Juan Williams versus National Public Radio

What is National Public Radio? A media outlet for pinko commie reds, or what?
Actually, no. People who think that might be surprised to learn that it's a product of the Richard Nixon presidency. No doubt Nixon was influenced by the noted liberal thinker Daniel Patrick Moynihan; but we may take it for granted that if Nixon thought NPR was a good idea there were no pinko commie reds in the offing, nor did he think there was a chance there ever would be. Whatever you may think of President Nixon, he was not exactly an encourager of Marxists and others of that ilk.
Today NPR is a refuge for millions of Americans who love unusual kinds of music--jazz to opera and beyond--and of course what we firmly believe to be the most detailed and straightforward news anywhere. (Not that it doesn't have flaws. I find myself questioning what I perceive to be an Arab bias in its coverage of the Arab-Israeli situation, for example. But that, alas, is shared by all too many "mainstream" news organizations--and most of the others are, in my view, far worse.)
Who are NPR listeners? Pointy-headed intellectuals? I am sure we have many of them. We also have students, senior citizens, truck drivers, and just about any other type of person who happens to tune to a public radio station. We are an elite that anyone can join. And many of us pay to help support our radio habit. It is largely because of the (sometimes fierce) determination of NPR listeners that the enterprise survives. We give, and we advocate.
On the other hand, take the Fox network, media capital of the land of Great Right-Wingia, home to the likes of Glenn Beck. For many of us, and not just NPR listeners, this is the antithesis of NPR. I think of it as a place where truth is always the first casualty.
So, when--several months ago--I learned that senior NPR news analyst Juan Williams also worked for Fox News, it came as a shock. I even wrote to NPR about it; and I got an answer from Williams that, I must admit, I was too afraid to open. But I continued to believe that Jesus was right--nobody can serve two masters. Sooner or later something would happen to change matters. And it did--with a suddenness that almost stunned me.
I immediately saw problems. NPR's reaction seemed like entirely too much for the immediate offense. Williams is alleged to have admitted that he got tense when he saw a passenger in Moslem costume on a plane. Millions of us, without being bigots, probably would have the same reaction. We would not have had it before sunset on 9/10/2001; but we certainly would have felt it--and in many cases still do--after the late morning of 9/11. We have been badly shaken, and nothing reassuring enough to restore our confidence has yet happened.
So this one statement should not have been fatal to Juan Williams' NPR career, especially coupled with the disclaimers he made. But it seems that this episode was only one of many. Perhaps the most offensive that I have heard of was a slap at Michelle Obama, who he seems to have said resembled Stokely Carmichael in a designer dress. (I heard the entire quote twice, but did not catch it either time; so I am only approximating.)
I believe the best way to have handled the matter would have been one that did not attract the fire of the likes of Sara "Railin'" Palin. Something like a quiet conference which left Mr. Williams with the choice of NPR or Fox.
Well, it didn't happen that way. It has made some trouble that would better have been avoided. But I remain a stalwart fan of NPR, and will help it in any way I can. Just because something isn't perfect doesn't mean it isn't very good.

A Mosque Too Many

I have delayed commenting on the matter of the mosque proposed for the general neighborhood of what was once New York's World Trade Center for a number of reasons. First, I hoped the whole notion would go away. Second, in case it didn't go away, I had little if any influence to stop it. Third, and certainly not least, I did not want to be in any way perceived as supporting views of the likes of Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin. It seems to me that whatever they touch, they twist to generate fear for political purposes.
But it also seems to me that in the case of the mosque proposal they have their historical facts, and even historical inferences, right. I have been grieved to see would-be opinion makers take the lead in propounding tolerance and ridiculing those who oppose a new mosque in the neighborhood of the 9/11 tragedy. Do they know anything at all about the history of Moslem-Christian relations? I guess they don't, so I am going to try to get their attention and tell them. (Note: I learned to spell the word "Moslem", not "Muslim". I intend to go on doing that, since I cannot see how it could offend any person.)
Let me begin by saying that tolerance is a high value and a noble goal. But there is no sense in propounding values and goals to people who do not share them. I am sure there are millions of Moslems who DO share our values to some degree, and who would like nothing more than to live in peace and quiet. But, if they really exist, they do not feel free to express their views.
Let's go back to the history that has been enacted between Moslems and Christians. It's been lamentable
The death of Mohammed, the prophet of Islam, had the effect of unleashing Islamic armies from Arabia on the known world. One of the directions they surged was westward--across North Africa and into what became Spain, Portugal, and the South of France. There, in 732, they were stopped by a Christian force led by Charles Martel. But they retained control of much of what is now Spain until 1492, and their cultural influence can be seen there until this day. So large is the Moslem population of Europe these days that they may well reclaim control of this lost territory someday. Maybe someday soon.
The incursion of the early 8th century, the first large-scale encounter between Islam and the West, was a Moslem invasion. It's interesting to note this, because much criticism has been leveled at the West for the series of Crusades which began in 1095, and which were indeed brutal. Seen in perspective, they had a significant self-defense element.
After the initial Arab-Christian collision, the Turks became the big Islamic threat to the West. In 1453 they conquered Constantinople and what was left of the Byzantine Empire--long the unappreciated eastern bulwark of Christendom. They then took over Greece and most of the rest of the Balkan Peninsula, and threatened Central Europe for several centuries. Only in the 17th century were they staved off at the Siege of Vienna and the great naval Battle of Lepanto.
These were the beginnings, then, of the relationships between Islamic culture and our own. There has never been any rapprochement, either. In the 20th century "our side" has been able to establish temporary dominance with our technology, our need for oil, and the materialistic culture we have been all too eager to share with the world.
Under these circumstances, does it not at least seem possible that a new mosque in the neighborhood of Ground Zero is an attempt to flout us? And that our high-minded advocacy of tolerance is earning us ridicule in certain circles?
After all, if the propounders of the mosque--which, by the way, is planned for several blocks away from the Ground Zero site, not across the street from it--were interested in tolerance, they could have had it. All they needed to do is say, "Since this disturbs you, we will move it further away." And especially since their religious freedom IS guaranteed. They may practice Islam anywhere in the country they like. They are only asked to have the sensitivity not to practice it near this tragic place.
But they did not say the words that would have healed.

The Two-Inch Universe

Growing up when and where I did, there seemed little chance I'd ever be able to get out and see and experience much of the world. In fact, the first indication I had that I'd beaten the jinx came when I found myself riding into the ancient city of Petra, the "rose-red city half as old as time." That experience I recorded in my recently-published book "Jerusalem Journal".
But it didn't happen until I was nearly middle-aged.
Meanwhile, a lot of years went by in which I had to make do with second-hand experience. Books and reading were basic to this, of course, as I freely roamed the globe and the ages of history in my imagination.
So were movies, of course. The technology of the wide screen--which I thought was the cinematic wave of the future--enabled me to travel the Middle East with Lawrence of Arabia years before I got there in person. Less spectacular but still engrossing films took me to the Greek Islands, Rome, Paris, and other desired destinations I did not expect to see in person. In the end, the technology of the airliner took me to some of these places in the flesh.
So it was modern technology that contributed, more than anything else, to the opening of my previously closed world. And it is with dismay that I note the tendency of modern technology to close us off from the universe around us.
Think about it. The size of the screens on which life is presented to us has dwindled--in some cases to two inches or so. No broad vistas here. And nothing natural to listen to, either--not with ear buds to stick in our ears. We are insulated, not only from bird song, but from potential conversation with other humans. Possibly even from the sound of the out-of-control automobile that, unknown to us, is careening toward us to flatten us.
Is there a cure for this insulation-by-technology? That's a no-brainer. Time to take a break from our gadgets. Turn off. Unplug. Tune out. Time to learn to do something real with your hands: learn to knit, learn to draw, learn to play the harmonica. You can come back to the technology later, when it can really help empower you. In the meantime, "grow" yourself. Use the gadgets as aids; but otherwise, run your own intellectual and spiritual life.

Against the Ad

While I believe in freedom of speech, I was surprised and dismayed to find an anti-Israeli ad on this blog. This strains my commitment to free speech to the limit, although I do understand Blogger's philosophy on the matter.
For those of you who would like to understand the Israeli position on news out of the Middle East, I recommend the Honest Reporting site, www.honestreporting.com

The Mystique of the Book

If ever anyone was destined to write books, I was that person. Or maybe I should say, "It should happen to me."
For years I had the sense not to mention this ambition to my decidedly non-literary family. But, as an avid reader, I could not hide from my unsettled parents that I was, at the least, bookish. I left a trail of books wherever I went, usually histories, biographies, dramas, poetry. (Fiction much less often--history was what I wanted to write, not novels.)
Not everything goes as we have planned it; and it was decades before I was able to publish my first book--"In The Lion's Mouth," a biographical sketch of Holocaust heroine Gisi Fleischmann. I knew by then just what was involved in publishing a "niche" book--that is, a non-blockbuster. The frustration and pain of multiple rejections and what seemed like universal misunderstanding were so sharp that I thought I would never do such a thing again--although I have done it several times since, and yet another memoir is likely to be on my agenda.)
But in the immediate aftermath of "In The Lion's Mouth" I was stunned by the reactions of casual acquaintances.
"I've always thought I'd like to write," they told me. "I've always wanted to do a book."
Close questioning generally revealed that they had never even READ a book--or at least not in years. But they wanted to bequeath one of their own to an eager--well, maybe not so eager--world.
What is the mystique of the book? Maybe it goes back to the Middle Ages, when you could save yourself from hanging if you wore a cleric's habit and could prove you could read and write. In that case, you could be forgiven for any crime. Or maybe it has to do with the powerful things that once were associated with books--everything from spells to laws, but certainly nothing trivial, could be found in them.
You would think it might be dying now. This is an age in which fewer and fewer people read; and if they DO read, a diminishing number of them are reading in traditional formats. Yet the ardor for doing a book--almost certainly a book that will not be read even by one's own nearest and dearest--seems unabated.
Go figure.

Byzantium: Does History Repeat Itself?

"The thing that has been is that which shall be." So said the great Greek historian Thucydides.
If Thucydides was right (or at least if I understand him correctly), this means history repeats itself; or at least historical patterns repeat themselves.
Given human nature, I find this believable. So why, then, do we never seem to learn from it? If we did, wouldn't that prevent a world of pain?
The answer to the second, rhetorical question clearly is "Yes." The answers to why we never seem to learn from it are multiple, I think.
First, we clearly are not as smart as we think we are. Otherwise the planet most likely would be in a better state. Second, we may be confused by the costume changes. I am only half frivolous about this. In our historical memory Romans look a lot different from Huns, who look a lot different from Edwardians. Things like this can be just enough to make us believe that the people in the costumes are doing different things, when in reality they are doing the same things underneath it all.
Then there are small but deadly ideas that get in the way--things like skin color or theology.
Especially theology.
It could be theology, more than anything else, that has prevented the average person from being taught anything about the Byzantine Empire. And it's too bad. This story is an important one. It is the tale of how, for century after century, the West was threatened by the rise of militant Islam. But it had a bulwark to the east--a Christian empire, originally a mighty one. Call it the Eastern Roman Empire, Romai, whatever. These days people who have heard of it at all generally call it the Byzantine Empire, or Byzantium. Lars Brownworth's book, "Lost To The West" provides a fascinating survey of its thousand-plus-year history, its culture, its 88 emperors, its military triumphs and defeats.
The threat of Islam arose, for both Byzantium and the West, as early as the late 7th century--during or soon after the life of Mohammed, the new faith's prophet. Both recognized the onslaught from the East as a threat to their way of life. Religion, or rather theology, kept them from working together as effectively as they might have. Indeed, at one point Crusaders from the Latin West overran Constantinople, the Byzantine capital, and weakened the Orthodox Christian eastern empire beyond possible recovery.
On Tuesday, May 29, 1453 Constantinople, the great, the storied, fell before the onslaught of Ottoman Turks. The Byzantine Empire was dead. It fell almost unaided in its hour of agony. Western Europe was left to cope with generations of Turkish incursions that swept as far west as the gates of Vienna.
Looking at Europe today, it seems--to me, at least--that the incursions of Islam have never really stopped.
How different might things have been if those long-ago Christians of the West and of the East had decided to throw away theological differences and unite against the common threat? Would history now be repeating itself, or at least seeming to do so?
We'll never know.

Thinking About History I

Thinking about history has been my major intellectual preoccupation all my life. In a way, it must have started before I started school, because in the course of many years of formal education my interest had to survive some fairly bad history "teachers." I'm sure you know the type: The ones who lived for the one class period a week they could spend on their true love, Driver Education. The coaches who thought class time was a good time to bring the football team (in my high school days the world's losingest) up to speed on their plays. Every teacher who ever majored in "social studies" because it looked like an easy path to a degree.
Later on I had at least one brilliant history teacher. For this I am grateful; but if my historical interest had not somehow been hardwired into me from birth I don't think it would have survived to encounter that brilliant one.
So--what IS history? History is--maybe--a "social study"; but if it is, it is a whole lot more than that. It is the doyenne of social studies.
It is our way of thinking about what goes on in time. But what if time itself is an illusion? (Sometimes that seems both likely and comforting.) In that case, I think, we still have to deal with history, because unless we can think like quantum physicists the historical idea is about as much as we can encompass intellectually.
How can we know if history is "true"? A good question. We can't. As students of history, it is our intellectual and moral obligation to keep the record--and to keep the record straight. Or at least as straight as possible. We will never be able to know that our telling of the story (the word "history" derives from the Greek word for "story", and rightly so) is true in every detail. It seems unlikely that it ever could be.
On the other hand, it is all too possible to distort the available historical record and shape it into a construct of lies. It's been done time and again; the most famous example of "twistory" is that perpetrated by Hitler and his minion Josef Goebbels, but on a lesser scale it goes on all the time.
The inevitable result is some REALLY bad history, immense suffering brought about through evil invention.
The British historian Garrett Mattingly, writing at a time when German bombs were raining down on his country, suggests a much higher use for his intellectual specialty. He was writing about the Spanish Armada, an earlier attempt by another country to destroy Britain; and in his book he praised the human virtues of the Spanish admiral, the Duke of Medina Sidonia. He said he did so because one of the uses of history is to do justice.
And to me that sounds like the very best use of history.