Self-Esteem in the Muslim World

The first thing that needs to be considered is whether the Muslim people, the Arabic people, have any sense of worth, whether their self-esteem is healthy or low. It seems it is quite low. This would explain why they have gone ballistic over something most of the rest of the world considers a non-event.

They assert their religious feelings have been hurt. They also feel (mistakenly, I would argue) this is about defending their faith.

These people have confused faith with politics. What they are calling faith, and using as a justification for damaging property, most everyone else quite accurately regards as politics, an expression of a political agenda. I suppose even it could be argued the people in the street are just following orders, but that only displaces responsibility and further erodes the self-esteem of the people who are now rioting.

To a degree this is similar to the race conflicts in the US. Both parties have felt agrieved for decades if not centuries. Both parties have had little power via the usual channels of politics. Both parties regard their plight as racial or cultural. And both parties from the viewpoint of first world peoples (mostly white folk) tend to behave like animals.

Of course we all would if provoked enough.

Now the solution to the race problem that the US enacted was to go after the bigotry that fed the racial divide, creating laws against prejudice, making policies that insured every program of opportunity contained a certain minimum percentage of the downtrodden (some argue this has done little to fix the esteem problem of the downtrodden, since people who enter such programs as a part of a quota don't themselves feel they deserve it personally), and relatively consistent enforcement of these principles. Of course these changes only occurred after a century of struggle and violence and are not yet completed.

The Muslim world is not so easily transformed. Besides the wealth of the Muslim peoples (with great income disparity within this population), the people who are agrieved are citizens of many nations. They themselves prefer not to be viewed as nationals since they -- perhaps rightly -- recognize they have greater influence and strength in aggregate.

In its treatment of these people, the rest of the world oscillates between gifts -- including programs of assistance -- and imposed isolation or constraint. Either these people are locked in a prison or thrown bisquits. Their plight has become so entrenched in their own minds they might fairly be accused of having a sort of prisoner's psychosis -- that condition where a man, when offered freedom, fights to stay in prison where he feels safe and nurtured (despite the cruelty and deprivations common in that place).

Now it has to be admitted that the Muslim world is hardly homogeneous. Beside the obvious chasm between the oil sheiks and the peasants in Indonesia and the Middle East, there exists a substantial number of Muslims in the first world -- America, Europe, Australia, etc. -- living mostly middle class lives. These first worlders are more assimilated into the wealth-generating, esteem-building societies where they live though still it has to be admitted a certain ghettoization remains.

And complicating this whole situation is these people's common bond -- their religion -- which despite more than 1400 year of activity remains incoherent, with voices from every direction issuing guidance about how followers are to behave and live their lives and exercise their influence. Adding to this chaos is a sort of spiritual tyranny that ranges from communities run by local war lords or politico-religious leaders who enforce their own views with threat of harm or loss of spiritual salvation and so impose their wishes and agenda upon their constituency, all the way up to the persisting dream of a global utopian community run by a nearly divine leader in the form of a caliphate.

It seems fair to assert the majority of these communities have not yet matured beyond a sort of modern day feudalism organized around a belief system that operates more like a dictatorship than a collective exercise of intelligence. And like all persisting belief systems theirs contains numerous features designed to negate any forces for change. The result of this situation in a world of increasing collectivity is for these people to be chaffing against the rest of humanity which is somewhat less constrained spiritually, psychologically, sociologically and economically.

It seems there are only two possible outcomes to this situation. Either the Muslim people will accept change and modernize their beliefs and system of living to ameliorate their relations with the rest of the world, or their culture will be crushed by the rest of the world, with only those at the edges (in every sense of the word) surviving the world's hammer.

This whole situation is somewhat remniscent of what happens when a gang in a city finally provokes a community into action. A common understanding nowadays is that gangs exist only as a solution to intolerable circumstances and as such are a cry for help, if only an unconscious one. So too it seems the chaffing of the Muslim community can be seen as a cry for help, despite the heated adamance with which most all Muslims might deny this idea. That maxim about "thou protesteth too much" seems applicable. As with gangs, a tough love approach in delivering the help that is being so indirectly requested may be the only option, and one can argue Israel's treatment of its Palestinian neighbors is a current example. The risk of such an approach however is that it may become too much toughness and not enough love.

Perhaps viewing the Muslim world as collectively having a self-esteem issue, as crying out for love through its continuing defiance during events large and small, and as expressing hardness and adamance simply because they truly feel they have their backs to the wall, will help the rest of the world to find a new way to respond to what seems today to be an area of human affairs needing much harmony.

Moving Toward An Islamic Reformation

So now embassies burn because of one culture's inability to accept limitations placed on its speech in order to meet the mores and beliefs of another. The culture war is in progress. The combatants each have their tools, honed by living each day as they now fight.

One speaks publicly whatever it thinks to whomever, regardless of whether its words may cause suffering. Only slander and its ilk are restricted. Their idea: that each person's suffering is his own responsibility. In other words: you define what brings you suffering. Relevant to this viewpoint is a distinction between pain (a body phenomenon) and suffering (a state of mind).

The other reacts with physical aggression. Their response to anything that offends them is to burn it. They threaten and sometime actually destroy. Tolerance for them only becomes relevant once their point of view is granted equal worth to yours. And by worth, they mean validity and not simple acceptance of individuality. Their idea: that they will only be free of suffering if everyone is doing what they think is right.

These are the two sides of this war. Can you figure out which one is which? I wonder which one is going to win.

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One has to wonder why, for a religion that forbids icons and symbols of worship, there is so much concern about icons and symbols. It seems what this religion really forbids is the use of its icons and symbols. "We own our idols; don't you do anything with them" seems to be the real message. So much for a lack of idolatry. Thus, it seems this may be a trademark dispute.

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While this current dispute has been about specific actions and events, what it seems more about is insult and feeling offended. Disrespect, if you're from the projects.

The cry for respect is a complicated one in that it consists of the individual assertion of beingness admixed with a test of the limits of propriety -- what society's rules are.

Now we are witnessing a culture's cry for respect, its anger about being disrespected, and seeing firsthand just how complicated it is for respect to be achieved. The one who wishes respect does not want to be treated condescendingly, but it isn't often recognized what one needs to do to gain respect.

Respect means, literally, "turning to look again". We all know this experience: we see something or someone. We turn away, only moments later to realize there was something interesting, unusual, engaging or otherwise attractive in what we just saw. So we turn to look again. That is the root meaning of respect.

So respect is a relationship, and since it is a relationship, there are two parties engaged in its creation and maintenance. One of the problems that arises around the issue of respect is that it often is regarded as created by the action or decision of only one of the two parties in the relationship. This misunderstanding can occur in two ways: thinking one has already done enough, and thinking the other has not yet done enough. Most of the time, both are operational for both parties when disrespect characterizes the relationship.

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I wonder whether those rioters (of course they are really just a mob-mind, almost not sentient -- no mob is) have given any thought to how their reaction provides to the world a confirmation that the cartoon depictions of the Prophet were accurate (never mind the question of how they, the rioters, know what Mohammed looked like during his life fourteen centuries ago). So now we in the rest of the world know what Mohammed looked like (those cartoons have shown us), and we realize the whole of the Muslim world is trying on an individual basis to look just like the Prophet! Again, it seems the Islamic prohibition against icons is all but meaningless, unless you want to riot, that is! I wonder: do Muslims realize they are just emulating by their dress and appearance what they (who are not idolators) think Mohammed looked like? Do they not think this is a form of idolatry?

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So the Vatican has now spoken on this topic: "The Vatican says the right to freedom of expression does not imply the right to offend religious beliefs." This is just a strategy to avoid being caught up in this madness, of course. If people were to follow this instruction, who could speak? There are so many religions, so many beliefs. The world would be silent. Further, have not all advances in human society somewhat offended the beliefs of those among whom the progressive one has lived?

Madness. It really is a mad world.

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Dare I suggest the Muslims have it wrong? It seems they don't even know their own religion. Or if they choose to plead ignorance and turn to their imams and other religious leaders for guidance and "knowing", then it must be those leaders who don't know their own religion. After all, the rioters are chanting: "...we defend you, O Prophet of God." Isn't the whole point of Islam to align oneself to Allah and not to anyone else? Is there supposed to be worship of Mohammed? Isn't that focus on God (Allah) the reason Islam says there are to be no images of Mohammed? I think there was some confusion about this even when Mohammed was alive.

Now I suppose also it's hard to keep this sort distinction clearly in mind in the midst of a mob mind-meld. Then the lowest denominator takes over, and apparently for Muslims -- at least those who are rioting, and quite likely upon the command or suggestion of some religious leader(s) who has suggested these actions -- that lowest common denominator means forgetting God (Allah) and defending Mohammed (as if a dead guy needs defending). This is the Islamic Reformation crying for its birth.