Stuart Richards’ Jan. 17 op-ed column, and the Forum responses that followed, all seek to contextualize Mohsen Mahdawi’s moving story of finding an attachment to people and land in the Upper Valley that had been so difficult to achieve in Israel or Palestine.
Although intelligent people can disagree about who is to blame for the violence, who missed opportunities to work for peace, and what should be done about it, I focus on Richards’ stereotyped and misleading image of Islam.
He forgets the Palestinian Christians who are involved in the struggle. He forgets there have always been predominantly Muslim states (Iran until 1979, Turkey until quite recently, Senegal, etc.) that have maintained diplomatic relations with Israel. Most seriously, he is mistaken about what the Quran teaches about Jews and Christians. It is simply not the case that the Quran encourages “war against Jews and other infidels.” It describes Jews and Christians as “People of the Book” who received divine revelation and who should not be persecuted. That does not mean they were never persecuted, but for most of Islamic history, Jews were a tolerated minority. The Quran itself (A.J. Arberry interpretation, Book 2) states explicitly that all believers — Jews and Christians — can be considered righteous in the eyes of God. “Surely they that believe, and those of Jewry, and the Christians … their wage awaits them with their Lord, and no fear shall be on them; neither shall they sorrow.” The Quran also directly contradicts the Hadith’s violent imagery: “And fight in the way of God with those who fight with you, but aggress not: God loves not the aggressors.”
Like adherents of most of the world’s religions, the vast majority of Muslims seek a world in which they can live in peace and where justice prevails.
Only when Jews, Muslims and Christians realize that violence will not resolve the problem, only when Israeli and Palestinian alike realize that there can be no peace without justice for all, only then can there be lasting peace.
The similarities of Islam, Christianity and Judaism far outweigh their differences. When that is understood, all three traditions can promote the development of peace.
It is time to build bridges of trust, not reinforce divisive stereotypes.
ROBERT M. BAUM
Norwich
The writer is an associate professor in the Department of Religion at Dartmouth College.
If I hear the phrase “believe in the science” one more time I’ll spit. You can believe in miracles, gods, in the power of love, that this will be the year, etc. But science?
Science is the “-ology” that debunks fallacy. It’s a tool of highest quality, operating on scales from subatomic to cosmic, designed to uncover veracity when directed by its two keystones: observation and experimentation.
But, as The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy notes, “When science is credited as the one and only way we have to describe reality, or to state truth, such restrictive epistemology might graduate into scientism,” which is an ideology. Contrarily, given the number of scientists who routinely disprove theories and challenge results, I don’t think there’s another profession that has a greater ratio of skeptics to the faithful.
I’m not saying get your lab coats on and fire up the synchrotron, but now that Donald Trump has been dumped, it’s time we cast off our filter bubbles to become skeptics of the memes we swallow. Use our minds and our spines to stand up to the hogwash that is urban legend. Before knuckling under to the status quo, Big Brother or any pressure that’s counter to good sense, question authority. Get the answers, council your peers, then run it up the flagpole and see who salutes. That’s the Scientific Method: notice, theorize, test and repeat.
These past five years have been dreadful. Though the future may be shaky, it’s now in our hands. Will we drive over the tipping point? In our role of citizen scientists, we’ve done the experiment and found the status quo to be a dead end. My advice is to take the critical path: Petition our lawmakers to enact legislation consistent with the goal of saving our planet.
In conclusion, you can believe in miracles, but science demands rigor, not faith. Still, you can love science. Just do it, teach it, etc. Don’t give it a mythic slant by praying “believe in science.” Instead, take part in it and change the world.
KEVIN McEVOY LEVERET
White River Junction
During World War II, four Army chaplains met as first lieutenants at the Army Chaplain School at Harvard University. They were Lt. Alexander Goode, a Jewish rabbi; Lt. John Washington, a Roman Catholic priest; Lt. Clark Poling, a Dutch Reformed minister; and Lt. George Fox, a Methodist minister who had once served at the United Methodist Church in Thetford Center.
On Feb. 3, 1943, they were aboard the troop ship SS Dorchester, sailing to their new assignments in the European Theater. At 12:55 a.m., the ship was hit by a torpedo from a German U-boat in the Labrador Sea.
Following the explosion, confusion was everywhere as soldiers, sailors and civilians tried to escape the darkness of the sinking ship. Many ran for safety and forgot their life jackets.
The chaplains helped others board lifeboats and gave up their own life jackets when the supply ran out, thus committing the ultimate act of selflessness and courage by giving their lives to save civilian and military personnel and remaining aboard the sinking ship.
Witnesses reported seeing them with arms linked, singing hymns and praying as the listing ship sank into the ocean. Each was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, second only to the Medal of Honor.
These heroes are also referred to as the “Immortal Chaplains” and “Dorchester Chaplains.”
Please remember them on Feb. 3.
PAUL NADEAU
Braintree, Vt.