by Philip Rizk
SojoMail 2-15-2006
The global village is showing signs of its ever-shrinking diameter.
"The Danish have no more work here," the man with a big beard and even bigger gun told me as I approached the security office. Men such as this one matter to me, because he holds the power to welcome or reject me – in this case as I entered a meeting with the fishermen's union in a Gaza Strip city – just as it matters what someone on the streets of Damascus, Tehran, and Basra thinks because he has the power to accept or reject his neighbor, whether she be in Denmark, Russia, or France.
The Daily Star, a Middle Eastern English-language newspaper, reported Feb. 1 that Vebjoern Selbekk, editor in chief of Magazinet, the Norwegian Christian magazine that reprinted the Danish cartoons, said the act was "not aimed at provoking" Muslims and that it was "justifiable under freedom of expression laws." The issue at stake is that these freedom of expression laws may not apply in other parts of the global village. What seems to Selbekk his right to freedom of expression is to my friend with the gun a matter of religious faithfulness, and one that is based on divine laws, not individualism.
It is not Western values of freedom of speech that we must evaluate, but their underlying philosophy of individualism. The Western mind is raised to believe that what it thinks, expresses, and believes is a private and personal matter. In the Arab world, where societies share a collective understanding of self, such teachings are heretical.
The time may have come for the West to consider learning a lesson from the faith of the largely Muslim Middle East, or it might perform some soul-searching even closer to home, among the faith of its own ancestors. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all teach the act of giving as a central aspect of the makeup of a society. Such a giving is not to be limited to financial giving, but includes the giving of time, effort and self. The question becomes how to give to neighbors when one does not know them. In the December 2005 issue of Harper's Magazine, John Berger writes that the world's obsession with information causes it to neglect knowledge and wisdom. In our dilemma wisdom is the key. There is a dire need for encounter and for relationship, which will allow one to know the other. Privacy is the value of the West that the East will not accept, and the collectivity of the East the value rejected by the West.
The teachings of Christ go a step further in calling his listeners to love not only their neighbors, but their enemies.
For some, Muslims around the world are neighbors; for others, they may be considered enemies. Will the West be able to take a call of the past seriously and consider the neighbors of this global village, before feedings its undying desire for freedom from all responsibility toward the other?
On Jan. 26, Haaretz correspondent Aluf Ben writes, "Most Israelis are more interested in the danger of suicide attacks than in the makeup of the Palestinian parliament." The observation reflects a very similar contrast, of a misconstruction of one's neighbor. Israeli and Palestinian lives are intimately intertwined and yet this description of the Israeli psyche attests to a lack of interest in the lives of the Palestinian whose thoughts and affairs cannot be wished away.
Like the Norwegian editor who will not apologize for a right he claims, no matter what damage it may cause to his neighbor, here the Israeli and Palestinian must begin to see through the eyes, the history of the other. They live not only in the same global village, but also in the same land. The danger of suicide attacks infringes upon the freedom of Israelis. But Israeli freedom comes at a grave cost to Palestinians.
In a Jan. 26 article, "Israelis despair over Hamas election victory," Reuters quotes Avi Zana, an Israeli man who reportedly lost a son at the hands of the militant group Hamas, which was elected into power Jan. 25. Zana was quoted as saying Palestinians want to control all of Israel. Without undermining or questioning the pain that comes with experiencing loss such as Zana's, those who know great suffering need to turn their gaze to recognize the pain of others. At times that other may seem to be the enemy. What can occur, only once this first gesture of turning is taken, is the recognition that the same experience of pain is lived by that enemy, also a neighbor. Possibly that person's suffering comes at the doing of one's own hands.
The election of Hamas as a reaction to suffering and frustration with the status quo is no different than the right-wing Likud's coming to power in 1977 as a result of Israeli disillusionment with the Labor party. On both sides the opposing of extremism begins with the individual.
The seeming impossible step to tend to one's neighbor, no matter who they are, must be taken today or misunderstanding, disillusionment, and hate will fester and grow out of control.
The idol of unquestioned self-righteous freedom must be abolished or else it will destroy the village we live in.
Philip Rizk is an Egyptian-German Christian working with the Foundation for Reconciliation in Gaza.
http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=news.display_article&mode=C&NewsID=5228
(P.S.不知何解，近日用firefox不能在此貼文。是小弟電腦的問題，還是系統的問題？)