There is a terrific DVD available for rent called Paper Clips which poignantly describes how a rural Tennessee Middle School engages in a project to instill a sense of diversity by teaching kids about the Holocaust. They never expected to affect so much of the life of the town, gain such a deep appreciation of the lives affected and the international involvement they earned. The lesson learned was the need to fight indifference and intolerance. A beautiful scene was the admission by a couple of Washington Post reporters that they had to get past their own deeply seated prejudices against rural southerners and discovering the love that filled their souls.
The mention of indifference reminds me how valuable passion is when coupled with compassion. And how tolerance often is redefined as a mediocre paste of politically correct postures rather than a true acceptance of those who have different views and practices. A common occurrence of this is the self proclaimed position of the Left as protectors of freedom (ACLU) while deriding people that profess faith in a religion.
Earlier I enjoyed some terrific BookTV discussions.
What Motivates Terrorists? was the joint discussion of two different book authors, Albert Borowitz and Marc Sageman. Dr. Sageman had extensively researched the backgrounds of hundreds of terrorists to determine what the common patterns are.
In a nutshell he found that terrorists are young men (late 20's); living in the Diaspora; attend radical Mosques (for the sake of social contact); are secular; are well educated; from an upper middle class background and are not crazy but function as a small cadre of tight friends that disengage from the larger society around them and seek to be accepted by their close friends.
The corollary is that terrorism is not motivated by poverty (poverty does not breed terrorism but is often used as an excuse); being brainwashed (madrassas don't play much of a role); by normative religious beliefs (a large percentage of terrorists were being influenced by a few well known radical Mosques); or by sex (70 virgins theory).
Sageman also observed the recent French riots being driven by 2nd or 3rd generation immigrants who are unable to integrate into European society and face a lack of opportunity. He pointed out that normally these disaffected youth would have been drawn into the Leftist movements, but with the demise of communism this is no longer a viable avenue. He pointed out how the U.S. is still the land of opportunity where regardless of background people can still have hope for a future.
Israel and Palestine After Disengagement debate featuring Alan Dershowitz and Noam Chomsky was interesting if not predictable in that Dershowitz mopped up Chomsky. The debate can be caught here. Chomsky simply couldn't defend his position without dissembling. The most revealing exchange was after a question from the audience posed whether Chomsky would accept a peace solution developed by the Israeli and Palestinian people that was not similar to Chomsky's choice. He hemmed, he hawed, he basically avoided an answer - validating that the only 'right' answer was his answer. Dershowitz on the other hand proved that he saw peace in a win-win light and had taken up the challenge of the debate to not get stuck on historical citations and imagine a future of possibilities.
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