Serious Thoughts About Apology

Three pieces of the candy I bought Angus for Valentine's Day:
Fantastic News!

The Thomas Merton Society has accepted my presentation proposal for their Conference Climate of Fear/Commitment To Peace.

Jo-Ann and I will be going to Winnipeg in November.

I've been working on our materials - which will include presenting a paper and unveiling a work of art - since I found out.

My energy level has gone way up and I am so jazzed about my projects again.

After several hours of work on the presentation, I was struck with ideas for a couple of cartoons. Worked on one of them for an hour.

I have a CafePress site and if I can work out my idea to my satisfaction, I'll put it on a T-shirt.

For anyone wondering - no - my ideas have nothing to do with religion or with the protests over the Muhammad cartoons.

Regarding what's happening - although I am horrified at the violence and deaths - and now a reward posted for the execution of one of the cartoonists - what can Westerners expect? We have done nothing to understand Arabs or co-exist peacefully with them. Instead, everything in our attitude and actions indicates we think they need to change, need to "get with the program" and become westernized.

It's never been enough that they would leave us alone and let us be who we are. We wanted them to become like us.

To that end, the West has demeaned, ridiculed, manipulated and attacked. As a result, the whole culture has been hurt and angry for a long time.

They are reacting, in my opinion, much as a person does in response to a lifetime of bullying. Especially after the debacle of Iraq, this perceived insult to Mohammed has been the "straw that broke the camel's back." It's a symbol of how we have belittled and invalidated their religion and culture - doing whatever we want - until they are sick to death of it.

Worse of all, the cartoons contain an element of truth. And this violence - ironically in Mohammed's name - proves the point. Yet most Muslims can't see it. Or don't want to admit it.

They're too furious: furious at the West for decades of belittling and furious at themselves for their powerlessness, for their lack of ability to command respect, love, understanding and for the way the West has worked toward keeping them powerless.

So the protests are growing stronger, and violence is escalating.

It's because we're not hearing them.

Because attack of every kind is always a call for love and respect.

Bottom line, they have demanded apologies. They have demanded a show of respect and consideration and, with sincere apologies offered by the West and all governments of those involved, it's possible they could get past this.

But they haven't gotten the apologies they feel they need.

What does that say?

We're telling them how they should feel, just as they're telling us how we should think.

Who can deny that a goodly number of secular people think the Muslims - and all religious persons - are deluded fools and see this as a battle of wills? There is no way they are going to apologize for the cartoonists echoing what they think.

Who can deny that some Christians think of Muslims as heathen who either need to be converted or conquered?

Who can deny that the establishment of Israel - a tiny country - has wreaked havoc in terms of resentment and bloodshed? (While it may have seemed like a good idea, after the Holocaust, to give Jews a homeland in which they could feel safe, the establishment of Israel hasn't given them that.)

Who doubts that the U.S. government gives the impression that Middle-Eastern culture is inferior, backward and expendable or that American corporations are looking to expand their influence and markets in the Middle-East and would like to get rid of those pesky Muslim values that interfere?

The U.S. has stoked conflict in the Middle-East for over half a century in so many ways and has treated every Middle-Eastern nation - with the exception of Israel - as though it has no intrinsic value.

As long as I can remember - in my lifetime of fifty-odd years - Arabs have always been portrayed as "lesser peoples" with whom we, unfortunately, must do business because of their oil.

So who's going to say "I'm sorry" first?

Don't expect it to be the Muslims.

They, rightly, perceive that the West and non-Muslim countries have long degraded their values and refused to take their religion seriously.

I'm not saying we haven't had legitimate reasons to be appalled by things done by Muslims.

But appalling actions have been taken by Christians and Jews. If we start a list of the guilty, everyone's going to be on it.

Bottom line, if we want peace, non-Muslims have to apologize.

Sure, we're being bullied into it - since our hearts are not open enough to see how we've helped create this monster and that we're just changing places in this unholy dance.

For we bully, they bully.

We attack, they attack.

There are no victims, only volunteers.

So, are we going to be big enough to apologize?

Because the stakes are getting higher with every day that passes.

I wonder. Maybe I could start an "apology" campaign. People - identifying themselves as non-Muslims - could begin sending letters of apology to the U.N. with the messages to be conveyed Internationally.

Something has to be done.

A battle of wills is taking us to hell.

What have we got to lose by telling them they are our brothers and sisters and we are sorry they are hurt?

I'm going to sleep on it. I have so much to do, but what could be more important?

For now, let's see what Rumi has to say:

Look on the terrible and stupid things I've done
and cause herbs and eglantine to grow out of them.

The sun does this with the ground.
Think what glories God can make
from the fertilizer of sinning!

I know I'm ugly to you.

I'm ugly to me!

I'm perfectly ugly!

But, look, you'll be sad
when I die, won't you? You'll sit by my grave
and weep a little?

All I'm asking is
be with me that little bit of time
while I'm still alive.

---

From The Long String on pg. 81 of The Essential Rumi