The "progressive" nation of the United Arab Emirates denied an Israeli athlete, Shahar Peer the right to participate in a tennis tournament by blocking her visa.
For the average westerner castigating an individual for the "crimes of their nation" is beyond the pale of reason. Furthermore most westerners view international sporting events as opportunities to transcend conflicts and foster goodwill among nations.
Unfortunately most westerners do not understand that many other cultures do not view the world in a similar fashion. Whereas westerners morality is based on individualistic-universal principles, moslem cultures are largely governed by tribal moral principles.
Individualistic-universal principles dictates that individuals are to be judged on their own merits, not the merits of their group. Whereas, tribal principles dictate that individuals should be judged by their group. Accordingly to this worldview, it's logical to castigate a young Israeli tennis player for the actions of Israeli soldiers, even if she does not support those actions. Of course this helps explain why Hamas and a large segment of the arab-islamic population has no moral qualms about targeting Israeli civilians through suicide bombings and missiles.
We, as westerners take it for granted that you can protest on behalf of a rival group, against the actions of your government. For example, we didn't think twice when Americans protested the abuse of moslem prisoners in abu-ghraib and Israelis protested against Israel's failure to assist palestinians against allied Christian militias during the Lebanese Civil War.
On the other hand, I have never seen a moslem protest against the murder of Israeli civilians. I have never seen arabs march on behalf of the Kurds that were slaughtered by saddam hussein and the Christians and Animists who were slaughtered in sudan. The reason is that tribal morality dictates that moral law only applies to your own group and not to other tribes. And your moral duty is to unconditionally support your own tribe against another.
This is not a simple exercise in philosophy or anthropology, because those who do not understand the culture and world view of their opponents will neither achieve peace nor victory.
I also don't see hte people in the west who protest against israel ever protesting about the way certain countries treat women and gays
ReplyDeleteDan G,
ReplyDeleteThat's very ironic, because Israel is the only country in the mideast were women and gays have rights. I am not sure if these anti-Israel zealots are just totally uninformed or mentally ill or both.
Jason