While we were at Nose Candy and Beth's wedding reception in Las Vegas, four days after the assault on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, a friend and fellow hasher asked me why I hadn't come out on the Hash List or the Half-Mind Catalog with a public statement about the attacks. I'm sure your reaction would have been the same as mine: "What could I possibly say?" Evil men committed unspeakable acts, acts so alien to my way of thinking I can't encompass them, let alone understand them. Besides, others seem to have plenty to say, much of which I agree with. But then my friend said, "Like it or not, you're a voice in the hash, and many of us respect what you have to say."
Now you think I'm putting on airs. I'm not. I wish I did have something wise to say. Something George W. Bush or Tony Blair . . . or Osama bin Laden . . . could factor into the relentless algorithms of war. Something that would give comfort to those who've been hurt. Something that might lead us away from blind revenge and toward useful action. Something that would strike dread into the malformed hearts of those who crafted and committed the terror.
My opinion: The enemy isn't the Iranians, the Iraqis, the Palestinians, the Taliban, or even bin Laden. Yes, they are proximate enemies, but defeating them won't stop terrorism. The enemy is ignorance. The enemy is fundamentalism, intolerance, hatred, tribalism: Ignorance . . . with a capital I.
If ignorance spoke, this would be its soliloquy: "My religion and culture grow out of the darkest impulses of human nature and they are one and the same. I envy you, and I hate what I envy. I oppose anything that makes men and women happy, or that brings people of different faiths and nations together. Beholding happiness angers me; punishing happiness pleases me. My institutions and laws, religious and civil, enforce misery and ignorance. I preach intolerance and hatred for those who are not with me and of me. My foreign policy is simple. If you are not of me and with me you are a foreigner. If you are a foreigner you are a heathen and an enemy. My god decrees your death at the point of my righteous sword. Death first, foremost, and always to the Jews. Then the Christians, the Hindus, the Buddhists, and the rest. The surest path to glory is killing heathens; whether those I kill be soldier or civilian, whether they be man, woman, or child is nothing to me, for they are all filth. And when I have killed all the infidels I will turn on my own tribe, ever narrowing my interpretation of the scriptures and killing those who do not comply, until only the holiest shall survive. And then I'll have to find something new to hate . . . which won't take me long."
Ignorance has declared war on the First World: America and the West. It's a war against our freedom to live the way we choose, to pursue happiness, to be free from compulsory religious belief. It's a war against humanitarianism and progress. It's a war against the very idea of overcoming tribal, national, religious, and racial differences in order to build prosperity and peace. It's a war, ultimately, between two sides of human nature, between our lust for vengeance and our capacity for mercy.
Ignorance . . . superstition, intolerance, hatred of the different . . . is in our bones. It flourishes in poverty and shrivels in prosperity. Take the average overfed overindulged self-actualizing American down a couple of levels on Maslow's pyramid . . . take away his SUV and cell phone and put him down at the level of worrying about food on the table and a roof over his head, and he'd be not that different from the average Afghani, Rwandan, or Serb. A certain level of ignorance and hate continues to exist in all Western societies, but we've built up enough of a foundation beneath our freedom and prosperity that it's highly unlikely our own hate groups and religious fundamentalists will ever become strong enough to force us back into the Middle Ages.
That, sadly, doesn't apply elsewhere. Does anyone remember Iran before the Ayatollah? It was a prosperous and peaceful country, almost totally Western in lifestyle and outlook. But there wasn't much behind the facade, and when the Shah weakened, the entire nation returned to religious fundamentalism, hatred, and ignorance. Lebanon was another such country. I won't say anything about the differences between Africa under colonialism and Africa today, lest I be accused of incorrect thinking, but I will risk pointing a finger at Indonesia, once a prosperous and truly multicultural society, now unraveling before our eyes. Give ignorance a chance and it comes back with a vengeance.
Certainly we must act against terrorists. Revenge (oops, I meant justice) aside, anyone who thinks the terrorists have played their best card is willfully blind. They will continue to attack us, in ways even more cruel and shocking than those they used in September. Now more than ever we must be decisive and relentless. We must seek out those who would kill us, leaders and supporters alike, and stop them. Kill them. Destroy their nests, no matter where they may be, and in the case of Iraq, perhaps we should be pre-emptive. We can't co-exist with forces dedicated to our destruction. We have to destroy that which will destroy us.
It won't be easy, and six months or a year from now it'll be tempting to slide back into apathy and inaction. I hope the memory of the horrific events of September 11, 2001 will keep us focused on the fight. But although I'll do whatever it takes to help my country prevail, I recognize that the most we can expect to win through military action will be battles, not the war. This is a war between natural enemies, and as with all such wars, much more than military action will be needed to win it.
And though the war will test us to our limits, I don't doubt for a minute that we'll ultimately win it. We . . . the West . . . will win this war the same way we won the Cold War. We'll win by keeping our commitment to freedom, democracy, and progress. We'll win by guarding and exercising our personal liberties. We'll win by continuing to be prosperous and happy, continuing to improve our societies, continuing to insist upon respect for human rights in our own nations and in our dealings with other nations. We'll be the world's beacon, shining through the darkest night . . . because no matter what lies the dictators, ayatollahs, and supreme leaders tell their subjects, people the world over yearn to live as we do in the West.
We'll win . . . because we can hash. Yes, we'll win because we can hash. I hope that doesn't sound trivial to you. It shouldn't, because it isn't. The hash embodies the freedoms we cherish. Think about it. Would the Taliban allow hashing? Is there a hash in the Sudan? In North Korea? We'll win because we're free to hash! Have you noticed all the cars with US flags? Have you noticed all the people wearing red, white, and blue lapel ribbons? Wear your On-On Feet, hashers!
I offer these comments in the hope they might help some of you deal with the challenges coming our way. I sincerely hope I've said something useful. I welcome your comments.
- Flying Booger
p.s. During times like these poetry is far from our minds. But poetry can provide direction and comfort. I would like to point you toward a particular work. It was written during another time of great evil, and though some of the references are dated, it speaks to our current crisis in a powerful way. I am, of course, talking about the great British poet W. H. Auden's September 1, 1939.
Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.
Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.
Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism's face
And the international wrong.
Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.
The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.
From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
"I will be true to the wife,
I'll concentrate more on my work,"
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the deaf,
Who can speak for the dumb?
All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.
Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.
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