From the issue dated September 28, 2001
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Fanatics at Home and AbroadBy STANLEY I. KUTLER
On September 13, Jerry Falwell (and his sidekick, Pat Robertson) held forth on national television to assault the bedrock of American faith, a faith that goes back to our roots and founding as a nation and that transcends any particular sect. "God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve," Falwell said. Our beneficent, loving God? With such friends, God can look back nostalgically on his encounters with the Devil. Falwell then revealed his peculiar faith in diversity, for he left few off his list of enemies who had angered God: abortionists, pagans, feminists, gays and lesbians, the ACLU, People for the American Way. To all whom he saw as secularizing the United States, he said: "I point the finger in their faces and say, 'You helped this happen.'" Abortionists, feminists, gays, lesbians, the ACLU -- what, no Jews? Falwell does not deserve a free pass in the media. Why have so many commentators so quickly passed over, or even ignored, this story of fanaticism? And why hasn't our government forcefully denounced it? A White House spokesperson said that the president "disassociated" himself from Falwell's remarks. But will the media have the courage -- no, the sense -- to ask the president: "Will you repudiate such remarks? Will you repudiate Falwell? Will you repudiate fanaticism?" Not likely. We have an enemy within, an enemy who is ugly, destructive, and subversive toward everything we allegedly believe in. President Bush said that we must "smoke out" Osama bin Laden et al., and well he should; but he should also focus some attention on how others at home terrorize and threaten us. Talk about "homeland defense" is currently fashionable; we can also defend our homeland by answering and repudiating the Falwells in our midst. Cecelia Holland, the novelist, suggested to me that "our best revenge is to be who we are." We are diverse, we are a people who guarantees liberty, and one who desperately wants to be tolerant. All that assaults fanatics to the very core of their perverse beliefs. When we remain free to believe as we wish, without harming the lives of others, when we practice our different faiths, or even when we don't particularly want a faith, when we marry across religious, racial, or ethnic lines, we attack and offend bigots. To be sure, Osama bin Laden and Jerry Falwell are very different people, but they most assuredly are committed to a similar course. Whether they are killing human beings or ideas, they are killing our nation. We need to heal. Falwell has no place with us. He has called his remarks "insensitive and ill-timed." Ill-timed? When is a good time? Wrong, wrong, wrong. He deserves only our profound contempt. Stanley I. Kutler is a professor of history and law at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. http://chronicle.com Section: The Chronicle Review Page: B7
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Copyright © 2001 by The Chronicle of Higher Education
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Reflections on the Fractured Landscape |
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