their problem in the hands of a really good counsellor who might have made it work? Would you agree that the "reconciliation" was just window-dressing designed to make him look like less of a (fill in your own unprintable word).
Larry Solway and Straight Goods want to hear what you have to say about Ken Hechtman... or anything else. We've heard what the media has to say, now it's your turn.
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Last week's winner of a Wilno Express CD was Bill Bargeman of Vancouver, BC.
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Posted: December 11, 2001
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