Like most powerful public statements, this one FDR uttered during
his first inaugural in 1932, was only substantially on target. The nation was
in the midst of a terrible depression. Soup lines had replaced hope. But
Roosevelt’s buoyant spirit kept the nation from complete despair. While I was
only two, I recall stories from that year of my father and grandfather picking
up lumps of coal at the rail yards, then selling them by the can full in our
neighborhood. Throughout the land, fear stalked most households like a hungry
beast.
While today there is room for optimism, there seems to be
plenty around to keep us fearful. Electronic “chatter” from the remote nation
of Yemen is enough to close embassies all over the near east and leave us
feeling threatened. A global war against terror, with no promise that it can or
will end, is fear-inducing enough. A trip through any airport reminds us that
we are one shoe or one pair of jockey shorts away from being attacked. So we
shuffle stocking-footed through airport security lines.
Many believe that our enemy is Islam. After all, weren’t
Osama and those who crashed airplanes into the twin towers Muslims? And isn’t Al-Qaeda
a real threat? Muslim fundamentalism
and its call for jihad poses a constant danger. What terrorist lurks in the
nearest Mosque?
Nevertheless, a hard look might tell us that Islam itself is
not the enemy.
Islamic fundamentalism is. Religious fundamentalisms of all
sorts historically have been responsible for massive grief, bloodshed and
terror. Christian fundamentalism produced the inquisition, the Salem witch
trials, apartheid in South Africa and the perpetuation of slavery in the United
States. And there is little hope for peace between Israel and Palestine as long
as Israel must contend with its ultra–orthodox religionists supported by
America’s Christian fundamentalists.
One must seriously wonder if our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
have really made us and our world any safer. Perhaps they have been massive
factories for the manufacture of enemies. There is ample evidence that the use
of America’s drone aircraft has generated anti-American hatred with every
strike. A well-targeted raid may have wiped out a couple of terrorists, but recruited
a dozen more.
While many of us have been steady in our support of
President Obama, we find distressing his continuation of policies that have
produced a fearful world and a distrust of the United States. The result is the
piling up of fear upon fear.
There are those who believe that the best way to overcome
fear is the escalation of military power so that no one dares threaten us. So
we have bases in over one hundred countries, and we spend more on “defense”
than the next seventeen nations put together. But with each strengthening of
our iron fist we seem less secure, and the more fearful we become the more
threatened are our personal freedoms. Fear without freedom is a bad bargain. The
Federalist, James Madison, said it well. “Perhaps it is a universal truth, that
the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to provisions against danger, real
or imagined, from abroad.”
People anywhere in the world with no power are managing to
control the most powerful nation in history by keeping us afraid. Maybe FDR was
right!
Charles Bayer
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