Beyond Ignorance and Understanding

Not long ago, I wrote that we clash cultures while the world plunges to climate-change hell in burning hand-baskets.

Sure there might be some hoping for the future -- if only human beings bothered understanding cultural principles and ideologies better. Cultural principles and ideologies defining who people are -- and who the enemies of the people are. Because then, just maybe, we might start bridging gaps between ourselves and cultural others by discourse -- rather than plugging them with bullets.

But better understanding is not enough. If cultural ignorance of self and others escalates conflicts, let’s absolutely struggle against ignorance. What to do, though, when hatred precedes mis-understanding? When the hatred precedes and surpasses all ignorance? When we set out to genocide cultural others -- knowing full-well what we set out to do?

That’s what I was confronted with on Thursday while at York University. How hatred has a life and death wish all its own. Surpassing both ignorance and understanding.

First there was the Toronto Star article about China’s ambassador to Canada accusing Dalai Lama of “telling lies to the world” and masterminding violence in Tibet. Lu Shumin actually expects us to believe the Dalai Lama is some sort of lying, violent devil. That the Dalai Lama just pretends to be an angel. According to Lu Shumin,

Dalai Lama has presented himself to be a peaceful, like an angel kind of figure, for such a long time.. the Western public take this for granted…

Sorry, Mr. Ambassador. Every public in the world knows the lies are all yours. Because everybody knows the Dalai Lama is as close to angels as human beings get. Everyone knows where the Dalai Lama stands against violence. So best luck with your crass, transparent vilifying and demonizing campaigns, Mr. Ambassador. Such lies do nothing against the Dalai Lama -- they just trample the shreds of China’s dignity from the world stage.

And then, doing my usual rounds, I started hearing ululations. Following the sounds of which across campus led me to Vari Hall -- and this unbelievable mob scenery.

Not just the regular mob that occupies Vari Hall, though. Nope. Now there were two mobs. As if the regular had somehow, amoeba-like, split. Found themselves waving different flags. Just went collectively insane. Competing to drown each other out by megaphone-amplified histrionics. Barely separated by York security guards. With eight police cruisers parked right outside -- just waiting for York security to collapse.

There were a couple signs getting totally ignored up in the rafters -- requesting dialogue instead of mob-action on campus. And on spur of that moment, it seemed I could do better. After all, hadn’t I been writing articles against cultures clashing and dashing the future of everything natural to cinders?

That’s why I laid me down between mobs. Vaguely hoping the mobs would realize that by lying down between them I was standing up for the future.

Well, the mobs paid no slightest heed. Either didn’t notice or didn’t care. York security, though, reacted instantly.

“Sir! You are going to have to move. Right now!”

“Where to?” I asked.

“One side or the other, sir. Right now!”

Great. York security demanded I pick sides. So I settled for walking back and forth. Asked a few questions. Read some literature.

Nearest I could make out, the entire dispute was semantic. Whether the border fencing separating Israelis, Palestinians and Egyptians ought to get called an “apartheid wall” or not.

Well, wasn’t that obvious? Of course it shouldn’t. Apartheid is offensive -- not defensive. When walls are defensive life-savers, we tend to think of them as being great. Not just when they’re huge -- like the Great Wall of China. Also when they’re relatively smaller. Like that wall of Hadrian’s. Even when they’re relatively tiny fortifications. They’re all great when built as defensive life-savers.

The Berlin Wall was offensive. It was pretty huge -- but it sure wasn’t great. No way was the Berlin Wall defensive.

The real issue, of course, is how to quench burning cultural hatred such as surrounding Israel and Tibet. Before it’s too late. Can better cultural understanding suffice to span gaps and contradictions between human cultures by dialogue instead of bullets? Not likely.

But not because the issues are too complex to resolve. To the contrary. When it comes to Tibet, Communist Chinese partisans keep demanding Canadians remain silent. Otherwise, how would Canadians like it if China began agitating for Quebec sovereignty -- or the return of our home and native lands to the native peoples they were stolen from?

Such nonsense. China ought to seek Canadian advice instead of silence. Because China would not even be called upon to permit referenda or seriously negotiate land claims in Tibet. All Tibetans seek is some cultural autonomy. Relative to Canada’s sovereignty issues, China’s can be walked through parks on any sunny day.

Issues get a tad more complicated when it comes to Israel and Palestine -- but not too much. All distinct peoples and societies must possess territorial integrity to secure cultural autonomy. Otherwise, absent some territorial integrity and cultural autonomy, distinct peoples are at constant risk of genocide. That’s just how we are once cultures get clashing. What else is human history even about other than our clashing cultures?

Hence, Palestinians must have their own country. But not a shittier littler country to stew in eternal resentment, for crying out loud. Palestinians must have a country they can be proud of. A country they can proudly work to build -- rather than constantly looking to destroy someone else's.

That’s why everybody has got to chip in. Not just the Israelis with the West Bank and Gaza. Everybody. Internationally. Jordan can give up a little space, surely, on the river’s east bank. Egypt can provide a chunk of the Sinai. Why not? These would just be territorial crumbs. But crumbs which, together, would create a decent dignified future.

So simple. Palestine must be larger than Israel. Come on, Arab brothers. Contribute. Just some crumbs from your laden territorial tables. The days of the Palestinian people foddering your cannons against Israel are over. You threatened Palestinians to leave, to get out of your way when you came shooting to genocide Israel in 1948. Yet Israel still stands. You promised Palestinians they’d return to feasting on the corpse of Israel. And not only haven’t you delivered to this day and age -- you continue burying the Palestinian people, heaping perpetual shame on them as refugees. As if Israel still standing were their fault instead of yours. But it was your threats and broken promises, Arab brothers, which broke Palestinians from their homes. It is your duty, Arab brothers, to contribute making the Palestinian people whole again.

Contribute, Arab brothers. Don't shrug off every responsibility onto Israel -- there must be more honour. And give up levering the Palestinian people to genocide Israel already. You've been trying for 60 years. Give it up. If god were willing, you would long since have succeeded. Help make the future better, please. Not always worse. Come on. How hard can it be? Any future would be better.

No. The issues are not too complicated to resolve. Not if better futures were desired. But, of course, there’s no intention of making anything better once cultural hatred starts burning out of control. Sometimes cultures do clash due to plain ignorance or misunderstanding. The U.S. invasion of Iraq, for instance, ought to have been averted by better intelligence, better understanding and a little less ignorance. But too often, once hatred flames out of control, cultures can’t stop clashing. No matter what. Not until at least one is extinguished.

Because hatred can’t be extinguished once cultural others come to be regarded as antithetical to everything good and proper. When some cultural other merely continuing to exist becomes unbearably humiliating. In such cases, vilifying and demonizing cease reflecting strategic lies and tactical propaganda. The hatred expressed in such cases is genuine -- honestly reflecting sensations of utter humiliation entailed by the cultural other merely existing. The cultural other comes to embody everything which hinders attainment and the manifest destiny of one's people.

In this sense, Chinese leadership demonizing the Dalai Lama indicates profound humiliation that Tibetan culture continues existing. Chinese leadership expects to be believed despite what the whole world has been witnessing for decades -- how the Dalai Lama stands against hatred and every manner of inadvisable material attachment. Because Tibetan culture continuing existing, cankering China's becoming super-powerful and preparing to host Olympic Games, necessarily means the Dalai Lama must be some sort of lying, violent devil.

Just the same in the case of Islam and Israel. Islam can never stop shooting at Israel because nothing can more profoundly humiliate Islam than Israel continuing to exist. How can Israel’s existing 60 years despite all Islam’s best efforts even be conceived? Like, whose side is god on, anyhow? It can’t be conceived. Islamic maps deny even the geographic fact of Israel. That’s why it doesn’t matter what Israel does. From how much land occupied in defensive wars Israel retreats. How great the walls Israel builds to defend itself are. What truces Israel ratifies. How relatively well Muslim citizens fare in Israel. None of that matters. Islam can’t ever stop shooting at Israel. When Israel builds walls to stop violence, Islamic leaders vilify those walls as if offensive rather than defensive. Since Islamic leaders honestly don’t get how Israel could be entitled to self-defend. When Israel gets forced to shoot back at Islam in self-defence, Islamic leaders holler that Israel commits genocide. Despite how unabashed Islamic leaders have been calling for Israel’s genocide since 1948. Despite how some Islamic leadership is actually chartered on genociding Israel. Despite how Israeli culture was conceived in resisting genocide. Despite how desperate Israel is for peace with Islam -- i.e., to not itself get genocided. None of that matters. Israel continuing existing entails such humiliation for Islamic culture -- it means Israel must be the genocider rather than the genocidee. Thus, when vilifying and demonizing Israel, Islamic leadership isn’t intending to lie. They are just expressing their feelings of cultural humiliation -- and reminding us, once again, how to really hate.

We can’t always be forgiven for not knowing what we do. Sometimes we know perfectly well -- but our hatred surpasses all ignorance or understanding. Times like that, it doesn’t matter whether we boycott the Olympic Games. Since, whether we boycott them or not, these games will likely come to be known as the Cultural Genocide Olympics. Nor does it much matter what road-maps we draw to Middle-East peace. There’s no place for Israel on Islamic maps. Ultimately, the power of hatred to clash human cultures suggests Armageddon will long precede our climate-change hell. And, if only so, the world might become a far better, more natural place.

[Peter Fruchter teaches in the Division of Humanities at York University.]

Dalai Lama image screenshot from here -- CBC interview with the Dalai Lama. Very much worth reading.