I haven’t chosen to write much concerning Syrian refugees on Bearing Drift. Nor do I intend to. Jumping into an emotional fray with folks more willing to feel than consider others just doesn’t seem fruitful in the slightest. I doubt very seriously that anything one could add that would be constructive would be viewed by all sides as such.
Therefore, the inner Jesuit kicks in… and one opts for silence.
Rachel Weiner did an article on the Spotsylvania kerfuffle over the local mosque expansion in Spotsylvania County last week. I was very pleased to see my old pastor, Fr. Rooney, express the conditions and sentiments of most of the folks I speak to and pray with:
Along with Muslim immigrants such as El-Ahwal, whose family moved from Lebanon when she was young, hundreds of refugees have settled in the Fredericksburg area. At one point in 2010, churches said they couldn’t keep up with the newcomers. According to pastor Don Rooney of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception, 108 refugees came to the area this year through Catholic Charities.
“Fredericksburg is a place that people can still kind of afford to live,” he said. But “the county has a tendency to be more rural, a lot less tolerant; there’s not a lot of diversity in spots.”
Rooney was at the meeting and “appalled,” he said, especially since the various religious communities in the area have strong relationships with each other.
“A lot of them identified as veterans; I guess there’s some real painful experiences there,” he said.
What concerns me is threefold:
(1) The reaction of do-gooders. These people intend well, but foster solutions no sane person should tolerate — the burial of Tsarnaev in Virginia, a place the Chechen terrorist had no connections to, for instance. There are deep reasons why this is unacceptable, both to the Muslim community and to fellow Virginians.
(2) The reaction of Muslims themselves. What happens when a bunch of folks barge into your home and call you names? You call for backup, as the imam of the Islamic Ummah of Fredericksburg (not to be confused with the Islamic Center of Fredericksburg — two different mosques, two different traditions) states in the article:
For the next meeting, Abdalla said, “the support will be there, so those ignorant [people] and knuckleheads can shut their mouths.”
That is emotive. Understandable, but an emotive and an escalation given in a moment of anger (to the press). I don’t question either Abdalla’s anger or Weiner’s willingness to print it… but I would like to think that the implied threat behind it — not violent, but reactionary — probably should give folks pause.
(3) The reaction of outsiders. Flyers have been distributed by some group (of one, probably) calling themselves the Committee to Defend Fredericksburg, stating that the mosque and the refugees have no place in Fredericksburg proper. What happens when Abdalla’s “support” meets this shadowy committee? Stupid happens… that’s what.
I’m familiar with the Islamic Center of Fredericksburg ever since they planted their flag about 27 years ago. It was a small, brick building — unassuming in the middle of nowhere between Salem Church and Chancellorsville. Maybe 20 families at the time? Of course, I was more bummed that there were never any food festivals… but nevertheless, you barely knew there was an Islamic community in Fredericksburg apart from Nader’s Grocery downtown.
Yep, that’s right. The Muslims have been plotting their nefarious deeds to fill the bellies of Frederickburg natives with falafel for several decades now.
Other stores have cropped up — restaurants and shops. We were never able to get raw kibbe (except on special occasions when the kibbe was made), but we could always get butlehweh (baklavah, for Greek speakers), mammoul (both with dates and with pecans), and other awesome Middle Eastern foods.
It is very difficult for people to grasp that many who flee the Middle East do so because they are fleeing the violence, the intolerance, the hate that drives men to do stupid and irrevocable things.
Of course, not all Arabs are Muslim. Many are Christian, as my grandmother’s family was, fleeing the last gasp of the Ottoman Empire and the Young Turks in the 1920s. Most are well educated. All simply want a better life for themselves and their families.
Pope Benedict XVI — then Cardinal Ratzinger — used to prod that Islam had three distinct problems it needed to overcome to prevent a Huntington-style “clash of civilizations” — defining the role of reason in Islam, discovering a development of doctrine within Islam, and rejecting violence as a means of spreading Islam.
It is safe to say that most Muslims do this, though not in a way readily understandable by recreational scholars in the West. Yet Islam has their “hillbillies” too — folks who cling to their book and their guns. So does the West, it would seem… as does the secular left, in their willingness to do stupid and demonize all rivals to demonstrate their only creed — that They Care (TM) more than everyone Muslims and Christians and everyone else about the situation at hand.
The lesson here, perhaps, is that it is difficult when one’s faith, one’s reputation, one’s life is defined by the very worst examples of others. Or the worst expectations of others.
One could easily argue — as perhaps the imam of the Islamic Ummah of Fredericksburg was tempted to do — that all Spotsylvanians are represented by a muscle-bound self-defender of ‘Murica. Or worse, by the lovy-dubby narcissist set that seek to define themselves by showing that they couldn’t possibly be the bad guys… look at how accommodating we are! Look at how open we are! Look, look, look at us! Can we have a sticker yet… please validate us…
…and then there’s the reaction of a Muslim community that is tired of being treated as a group of nascent terrorists.
But you know what the grand solution is?
FOOD.
Best way to win hearts and minds is through the stomach. Those little balls center left? KIBBE (cooked — but better raw, trust me on this). The tabouleh in the center? It’s supposed to be a “traditional” dish — but everyone knows that tomatoes only became popular over the last 150 years or so. Grape leaves… ah yes… actual grape leaves in a vinegar-ish set with rice and a little bit of meat or lamb. Hummus? Forget the stuff you get at Wal-Mart folks… there is nothing better than fresh hummus and hot pita drizzled in olive oil.
…and this is just a start.
Once the endorphins start moving, we can talk about the really important stuff… like food festivals, and whether 200 parking lots are enough to hold the throngs of people coming to eat.
Just sayin’.
You’ll recall that just two weeks ago, we were grousing about “safe spaces” and all that nonsense. Before that? Gay wedding cakes. Before that? Who the hell knows.
Bright shiny objects, folks. Are you distracted from the important stuff? Probably… and there’s a reason for it.
There’s a lot more that unites humanity than divides it. I’d rather work with the folks seeking to overcome differences and make the world better, than muck with the dividers and so-called clarifiers.
