You can find the video for Chapter 2 here Ch 2
Text:
We have a war going on about perception, how we see things. Some argue that only one media network is trustworthy, while others argue a different one is the only one. Some argue we don’t know the truth, since everything we see has been edited or filmed in a way to convince us of one thing or another.
We often say: “Seeing is believing,” but what if we can’t trust what we see? Much of what we see depends on what we are prepared to see and what we expect to see.
News media makes money by gaining viewers. Often the most extreme image is used over and over again to catch our attention and to try to convince us to do something else or at least to watch some show.
The National Geographic channel had a series called the “Evolution of Evil.” At one time the commercial for this series ran just about every commercial break. In that short commercial break, we saw Hitler, Stalin, Osama bin Laden and Kim Jong-Un. We saw the Twin Towers in New York City fall on September 11th, 2001, over and over and over. We saw jihadis shouting with AK 47s in their hands.
Certain images move us. We come to accept a certain view of people and events based on the images we see.
We see Al Shabab Muslim extremists behead someone. These sorts of images “sell” in the sense that they strike a nerve.
The problem is that these images become the “normal” for us. All Muslims become jihadis. All Muslims hate Westerners. All Muslims are blood thirsty. We have learned this from what we have seen with our own eyes.
However, real life is not so interesting. We don’t see the other 1.7 million “ordinary” Muslims baking bread, sweeping streets, selling their wares, playing with their children.
We see what we have seen and what we have become conditioned to see. We don’t take the time to see the majority of the people as they are.
A friend was unsure about meeting Muslims, who were immigrants in her neighborhood. She wondered how they would accept a woman, particularly a middle-aged American woman. She found to her surprise that they treated her with respect and dignity. She was surprised when one Muslim man picked up a saxophone and began to play it expertly. For some reason she hadn’t expected a Muslim to be able to play a saxophone.
As this friend talked to these Muslim immigrants, she finally asked, “Aren’t you angry with Americans?” To which one man said, “We love the US Marines! We hate our government! They bombed us!” Of course, this surprised her.
We are conditioned by our cultures and education to see certain things and people in certain ways. It’s convenient for us to have stereotypes. No one wants to admit that they have stereotypes, but we all do.
How we see things and people depends on what we have known previously. Throughout history Jews have been despised in many places. Ashkenazi Jews with long noses, dark hair and dark skin often encountered prejudice and even abuse. The fact that some religious Jews wear black suits, yarmulkas and fedoras also makes them distinctive. Also, because religious Jews can sometimes be standoffish towards outsiders, they are seen to be elitist or exclusivist.
Since the Holocaust during World War II, most people in the West know more about Jews. They recognize at least Ashkenazi, eastern European Jews. But sometimes they don’t know that there are also Sephardic Jews, who come originally from Spain and Portugal. Here in the Netherlands the first Jews who came to the Netherlands were Sephardic Jews. Some Sephardic Jews are blond or red headed and have blue eyes. Those of us who knew only Ashkenazi Jews are surprised to realize that there blond, blue eyed Jews! We see what we are prepared to see, what we know.
As we look at immigrants, we tend to see stereotypes, if for no other reason than we don’t know anything else. Stereotypes allow us to deal with abstractions: “Muslims” or “Hispanics.” However, anyone with knowledge of “Hispanics” knows that you should never confuse a Cuban with a Puerto Rican or a Puerto Rican with a Mexican. Here in the Netherlands and in neighboring Belgium to call a Fleming (a “Dutch” speaking Belgian) a Dutch man is an insult!
When we get to know individuals, we come to understand that while they might belong to a larger group (“Muslims”), they as individuals may belong to a smaller subset, which hates another subset. Some Sunni Muslims hate Shi'a Muslims. Sunni Muslims are committed to the legacy of the Prophet Muhammad as expressed in traditions passed on by him to his relatives. Shi’a Muslims follow a leader, an imam or Ayatollah. Many Iraqi Muslims are Sunni, while Irani Muslims are Shi’a. Many Sunni Muslims consider Shi’a Muslims to be heretics and vice versa.
For many of us that have grown up in the Western world we have never had to learn or had occasion to learn such distinctions. Perhaps you know that Turks hate Kurds and Kurds hate Turks. However, both groups are Muslims.
My point is that all of us see what we are accustomed to see. I was in the London Heathrow Airport in a long snaking security line waiting to reach the security point. Another American near me cocked his head at a security guard and said, “Look, they have Muslim security guards.” I turned and said, “He’s not a Muslim. He is a Sikh. Sikhs have been the queen’s personal body guards for hundreds of years. He doesn’t like Muslims.” My countryman in the line did not know a Sikh from a Muslim, but why would he without being taught to know the difference between a Sikh turban and netted beard compared to a Muslims white turban and flowing beard?
We should not make assumptions about people merely based on appearances. We should get to know people as people. Rather than fearing a stranger who “looks dangerous,” we should try to get to know that person as my friend did when she met the Muslim man who could play the saxophone.
When we reach out to be helpful to immigrants, we learn more about the world and about ourselves. We grow. We learn. We come to appreciate others.
When you have made friends with Ahmed and Afra and they invite you to a lovely dinner of lamb and tabouleh followed by a dessert of baklava, they cease to be an abstraction and a threat and become real people. When Ahmed asks you in a Bible study whether you believe in jin (demons) and you have to explain that you do and why, you grow.
There was another image which was repeatedly broadcast on television in the last several years. It was a haunting image. It was a picture of a father who was kneeling on the beach of a Greek island. The father was holding his dead three-year-old son. His son had drowned. Migrants hoping to reach the coast of a Greek island from Turkey are often put into boats which are not seaworthy. The boat that this father and son were on had sunk. The son was drowned and the father had not been able to save him.
People all over the world were struck by the image. The father’s grief was palpable. Almost anyone could identify with his anguish.
When we see another person, who is in need or in pain, we empathize. We want to help. At least we want to help when we are at our best. At our worst we turn away or change the channel.
When we see that father, we become in a way responsible for him. We feel an ethical responsibility for that man and his situation.
Jesus told us to love others as we would have them love us. We must ask what we should do for these people.
It’s too easy to say, “I didn’t start that war! I’m not responsible for their suffering.” No, but we are responsible for our own reaction: Will we turn away, change the channel or respond from a heart of compassion?
That father might have been a Syrian fleeing Aleppo, a city which was repeatedly bombed until there was no “home” left. I met Syrians on the Greek island of Lesvos in the Migrant Detention Centre. That man could easily have been someone I would have met there.
Rather than seeing enemies or jihadis or “dirty foreigners” we need to look at these suffering people through the eyes of Christ, through the eyes of compassion. “In as much as you did it to the least of these, you did it to me."
