The
Down Side of Democracy
“In
the midst of movement and chaos, keep stillness inside of you.”
Deepak
Chopra
It
is hard for Americans to watch the violence unfold over the
anti-Islamic film trailer that aired on You-Tube. Even harder for
people in other parts of the world to understand that freedom of
speech means exactly that. In countries that have always been ruled
by dictatorial regimes, there is little freedom of any sort, much
less freedom to say anything you choose, no matter the consequences.
All of it goes to show how little understanding we have of one
another, and how little trust.
My
gut-instinct is to punish the makers of such an incendiary film. If
their intent was to incite riots, then they have the blood of our
ambassadors on their hands. But that is not how we do things in
this country. When the Klu Klux Klan and the Neo-Nazi skinheads can
demonstrate their ranks in our cities, even though they represent
everything this nation finds reprehensible, we hold our noses and
look the other way. Because to deny them would be to deny others—the
VFW, the Masonic Shrines, the Breast Cancer Societies, the Occupy
Wall Street movement—the right to demonstrate as well.
We
have freedoms to protect in America. When we deny freedom to one
group, even an undesirable one, we step onto a slippery slope. From
our inception, freedom of speech has been a defiantly held and
cherished part of our way of life. It is after all, our first
amendment! There are many films I would banish—I hate the ones
where everything blows up and scantily-clad women wield giant
firearms. They go against everything I hold dear, but I would not
limit the right of others to make them or to see them. As my mother
always said, 'there's no accounting for taste'. I remember when the
Last Temptation of Christ was released and furor arose over depicting
Jesus as human enough to be tempted. Many Christians didn't like it;
there were some demonstrations over it. People were not happy, but
they understood that artistic expression is protected under the first
amendment.
Our
take-away lesson from the recent chaos is that it takes time for
people new to democracy to learn that they have freedoms that they
didn't have before. How they learn to deal with such freedoms will
define the degree of democracy they wish have. Let us protect
ourselves first, but also support them as they sort this out. I'll
bet our beginnings were just as chaotic. Remember the Boston Tea
Party? The Salem witch trials?
In
the spirit,
Jane
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