Je ne suis pas Charlie…
February 12, 2016
Greeting my fellow time travelers…
Lots to talk about regarding France and the recent terrorist activity there but, in trying to take things chronologically, one of the first things that happened in 2015 was the shootings in Paris aimed at the weekly French publication which calls itself Charlie Hebdo.
I’d like to start by saying that I whole-heartedly and unequivocally condemn the actions of the shooters. No one is a bigger believer in Freedom of Speech and/or Freedom of Expression than me! …and I truly believe that no one should lose their life due to something they said or something they drew.
That said, I am NOT Charlie.
Quite honestly, I’m a little disturbed by everyone who decided to show their support for Charlie Hebdo by declaring “Je suis Charlie” or I am Charlie. Seriously? Charlie Hebdo is an intolerant, disrespectful, vulgar and offensive magazine. So if you are Charlie, that makes you intolerant, disrespectful, vulgar and offensive. N’es pas?
Again, I’m not saying that the shootings in Paris were by any means justified but they were absolutely provoked and no one should have been surprised when this happened. We were all in grade school once. What happened when you kept teasing someone, particularly someone who had a big bully cousin? Answer: Eventually you got your ass kicked, that’s what.
Let’s go back to the things I talked about in my last few articles and try to gain some perspective. Imagine living in a culture where religion is more important to you than your family, your country or your career. Then imagine an organization that continuously insults you and your religion in the deepest way.
The Muslim community had reached out to Charlie Hebdo multiple times asking that they not use images depicting their prophet, Mohammed, as it was something that was inappropriate and highly offensive to Islam. Charlie Hebdo, of course, continued to publish offensive images of Mohammed. What makes matters even worse and what I believe unites the Muslim “home team” against Charlie Hebdo is anger, as Charlie Hebdo continues to frame all Muslims as terrorist and Mohammed as the head/leader of both terrorism and Islam.
Imagine for one second the public outrage that would occur in uber tolerant America if we had a publication that were to continuously insult a particular ethnic or religious group. Imagine a publication that would, on a weekly basis, make fun of Jews, the Torah, or depict rabbis as terrorist and blamed all Jews for the actions of a few fanatic Jews back in Israel. What if there was a publication that picked on blacks and when Freddie Gray was mistreated and subsequently died in Baltimore, the publication’s front page made fun of it and said, “blacks die here – whites get to live”. Of course, if you are anti-Jewish you are antisemitic and if you are anti-black you are racist. But since there’s no cool special name for it, I guess it’s OK to be anti-Muslim. In fact, the whole rest of the world will back you and be Charlie with you.
By the way, my analogy of “blacks die here – whites get to live” is dead on.
Not too long ago, a Syrian child drowned as he and he his family fled the conflicts in their home country. So what did Charlie Hebdo do? Although they rejected the idea of putting it on the front cover, they nevertheless included a cartoon in their magazine that depicted Jesus walking on water next to a drowning child. The captions said, “Proof that Europe is Christian. Christians walk on water…Muslim kids sink.”
Are you still Charlie?
==
Now, I get that everyone who stood in solidarity with Charlie Hebdo felt that they were standing for freedom of speech and they were appalled at the actions of the attackers but what we all have to understand is that the freedom to speak is a great power that is not afforded to everyone on Earth …and also that with that great power to speak freely comes great responsibility and Charlie Hebdo is repeatedly, grossly irresponsible with that power.
So to be clear, no one is a bigger advocate for freedom of speech than I am and I am absolutely not saying that anyone deserved to die because of the things they said or wrote and the bad guys were absolutely not justified in anyway… but I am saying that I am absolutely not Charlie. Je ne suis pas Charlie…
In a cartoon that was removed from most Internet search engines immediately after the shootings in Paris at Charlie Hebdo, the paper had run a cartoon that said, “Still No Attack on France”. And the bearded turbin-wearing character is saying to himself, “oh, that’s right, we have until the end of January”.
So, really… You are going to repeatedly insult one of the largest religions on the planet, the one known for having extremist who regularly plan attacks, and then you are going to taunt them and say, “why haven’t you come and attacked my country?”
Two attacks later… How is that working out for you?
Remember, in the US there are no laws preventing you from saying whatever you want, however, these days, you can be sued, you can be fired, etc., etc… No one can regulate what you are thinking but it’s common sense to use your freedom to speak responsibly.
I wish I remember who said this as I would love to give them full credit but I once heard it said, “there are no laws preventing me from calling you a nigger but doing so does not make me a great advocate for freedom of speech”.
Truer words are seldom spoken.
As a final thought, although it was a relatively small and ill-planned terrorist attack, the United States recently had a little ISIS inspired event in California. I checked all over Facebook for French people who had Americanized their profile. Didn’t see any. Perhaps the terrorist will have to take out someone deeply offensive, like Justin Bieber, before we get the attention of the general French population?
That’s all I have for today. Gotta run.
Vive la France!
– Arch
Putting “perspective” into perspective…
February 5, 2016
We previously covered The Butterfly Effect and Rooting for The Home Team…
The next concept that we need to discuss is perspective. Everyone has a different perspective on just about everything. It’s the basis for the old joke that a camel is just a horse that was put together by a committee. It’s really quite remarkable that anyone ever sees eye-to-eye with anyone else on anything. And remember, the more different you are from someone, the more skewed your perspectives may be from theirs.
It Could Happen to You…
Does anyone remember the movie, “It Could Happen to You” with Nicolas Cage and Bridget Fonda? As I recall, the general movie plot was that Nicolas Cage gives Bridget Fonda, who plays a struggling waitress, a lottery ticket or maybe agrees to split it with her, I don’t remember the details …but the ticket ends up being a winner and she is going to potentially win some crazy amount of cash, like $10 million. Somewhere in the movie, however, they run into another potential winner and we find out why winning the lottery is equally important to that guy. He says, “winning this $10 million would double my existing fortune”. Of course, he wants to win and couldn’t care less about the waitress, her kid, or whatever else was going on in her life.
So for the waitress, $10 million was a pie in the sky dream world but for (let’s call him) “the Wall Street businessman”, having $10 million isn’t enough and he really needs this additional $10 million or his life just wouldn’t be complete. It’s all just perspective.
==
A few years ago, I attended a destination wedding in Antigua, Guatemala. The day before the wedding, a handful of us climbed Volcano Picaya. Near the top, we stood in an area that had been molten just 30 days before and roasted marshmallows on currently molten lava. The heat was incredible. The whole place made you feel like a tiny piece of chicken on a giant charcoal grill and we all got a weird reverse “sunburn” where our legs felt sunburned but not our heads. It was truly an amazing experience that could never happen in the US.
On the climb down, my troublesome knee started to hurt so I decided to take a mule down. Along side the mule walked a little boy who could not have been a day over 14 years old. Since I speak Spanish, we had a lengthy conversation on the way down. First, he was convinced that he was 18. Told me he wouldn’t be allowed to work there if he wasn’t 18. He told me that he was very lucky to have this job and that he and his mule climb the volcano two or three times everyday. On a good day, he could make about $60 ($20 per round trip) and he gets to keep about half. The other half went to the owner of the mule. So $30 is a great day. Next we talked about his town. He lived in a city, near the base of the volcano, called Santa Elena Barillas. His words were, “I live in the greatest place in the world”. Naturally, I needed to know what made Santa Elena Barillas such a great place.
He explained to me that everyone in his family lived on the same street. He had an uncle who was an excellent fisherman and goes fishing everyday. Several other family members also have jobs so that they can buy rice and vegetables. He told me that no one can cook fish like his grandmother. “It’s delicious”, he said, and I could tell his mouth was watering. Then he told me that his older sister has been cooking the rice and vegetables and that she is starting to get pretty good at it – particularly when it goes with grandma’s fish. His dad was one of the workers – he worked “in the fields”. Mom was mostly in charge of clothing. She found clothes for them, she made clothes for them and she washed their clothes.
“As you can see”, he continued, “we are very lucky. We have everything that we need and we know that there are many places and many people who don’t have all that we have. Again, we are very lucky and I’ll probably never leave Santa Elena.”
I pondered the whole thing and remember thinking to myself, he really does live in the greatest place in the world.
Side Note: About six months after I was there, Picaya erupted. I read that several people died and that 1600 people had to be temporarily relocated from nearby villages as volcano ash filled their streets. That said, I have no doubt that my little Guatemalan friend and his family did just fine. I doubt that even a volcano could ruin the greatest place on Earth.
So again, as YOU can see, when you start looking at the world, other people and other cultures, it’s important to gain perspective and see things through their eyes, understand their point of view. Under different circumstances, without the opportunity to gain his perspective, I may have dismissed him as a nutty little kid who just didn’t know what it took to make a great village. Instead, HE re-educated ME on what it takes to make a great village.
It’s all about perspective.
==
Well, it’s about perspective and DNA
When I say DNA, of course, I’m not talking about DNA like we might learn about in science class, although it is similar. I’m talking about the things that make people who they are, most of which has been taught to us/them by influences from family, our surroundings, our culture, religion religion or maybe our country.
In our general American culture, one DNA influence is: Get an Education, Get a Job, Start a Family, Educate Your Children so that they can get good jobs and someday start a family.
Another of our DNA influences is: Live and Let Live – you can do whatever you want to do as long as it doesn’t directly affect me – freedom of religion, separation of church and state, freedom of speech, freedom to marry someone of the same sex, freedom to drink intoxicating beverages, freedom to abort an unwanted pregnancy. In general, it’s all good as long as whatever your neighbor does, doesn’t affect you… Right?
As we try to gain perspective around the world, it is important to understand that not everyone shares this same DNA. For example, there are many cultures that rank serving God above all other things. We’ve heard of countries that are referred to as Muslim Countries. This usually means that some form of Islam is tied to that country’s government and, most of the time, the people like it that way. Many Muslims want to live in a country governed by Muslims. They want to know that those high level decisions are being made by others of their same faith. It’s important to them.
Similarly, they’re not into freedom of religion. Some religions take their religion way more seriously than other religious groups. They want to know that their neighbors are of the same religion. They want to live in good neighborhoods, ones where others share in their beliefs and no one is doing things that are disrespectful to their prophets or God.
These people are far from live and let live.
This might sound wrong to you but it is wrong or just different? You’re probably asking, why can’t people keep their beliefs to themselves? Why can’t a Muslim be a good Muslim and just ignore whatever his neighbor might be doing. Answer: Perspective & DNA.
Imagine being raised in a culture where God is your number one priority. Imagine a religion where you stop whatever you are doing, 5 times per day, to pray. Then imagine having neighbors who ignore your core beliefs and are, in essence, constantly disrespectful to you, your culture and your God – even if it’s done passively. To put an American spin on it, imagine that you had a neighbor who you felt was continuously disrespectful to your mother, your daughter or your wife. Maybe your neighbor is a work from home prostitute. Why do you care what she does in her house? …or why men seem to come and go at all hours? I thought you were live and let live? Now you’re starting to gain perspective.
When a suicide bomber somewhere in the Middle East straps a bomb to himself, walks onto a bus and sets it off, we ask ourselves, who would do that? The answer is that he may have been waiting his whole life for that day, to do what he thought was his duty. Some people think their wedding day will be the greatest day of their life, others believe that the day they blow themselves up in the name of God will be the greatest day of their life. It’s all about perspective and DNA.
Side Note: I don’t want to portray Muslims as religious fanatics, necessarily. It just wasn’t that long ago that Christians acted very similarly. In the not-too-distant past, Christians stopped to pray before each meal, breakfast, lunch & dinner – that’s three. Some still do that. Then you go to church, sometimes twice par week and that’s where you get a few extra prayers – almost 5 per day.
If you walk around Istanbul and other major Muslim cities, you’ll hear the “call to prayer”. In some cases, it resonates throughout the city and makes Christians a little uneasy – but it’s not unlike the ringing of church bells on any given day.
I have to wonder if church bells make Muslims a little uneasy?
So now that you’ve gained a little perspective, you might begin to understand how others, who take their religions way more seriously than we do, find us religiously offensive. To a certain degree, it’s OK that we’re not “all in” on their God but they see us as not being “all in” on our God. And who in their right mind would want Freedom of Religion? If you believe that your religion is the right one, why would you want other religions practicing near you, in your country? Freedom of Religion sounds great (and it is) but that doesn’t mean that it makes sense to everyone. To some people, it’s borderline offensive. Perspective & DNA at work!
And THAT is all I have for today and maybe, just maybe, next week, we can start talking about the events of 2015. I know I keep promising that. Trust me, we’ll get there.
Love ya, Mean it.
Arch
Root, root, root for the home team…
January 29, 2016
Welcome to my promised mini-series…
Sometimes, when I get on a rant, I start talking about all the things that are wrong with our country: corruption in politics, partisanship over citizenship, etc., etc. And while it’s all true, sometimes we have to focus on bigger things because, at least for now, dysfunctional as we may be at times, we’re still the greatest country in the world …and that’s really why the corruption and other shortcomings piss me off so much.
Let’s face it. Our country is big enough, in both economy and population, to be able to survive even the largest, even the deepest and darkest depths of government corruption, and I guess that should be something to be proud of? It’s no wonder that we the primary target for so many others to hate and throw stones at.
The Butterfly Effect
These days, our entire existence is under attack from multiple angles. Some attacks are small, while others are quite large but they all need our attention. Are we all familiar with the concept of the butterfly effect? Chaos Theory tells us that small changes, like a butterfly flapping its wings in one part of the world, could be responsible for setting in motion the sequence of events that eventually leads to a hurricane forming in another part of the world. In other words, it’s all connected – so pay attention, even to the small things. They are the ones that will most likely creep up, build momentum and get you, when you least expect it.
A very powerful and wealthy government is trying to displace The US Dollar as the world’s default currency, global hackers are trying to steal our corporate technologies and tap into our government offices, while religious nut bags are insulted by how we think, how we dress, our lack of deep religion and they believe that we should be either exterminated or, at least, terrorized into changing our ways. So let’s start there…
War on Terrorism?
America is at war. I would call it an undeclared war but I think we’ve all heard the words spewing from the various mouths of US Presidents, “the war on terrorism”. So instead of calling it undeclared, I’m going to call it ill-declared. The truth is that, we don’t know how to go to war, unless it’s against an established country with clear leadership. We can fight the Germans, the Japanese, the North Koreans or the Vietnamese but we really don’t know how to fight hacking, drug trafficking, communism, terrorism or religious extremism. Once we’re battling a concept or a movement that doesn’t stick within our man-made geographical borders, all we seem to know how to do is to try and defend ourselves. This is a bad strategy. No one has ever won a game based purely on defense.
Thankfully, we now have ISIL to point to and say there is our enemy. Unlike the Nazis and Hitler’s Army, however, you typically don’t see ISIL coming because they are already there. They just need to be activated and that’s why their “fighters” are spreading so quickly throughout so many countries, including ours. We’ll talk more about this later.
But first, since I mentioned ISIL, let me answer a FAQ…
ISIS vs. ISIL
I’ve heard a few people say/ask, “I thought it was ISIS, why does Obama call them ISIL?”
I don’t don’t know what they call themselves but around here, they seem to be called ISIS. This stands for the Islamic State of Iraq & Syria. ISIS is also a somewhat friendlier name because, although a name is just a name, it implies that the Islamic State that they are trying to create would be limited to the geographical areas now known as Iraq & Syria.
President Obama likes to call them ISIL. ISIL stands for Islamic State of Iraq & the Levant. Personally, I think he calls it ISIL to downplay Syria’s critical involvement in this, since, in my opinion, he screwed up so badly in handling the situation is Syria that it is now best to try and pretend that Syria doesn’t have that much to do with this.
That said, the name ISIL, creates much farther reaching implications than ISIS. Unlike Iraq and Syria, which is a large but still somewhat limited geography, the Levant is a much larger area. The Levant States, as they were originally referred to, back when the French controlled much of that area, included what is now Cyprus, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and much of Turkey. It also included Palestine.
So for different reasons than Obama, I too like to call them ISIL. For me it’s because I don’t think they are planning on limiting themselves to just talking over Iraq & Syria. I don’t even think they would limit themselves to controlling the Levant…but hey, soon enough, we’ll talk about GIS, the Global Islamic State.
And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming and this week’s most important concept…
Rooting for The Home Team
Before we can talk about anything in great detail, we have to change our mindset. We have to think differently. And before we can do that, we have to understand a few basic concepts. I already threw out the concept of The Butterfly Effect. The next concept is one that I call, “Rooting for The Home Team”. Everyone does it. If you don’t root for the home team, it’s usually because you consider home to be somewhere else. But see, you’re still rooting for your home team.
I guarantee it. Pick anyone. Go out of your way to find someone from Los Angeles who absolutely doesn’t like basketball, then take that person to a Lakers game. I guarantee you that when it gets to be a close game, they will root for the home team. It’s inevitable.
Part of what comes with rooting for the home team is choosing sides and competition – camaraderie with those on your side and disdain for those on the other side – not unlike war. Let’s remember that in World War II, we were fighting Germans. A lot of people still feel uncomfortable around Germans but the real problem wasn’t Germans or Germany, it was the Nazi Party, who had temporarily taken control of Germany. Most Germans weren’t Nazis. In fact, Hitler had about 20% of Germany’s population enlisted in his military and most of them weren’t Nazis. They just obeyed orders, in order to stay alive.
Side note: There was an interesting study done a few years ago specifically about soldiers but it was later found to be true about populations, in general. The finding was that about 5% of any given group of soldiers will do whatever they are commanded to do without regard to whether they believe it is right or wrong. In fact, they give it little thought and carry out their orders without question. Interestingly enough, it was a carefully selected, less than 5% of Hitler’s military that was directly responsible for attempting to exterminate the Jews. There’s no point here – just food for thought.
Nevertheless, when the US is in a conflict, most Americans root for the home team. We’ve seen soldiers doing bad things on WikiLeaks but we’re not that appalled because it was someone else dying – not Americans. We were way more disturbed watching some Americans being decapitated by some METBs (Middle Eastern Terrorist Bastards). But why is that? Why is it more horrific to us when an American gets his head chopped off then when the American military helicopter launches an rocket propelled grenade at an Iraqi family? It’s because at the end of the day, when it’s just us against them, we all root for the home team.
Side note: Some people argue that a beheading is calculated and designed to be horrific. Those people will argue that, “at least that Iraqi family was blown up quickly and didn’t have to kneel there waiting to be beheaded”. I won’t argue that there are theatrics involved in a beheading, designed to make the masses fearful. Nevertheless, flip the coin and look at things differently. Let’s say that you saw an Iraqi being beheaded by an American vs. an American family (maybe someone you know) being blown up while they were home making dinner. I’ll bet you you are still more appalled by the death of the Americans. Why? Because, like it or not, you associate more closely with the Americans. You are, in essence, rooting for your home team.
The home team, by the way, scales. The home team could be one person. In a typical divorce, the soon to be ex-husband and ex-wife will each be rooting for themselves, a home team of one. If we were fighting another country, all Americans might be the home team. And if space aliens came to take over the Earth, all Earthlings might be on the same home team.
It’s important to keep this concept in mind because, everyone is part of some population. When someone asks someone else about themselves, the very first answer is usually the one that is either most important to them or they believe will give you the most insight into them.
When travelling in the United States and someone asks where you are from, you might answer with the name of your state. Outside of the United States, you might say that you are from America. Then try asking people, “so tell me about yourself?”
These are the answers I’ve heard…
I’m an engineer.
I’m a Christian.
I’m a mother of three.
I’m currently unemployed.
I’m waiting for a guy to buy me a drink.
In each of these cases, the answer reflected what was most important to them, at that time. You can bet the engineer loves his job. You can bet the Christian was a highly religious person. The mother of three loves her family and the unemployed person was probably very stressed about being jobless. We wont discuss “drink girl”.
Think about your typical answer. What do you say when someone asks about you?
The answers shown here, by the way, are very typical American answers. As you travel to other lands, you’ll find that religion rates much higher in other cultures. Again, let’s bring up the Jews. In my answers above, I said that the Christian was probably a highly religious person but when someone answer, “I am Jewish” – they may or may not be highly religious but it is who they are. Most Jewish people are Jewish first. Most American Christians are something else ahead of being a Christian. For example: the engineer, the mother of three and the unemployed person could have all been Christians or maybe atheist. We don’t know. On the other hand, an unemployed, mother of three, Jewish engineer might still have just answered, “I am Jewish”.
My point here goes to understanding other cultures and their prioritization of religion. Also, recognizing the camaraderie that exist between the member who identify themselves with being part of any particular group. Americans tend to root for Americans. Single moms root for other single moms. Jews root for Jews and Muslims root for Muslims. Remember, at the end of the day, everyone ends up rooting for the home team. So when you’re dealing with people on a global scale, it’s important to understand what home team they are rooting for because if you’re not on that home team, when it’s game time, they’re not on your side and you’d better be prepared to defend your home team and possibly fight back.
That’s probably all I have for today. I know, I know… There should be a picture of a redhead here somewhere. Maybe next week. Speaking of next week, be sure to tune in then as the mini-series continues. Be there or be square.
Peace, my brothers and sisters.
– Arch
Archie Kobain 