The Minions Ask, the Ministry Answers
The Ministry's roadie and loyal minion Mapgirl recently asked:
"How angry would we be if a house of worship was blown up here in the States?"
The Geek's answer? Not as much as you might hope, since relatively few of us (compared to the Islamic world) have built our identities around religious affiliation. Or at least, not upset over the fact that it was a church, but something within our own borders that was attacked.
But even when churches abroad are attacked, there's not alot of mainstream outrage about it here: 2 years ago, when Pakistani terrorists blew up and/or shot all those people in a church; more recently, when savages shot their way into the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and hid there for weeks while the IDF and Geraldo Rivera laid siege to the place and in fact, peace pricks from Europe and the US traveled there to provide widely publicized succour to the terrorists inside; and ongoing muslim destruction aimed at churches in Kosovo.
There are front pages covering the stories, but nothing like outrage over it. People don't take to the streets in droves and start burning "Palestinian" flags, or rush to their closets to get out that great effigy of al-Sadr they stayed up all night getting just so.
You'll find that media coverage of these and related events will often sympathize with the terrorist perspective, or at the very least choose language to obscure the unalterable fact that it's muslims who are on the rampage and doing the damage.
And shit I didn't even put on my tinfoil hat yet.
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§ 5 Comments
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Speculatively - I might beg
Speculatively - I might beg to differ.
For example, American films often take advantage of the destruction/sanctity of churches for emotional effect - just look at St. Gibson's last historical atrocity - The Patriot - where the massacre of citizens within a church was the dramatic centerpiece of the film.
I think religion is central to a lot of people in America, perhaps not you or I, but we live in the liberal bastion of Massachusetts. Relgion is behind opposition to gay marriage, the appeal of The Passion of the Christ, anti-choice legislation, a majority of Americans think that creationism should be taught alongside evolution, etc.
Sure, if another government blew up any building in the US - we would be outraged, but I do think that if a church was attacked there are powerful lobby groups that would mobilize on the issue being a religious one. Bush has said that it is an issue of "good versus evil."
Brdgt,
Brdgt,
Didn't see "The Patriot" but did see "The Passion", which the Phoenix called the "gross-out zombie flick of the year".
Anyway, I think you're convincing, I mean as convincing as anyone can be since we're talking about generalities and what-ifs. But you certainly agree that religious life in America is not nearly as...pervasive, say... as it is in the Gulf.
And I won't budge on my conception of "outrage". I just can't conceive of an event like an attack on a church, by terrorists, in CONUS, to lead to thousands of chanting WASPs thronging, clogging the streets, with pillowcases over their heads running and dancing and shooting rifles in the air willy-nilly while burning flags of various Arab states and dismembering readily available effigies of Arafat, screeching "Death to Saudi Arabia!" or "Death to Palestine!".
And the next day, Boston Globe columnists would simply report that it was America's own fault, or the fault of churchgoers, that the churches were attacked in the first place.
Agreed.
Agreed.
(and controlling Passion/Dawn of the Dead comparison jokes...)
I think people would become
I think people would become outraged here but not in the way that they would in Iraq. It's just not in the culture of our country. Remember that during the civil rights movement of the sixties, several black churches in the south were bombed and some children were killed. There were no great mobs in the streets, obviously, but there was prosecution of the perpetrators. I believe the last one went to jail not too long ago.
Nearer in time, shortly after 9/11 there were several incidents in Chicago of mobs harassing "middle-eastern-appearing" people. Furthermore, there was a case of an middle-eastern church being set on fire here. I think the fact that the church belonged to a Christian sect eventually brought people to the realization that the nonsense was indeed useless and had to stop.
In the end, if a church is bombed, we will be upset and angry but not murderously enraged.
So, as the Onion put it,
So, as the Onion put it, people would respond with "Measured, Focused Rage."
Sounds about right to me.