Bush, Chirac and the Holy

Bush, Chirac and the Holy Father -- Reading From the Same Page

I'm sure if I did a google search, I could call up a number of hate crimes perpetrated against Arabs and Muslims (and in some case Hindus) in the United States after 9-11. However, I won't. Rising to the occasion after this tragedy, I recall President Bush stating: "Hate and racism are not American values. Those who perpetuate these crimes will be punished, for their behavior is as wrong as it is un-American." (As I'm recalling from memory, this may not be word-for-word what he said, but I imagine it is close.) President Bush is normally not a very passionate speaker. He is, however, a man of deep conviction. What struck me about this line is that his conviction came through with passion. So I take the President's word at face value when he states that true Americans are neither anti-Arab nor anti-Muslim. Certainly his father, the 41st President of the United States, recently spoke very fondly of his friendship with many Arab leaders. So while the problem was serious enough among a certain segment of the American population to warrant the President's attention, he rose to the occasion and spoke firmly, clearly and decisively on behalf of all Americans. There is no room for racial and religious hatred within American political discourse.

That being said, a certain minority segment of the French population suffer from a similar problem when it comes to the Jews. Hence the reason Jean-Marie Le Pen made it to the run-off in France's last presidential election. That being said, and being fluent in French I followed the election closely, he was soundly defeated by Jacques Chirac who brought in close to eighty percent of the vote. Not only did Chirac soundly condemn Le Pen's antisemitism if I recall correctly, he paid Le Pen the ultimate French insult in refusing to debate him on television. Of course you never hear of this from those who are currently attribute the French anti-war sentiment to anti-semitism, just as you seldom hear about President Bush's statements by those who portray the war as an American crusade against Islam.

As a Catholic ecumenist, however, I stand with the Holy Father on the issue. When it comes to religious dialogue with non-Christian faiths, there is a special place for Judaism and Islam, with whom we share the same God and a common historical link. Hence the reason the Holy Father has repeatedly called for peace, dialogue and a renounciation of violence from both sides in the Middle East conflict. While previous Roman Pontiffs favored the Muslims over the Jews during one pontificate, and then the Jews over the Muslims during the next, in his wisdom our current Holy Father has rejected realpolitik for the Gospel of Jesus Christ, loving both equally as children of God.

There is definitely wisdom to the Holy Father's approach. As a young Pole who resisted the Nazis, he remembers the Jewish Holocaust all too well. He remembers how people woke up after the war in shock. How could seemingly "minor" and "harmless" acts of anti-semitism before the war suddenly escalate into one of the tragic death of six million people? Only in retrospect do we now realize that our actions toward the Jews before the war were neither minor nor harmless. Fortunately, we are now more sensitive to these issues when it comes to our Jewish brethren, for this is one tragedy we do not wish to repeat. Given many of our current frustrations, however, we must also show the same vigilance when it comes to Islam -- lest we wake up one morning and ask ourselves how we ever allowed six million Muslims to go to their premature and tragic mass grave in our backyard, or in someone else's.