Middle Ground
In counseling conflict, I try to find middle ground. Usually there is something about which both sides can agree. It may take a little time to find this real estate, but that is the aim.
If the middle ground is not discovered, the conflict goes on. In the case of marriage, the result is divorce.
If by some means both sides can find agreement, though not getting everything they want, the conflict, for the time is resolved.
Since 9/11 America has been put on notice that there is no middle ground. There are only demands and wishes for our nation's death and destruction.
To make matters worse, the western media and many of our politicians support a double standard.
Look at how scandalous the Abu-Grabe events were portrayed. There were calls for hearings, trials, and all sorts of pronouncements. In contrast, video taped beheadings were out of the news in a day or two. If a Martian were to look at the news coverage for both events, he/she/it would conclude that it is a higher crime to point at a naked guy’s weenie and laugh than it is to cut off someone’s head with a knife.
When a national news magazine author falsely wrote about the Koran being put in toilets, the Muslim world erupted and people died in the rioting. The author basically retracted the claim and said something to the effect of, "My bad."
Now the latest incident, a Danish newspaper publishes a cartoon which is considered offensive. The response is rioting, embassy assaulting, and killing.
What does the world press do in response? They lecture people about sensitivity and tell them to be more careful. Now if someone calls for the destruction of Israel or refers to President Bush as a Nazi, war criminal, and a terrorist beyond that of Osama Bin Laden; then that is an exercise of free speech.
How do the Muslim leaders respond to the cartoons and Abu-Grabe? They tell us Westerners how we should be more sensitive. I am not hearing these same leaders telling their people to protest peacefully or to stop the senseless killing.
We can either stand up for our rights or lose them to those who see no middle ground. This is not about Republicans and Democrats. This is about fundamental beliefs.
Do you believe in the right to free speech?
Do you believe in freedom?
Are you willing to fight to keep it?
President Bush should back Denmark. Whether one agrees or not with the cartoonist is not the point. The cartoonist has the right to exercise his opinion. Those who try to suppress him through violence are the ones in the wrong.
Let’s say Jesse Jackson made a cartoon about NASCAR and the Klan got upset and started burning crosses in the yards of black people. Would the press lecture Jesse on sensitivity? Would 3rd grade teachers make little black kids wear capes and hoods so they could understand the Klan culture. I don’t think so.
Right now there is no middle ground. If you think there is, you are standing alone in an open field awaiting a bullet from someone who thinks God wants him to kill you and your way of life.
Think about this issue from your beliefs point of view and try not to insinuate politics into it. This is bigger than politics, because it threatens all of us in the west.
Until the next time
John Strain