Scott Cawelti

4-17-11

Desecration of any sacred object, be it flag, holy text, saint’s finger, or hallowed painting like the Mona Lisa, can cause big trouble. 

If someone were to spray paint graffiti on DaVinci’s masterpiece, it would cause great wailing and gnashing of teeth worldwide.  Such art desecrations happen with enough regularity that guards and barriers are now placed around the world’s art treasures to keep them safe.  Masterpieces are also one of a kind, so destroying an original would be tragic.  If there were a million Mona Lisas, desecrating a copy wouldn’t mean much.  In fact I own printed copies in art books and could destroy any of them with impunity.

As a matter of fact, I own a copy of the sacred Quran, and it sits next to the equally sacred King James Bible on my bookshelf.  We all own such books, and most of us treat them with respect.  I consider book burning an act of vandalism and a waste of reading material, good or bad.  Incidentally, both sacred texts are available on my Kindle for ninety-nine cents. 

Not sure how I would desecrate my Kindle.  Remove the battery?

 All of which brings me to Pastor Terry Jones.  He’s the Florida publicity hound who promised not to burn a Quran late last year.  Then on March 20 he went ahead and
“executed” his copy of the Muslim Holy Book in his church after a mock trial, declaring the book guilty and sentenced it to death by burning. 

At the time, few people noticed, since it was so obviously the actions of a fame-seeker and nut job.  And that’s where it should have ended.  However, Jones created a video of his desecration for YouTube so everyone could watch. 

So it became news. Big news.  Angry radical Mullahs railed at Jones and even Afghanistan’s President Karzai stepped in, calling for Jones’ arrest.  Riots and deaths followed, including seven UN workers in Afghanistan.  Scores were injured, and unrest has spread, including retaliatory Bible-burning. 

Those of us who believe in freedom of speech and separation of church and state struggle with at least three questions:  (1) Should Jones in fact be prosecuted for destroying his copy of the Quran, knowing it would cause trouble?  Maybe it’s the equivalent of shouting fire in a crowded theater.  (2) Who is ultimately responsible for those UN workers’ deaths and injuries in Afghanistan that grew out of Jones’ actions?   (3) How can people invest so much significance in a copy that’s so easily created and destroyed? 

 One at a time:

            (1) No, he should not be prosecuted.  Criticized, boycotted, yes.  That’s called the marketplace of ideas.  But not arrested.  Someday I plan to give away or junk all of my books.  I don’t want to have to separate my copies of the Bible or Quran to avoid jail.   Same with my store-bought flags. 

            (2) Jones cannot be blamed directly for what those Afghani mobs did.  Thanks to the Internet, we live in a tinderbox, where a tiny spark explodes into flame and people die.  If anyone deserves blame, it’s the radical mullahs and President Karzai for so roundly condemning Jones to their easily incited followers.   They should know better.  Where are the moderates who need to condemn them for such incendiary talk?  It’s they who’re shouting fire in their own crowded theater, not Jones.

            (3) Why so much emotion invested in a version of a sacred text?  People respond to intentions, not the logic of burning a cheap copy.  They believe sacred book burners hate their religion and in fact are desecrating their faith using their holy books as a symbol.  If someone’s book-burning actions bespeak hate of their faith, they have a duty to protest, even violently. 

These people are true believers, a.k.a fanatics.  They’re not about to be changed by reason or moderation.  However, we moderates of all persuasions have a duty not to incite them when sparks from other fanatics on the opposite side (like Terry Jones) fly.  

In other words, pour cool water on the tinderbox of faith-based outrage. 

2-13-05

As I write, top-level University of Colorado administrators are reviewing one of their own tenured professors’ “conduct and speech” and will determine whether he should be dismissed.  By the end of the month, this professor may be out on the street. 

Professor Ward Churchill had been Chair of the Ethnic Studies Department, but has voluntarily resigned from that position, probably before they asked him to step down.  However, he teaches full-time as Professor of Ethnic Studies, teaching classes at the University of Colorado. For at least three more weeks, anyway.  

What has Professor Churchill done?  Basically, just after 9/11 he called the “technocrats” working in the World Trade Center on that infamous day “little Eichmanns,” referring to Nazi Adolf Eichmann, that infamous war criminal who engineered the Nazis’ final solution.  Churchill asserted in his essay that they and other Americans are partly responsible for terrorist attacks as a form of “blowback” because of American policies abroad.  And no one should have been surprised when they were attacked.

Churchill himself recently wrote this:  “The bottom line of my argument is that the best and perhaps only way to prevent 9/11 style attacks on the U.S. is for American citizens to compel their government to comply with the rule of law. The lesson of Nuremberg is that this is not only our right, but our obligation. To the extent we shirk this responsibility, we, like the "Good Germans" of the 1930s and '40s, are complicit in its actions and have no legitimate basis for complaint when we suffer the consequences. This, of course, includes me, personally, as well as my family, no less than anyone else.”

These words and the extended justification for them, in his books and essays, as well as his speeches, have caused apoplexy among conservative ranters.  Churchill received so many death threats that his appearance on a panel at Hamilton College in New York had to be cancelled.  

No question, Churchill’s comparison with Eichmann is odious. There’s no comparison between those who work for banks and corporations and those who developed efficient means of committing genocide as Nazis.   

That said, one could make a case that America’s policies over the last century, if examined objectively, have created widespread resentment and misery, especially among those our government finds disagreeable or threatening.

Churchill has made this case, as have Howard Zinn, David Stannard, James Loewen, and Chalmers Johnson, among others. In fact, they have made that case better than Churchill, that America’s behavior has been less than justifiable, and terrorism may be an understandable response to it. 

It’s a disagreeable case, but worth trying to understand. And no one suggests arresting the Ward Churchills for anything; they have a perfect right to their views.  And only fanatics and nut cases would like to do violence to them, surely.

However, plenty of people would suggest punishing them by taking away their jobs, and certainly not giving them a platform for their views. In other words, don’t jail them, but don’t listen to them, either.

That’s the problem with the “Fire Churchill” position. You can’t fire people, especially people who are paid to do research and teach, for writing ideas with which we disagree, even if we think they’re dead wrong.

You can’t have freedom of speech without occasionally disagreeable speech. What good is freedom if it only allows agreeable ideas?  Even Hitler and Stalin did that.

So I’d say try to understand Professor Churchill’s perspective, then argue with it and refute it.  But don’t punish him for speaking out. 

That’s his right, and as an academic, it’s his duty. 

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Three Reasons to See “Million Dollar Baby”

            If you aren’t sure you want to see Clint Eastwood’s latest and best film because you’ve heard it’s a downer, go anyway.  It’s only a downer in one sense that I don’t want to give away. In a deeper sense it’s elating because it’s true to the characters and what

they really would do.  And the truth can set you free, as they say.

            See it too for the soundtrack.  It’s subtle, it’s ingenious, and it never interferes

with what’s onscreen. Such a refreshing change from all the slunctuous music that accompanies most films these days.  (Slunctuous:  Silly and unctuous.)

            Finally, see it for what it doesn’t show.  It doesn’t show all the secrets, or give away all the motivations.  Hence there’s uncertainty, and that that leaves room for speculation, interpretation, surmising.  Just like life, but artistically drawn.  

            It’s a lovely, memorable film.