The Face of Courage / The Face of Mob Violence

The Bengals-Steelers playoff game last night was not only terrifically painful to watch – many are using terms like “disgraceful” and “low point in NFL history” to describe what happened on the field. The game also exposed an atmosphere of ugliness bordering on mob violence that extends well beyond the NFL to our current political season in the United States. The “head-hunting” of both the players and the crowd felt uncomfortably resonant with events that unfolded two nights ago at a campaign event in South Carolina.

Mob violence? Yes, the toxic lure of collective scapegoating morphing easily into violence that is the constant temptation for human beings who run and think, speak and act, in herds. All of it has been on full display this week, and it suggests we are edging dangerously close to normalizing a kind of fascist public and political environment in America. The disgust many felt while watching the football game mirrors the ugliness of our own collective behavior, unrestrained, unapologetically on display, 24/7, in the political landscape.

Thus the quiet courage and symbolic force of Rose Hamid, her hijab, and the Yellow Star identifying her as a Muslim, which she wore to the Trump rally on Friday night.

Watch, listen, and maybe everyone can learn something from Rose Hamid’s dignified silence, which spoke volumes. Both she and the people spewing hatred in the crowds at both events reflect dual potentialities that dwell in all of us. Which “face” do I wish to bring into the world? Which face is representative of “us,” our collective hopes and aspirations as a nation? Which face do we want the world to see?

8 Responses to "The Face of Courage / The Face of Mob Violence"

John Elam says:

January 22, 2016 at 10:10 am

What an absolute crock. How dare this woman wear a Star of David that says “Muslim” on it. How disrespectful to the millions of Jews who were were persecuted and murdered by the Nazis. This woman is either completely ignorant of history or she is a drama queen. Muslims in this country are in no way, shape, or form treated the way Jews were in Nazi Germany. Maybe when the storm troopers break into her house, load her onto a train, and ship her off to a concentration camp, then she can wear the star. Until then, hell no.

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1. Christopher Pramuk says:
  
  January 22, 2016 at 6:46 pm
  
  Respectfully, John, your/our collective willingness to wait “until then” is precisely the point. Thus Martin Niemoller’s famous warning:
  
  First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
  Because I was not a Socialist.
  
  Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
  Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
  
  Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
  Because I was not a Jew.
  
  Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
  
  Reply
  1. John Elam says:
    
    January 22, 2016 at 11:24 pm
    
    I’m sorry. As a Jew I find it to be despicable. Especially considering Islam’s explicit hatred for Jews, as expressed in the Koran, the Hadith, and as expressed by many in the Islamic world. The truth is Muslims have experienced little ill treatment from the West. Indeed, Europe has been fairly welcoming to Muslim immigrants.
    
    I’m curious. I’ve read two columns of yours on this site decrying Islamophobia. Where is you column condemning the ongoing persecution of Christians in the Middle East? Where is your column concerning the widespread sexual violence committed against German women recently by Muslim men?
    
    Reply
    1. Christopher Pramuk says:
      
      January 23, 2016 at 3:00 pm
      
      Thanks, John, for your response. I promise to ponder your challenge and take it to heart.
      
      Let me say this much, for now. I don’t live in Germany. I don’t live in the Middle East. I live in a predominantly “Christian” country, where fearful political rhetoric seems to be driving many of my fellow Christians (and not a few politicians) toward wholesale demonization of Muslims.
      
      As for the Koran and the Hadith, global “Islam” today – no less than Judaism and Christianity – reflects hugely diverse schools of thought and practice with respect to how Muslims interpret their tradition, including a strong reformist movement dedicated to interfaith dialogue and political democracy, not theocracy. As I’m sure you know, the Christian New Testament contains not a little whiff of anti-Jewish polemic with disastrous results for Jews throughout history. My hope and prayer — shared by many Jewish and Muslim colleagues, scholars, friends — is that progressive Islam will win the global battle for the heart of the faith. It will take time, dialogue, collaboration, not demonization, the shared efforts of Christians, Muslims, and Jews, to move forward together. Call me naive, if you like, but the alternative lumping together and suspicion of “all Muslims” – is unacceptable, the moral equivalent of the Yellow Star.
John Elam says:

January 24, 2016 at 12:53 am

Progressive Islam? If such a thing even exists it pales in comparison to the venomous power of Islamism, and you know it. Perhaps you should start accepting the reality that multiculturalism doesn’t always work.

I myself am wary of the word progressive. That word does not always lead to tolerance. For instance, “progressive” Europe is the second most anti-semitic region in the world, behind only the Middle East. “Progressive” American universities demonize Israel night and day. Indeed, a number of “progressive” American Churches have also made anti-Israel sentiment, which is usually just a convenient mask for actual anti-semitism, a focal point.

A reformation of Islam may occur, but it won’t be anytime soon. Hope for the future should not come at the expense of acknowledging the present.

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Christopher Pramuk says:

January 27, 2016 at 10:40 pm

To some of your points, John, I found this piece a helpful glimpse into the complexity of Islam, from past to present, its multiple “faces” on the question of “jihad,” extremism and violence, from a scholar and source I trust.

http://www.americamagazine.org/issue/posthumous-murder-pakistan

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John Elam says:

January 28, 2016 at 2:14 pm

If that article was supposed to bolster my confidence in reformist Islam, it certainly didn’t. Indeed, it only reinforced the fact that groups like the Taliban, ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Boko Haram, etc. are far more powerful than the disciples of Bacha Khan. That is reality. To deny it is both foolish and suicidal.

Reply
1. Christopher Pramuk says:
  
  January 29, 2016 at 1:00 pm
  
  Your gaze seems unable to separate the “power” of those groups from the “weakness” of many millions of Muslims across the world and here in the US who reject their ideologies as blasphemous distortions of Islam. In my view, John, refusing to see or hear these others, much less seek dialogue or common cause , is “foolish and suicidal.” Remember the targets of these groups are not simply non-Muslims but fellow Muslims whom they deem (like all the rest of us) as apostates. Where relationships across the religious traditions are weak and fearful they must be made strong. We live and build peace together (we have to first imagine and then create a new sense of “we”) or die apart.
  
  Reply

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