Curb Your Relativism
Klagsburn, Francine
Curb Your Relativism Francine Klagsburn Isn't it possible for the media, along with the rest of us, to affirm unequivocally that there are some moral absolutes of right and wrong? At an...
...Similarly, the contemporary Arab narrative reflects its people's deep unhappiness with the establishment of the State of Israel—and paradoxically—denies the fact of that country's existence...
...For example, a slew of scholars have investigated the Holocaust from every possible slant and hundreds of survivors have written personal accounts of their experiences...
...During periods when Islam was powerful and secure, its rulers disregarded some of the regulations that limited dhimmis...
...Shouldn't all suicide bombing be condemned as evil, even if the bombers' narratives depict them as martyrs...
...The facts reveal, however, that non-Muslims were considered dhimmis, holding a protected, but lower, status than Muslims...
...It's a word that in speech and writing has increasingly replaced the old-fashioned word many of us grew up with: "history...
...So, yes, medieval Spain under Islam experienced a flowering of religious tolerance...
...To be sure, historians examine events of the past within the contexts of their times and constantly reinterpret them as new information comes to light...
...Yet basic realities endure...
...Although some viewers may have found this episode offensive, I regarded it as the ultimate satire on moral relativism in our culture—the refusal here to make moral distinctions even between the survivor of a death camp and the survivor of a television game show...
...Indeed, by the 10th century the Spanish city of Cordoba had become a great metropolis, where people of different religions mingled comfortably...
...Curb Your Relativism Francine Klagsburn Isn't it possible for the media, along with the rest of us, to affirm unequivocally that there are some moral absolutes of right and wrong...
...Accordingly, they mourn it as "Al-Nakba," the Catastrophe...
...After all, each has his own narrative, doesn't he...
...Substituting the idea of narrative for that of history substitutes the subjective for the objective and feelings for facts...
...In one of the more irreverent episodes of the comedian harry David's HBO comedy series, "Curb Your Enthusiasm," David invites a Holocaust survivor to a party and welcomes a guest's offer to bring another survivor with him...
...Nevertheless, I pointed out, despite their freedoms, Christians and Jews held subordinate positions to Muslims in that Islamic world...
...Throughout the world, Jews celebrate it as "Yom Ha'Atzmaut," Israel Independence Day...
...When applied to past events, the term narrative denotes subjectivity and interpretation...
...But I want to make a pitch for the return of the word history to our vocabulary...
...For Jews this was a golden age inwhich several Jewish leaders rose to prominence in the Islamic kingdoms that ruled Spain...
...It is true, as my co-panelist's narrative relates, that all the religions benefited from the benevolent rule of Islam in medieval Spain...
...But as Islam declined dhimmis suffered increasing restrictions...
...I want to make a pitch for the return of the word "facts," which has also fallen into disuse...
...They had to pay special taxes, wear distinctive clothing, and comply with a variety of restrictions, including a prohibition against building churches and synagogues...
...How can progress toward peace be made when one side in a conflict omits the reality of the other's presence in telling its story...
...Doing so also contributes to an attitude of moral relativism that has become ever more prevalent in our society...
...The second "survivor" turns out to be a contestant from the reality T V show "Survivor...
...Both narratives have legitimacy within the contexts of the lives of the people relating them...
...In the Arab narrative this day marks a disaster, when people lost their homes and land...
...But despite conflicting theories about its causes, disagreements about America's response to it and viscious attempts by some to refute it, the Holocaust remains one of the darkest truths of world history...
...Look at textbook or tourist maps in such Arab countries as Syria and Saudi Arabia and you will find a large region labeled "Palestine," with no mention of Israel...
...Isn't it possible to declare that people who deliberately target innocent civilians in acts of violence are terrorists and not the more benign "militants" simply fighting aggressively for a cause...
...But history also tells us that Islam tolerated the other religions as fully as it did only so long as it maintained control over them...
...Narrative...
...Hardly a model we would want to emulate today...
...The two get into a heated argument about which of them suffered most in his struggle to survive...
...One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter," wrote Stephen Jukes, global news editor for the British wire service 'Reuters, in barining the use of the word "terrorist" to describe the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks...
...In the same vein, The New York Times and other newspapers regularly use the term "militants" rather than "terrorists" when referring to Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other groups bent on Israel's destruction...
...And whatever one's attitude is toward the Israeli settlements (and I have opposed their expansion), shouldn't everybody stop contriving moral equivalencies between the civilian settlers and the murderous bombers...
...At an interfaith panel discussion in which I participated, a moderate Muslim cleric spoke of the friendly relations among Muslims, Christians and Jews in medieval Spain as a model that would serve our society well today...
...In the Jewish narrative, for example, the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 marked a homecoming for the Jewish people, who had been exiled from their land for 2,000 years...
...Well, that's not in our narrative," the cleric replied, and quickly moved on to other subjects...
Vol. 29 • August 2004 • No. 4
