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A Thousand Words with some Discussion
This post has garnered quite the discussion over at KabobFest. I invite you to take a look at it. Thanks for the traffic guys.
This picture popped up on Reddit yesterday, with the comment “This takes guts.”
The picture immediately moved me for a number of reasons, and so I posted it to my Facebook Profile with the following comment:
if you can understand that 95% of americans look at this picture and feel more terrified of the man with the flag than the man with the assault rifle, then you will understand the root of the problem, the conceptual basis of racism (and its implicit …self-justification), and the reason behind american acquiescence to apartheid
This started a spirited discussion, with a commenter remarking:
My understanding of the “root of the problem” (let me know if you agree with this interpretation): for those Americans who are not Arab or Muslim, an Israeli soldier has never and will never pose any threat to them or their identity. A small subset of Palestinian nationalists are associated with groups who preach hatred toward Americans and wish to… do harm to Americans. Many of the people who fear the nationalist more probably are racist, but as a white, Christian American, you could ask yourself, “Who out of these two people is more likely to dislike me on the basis of my superficial identity?” if they know nothing of your personal opinions. Similarly, who would you be more afraid of in Compton, an armed white police officer or an African-American man with black nationalist paraphernalia? The issue is that people are evaluated collectively rather than as individuals, but this is so deeply ingrained in our psyche that it’s hard to avoid.
So how do you move forward?
I was not satisfied with that, and so responded:
the reason that americans’ don’t feel threatened by the man with the gun, either personally or on the level of ‘identity,’ is because they are one and the same. an american can’t feel threatened by anyone who would brandish a weapon against a palestinian, because on a self-justifiable level, that’s the only thing that makes sense. the american … attitude towards the israeli-palestinian reality is that, on looking at this picture, they don’t see one man with a gun and one man with a flag, but one man with the gun, standing between the one man with the flag and his terrorist cohorts, and oblivion. an american will look at this picture and feel threatened *on the behalf* of the man with the gun, because he represents the wall between ‘us and them.’ that’s because he’s white, wearing a soldier’s uniform, and brandishing a weapon that looks like the ones we see ‘our boys’ with in movies. a palestinian, on the other hand, would look at this picture and see an unarmed man standing up against a heavily armed man, one who they know cannot be held accountable for his actions. a palestinian looks at this picture and sees an allegory to his own existence.
so no, i disagree. if a black man in compton sees a white police officer, he sees whatever he sees (and i’m not black and i don’t live in compton so i won’t presume to know what that is…). i, however, know that if i was in compton and i saw that white cop, i’d feel that he was there to help *me.* and as an example, no matter how ‘enlightened’ anyone is, in his book ‘blink’ malcolm gladwell demonstrates that all white people will respond that way. regardless, the racism implicit in that gut-reaction is the belief that the white police officer is there for a good reason. he’s armed for a good reason. he can respond with force based on government authority, and for good reason.
the american looking at this picture doesn’t notice at all its explicit imbalance. he believes that the soldier is there for good reason, is armed for good reason, and is needed to maintain the barrier between the scary looking dark skinned man, and the West.
the american doesn’t just empathize with the soldier and fear the arab. the american *is* the soldier, and for that reason is incapable of empathizing with the arab.
The commenter responded:
the worst of what people do is what generates the most media attention. thus, americans learn about terrorist attacks by palestinians and become afraid of them as a group. people throughout the muslim world learn about american drones bombing wedding parties in afghanistan and are filled with generalized anger towards americans. the media doesn’t … help things, but they play on the way our minds work, and if you don’t personally know someone on “the other side,” it’s hard to break through those mental barriers. this is why getting to know you, will, is important in changing the perceptions of people in the middle east without much personal exposure to americans, and also why it is necessary that the average american gets to know one of the “scary dark people” as a person rather than a stereotype. your existence, sir, is validated
At this point we were obviously not getting very far, and probably in agreement, but because I am a jerk and this was my Facebook wall, I demanded the last word:
one in one hundred people i meet in the middle east are ‘filled with generalized anger towards americans.’ one in three americans i meet are “afraid of them (i assume you mean arabs) as a group.” it has nothing to do with terrorism or attack drones or media or anything. it’s the simple fact that americans feel that anyone on the wrong end of a … white soldier in green fatigues with an american-made weapon is, by definition, at fault and to be feared. feared to such a degree as to deem it an immediate threat. more threatening than the things that really hurt them, like usurious bank loans, or cancer, or drunk driving. i would venture that it’s not the media that programs the american to assume that the israeli is right and the palestinian is wrong – it’s the simple fact that calling into question the existence of the israeli soldier, let alone his actions, would expose the american to existential questions he or she is unwilling to ask. such as, “what does my support of the soldier and my fear of the arab, say about the ethics and morals i have as a human being.”
I think the important thing here to remember is that in this picture, it is the Israeli, not the Palestinian, that is armed, but to most of the West, it is the Palestinian who inherently looks scarier, even if the person knows nothing about their conflict, because he is of darker skin than the soldier. This has been proven in a number of studies, often referenced by Malcolm Gladwell in his books Blink, The Tipping Point, and Outliers. Even people of darker skin are proven to have this prejudice.
Well fine – But what is even more curious is that, in this case, the self-justification that immediately arises if the viewer knows anything about the conflict. If that is the case, then the viewer, if they are (as is likely the case if they are American) sympathetic to the Israeli cause, will say to him or herself “well of course the Israeli must be armed, the Palestinians are so mean looking and scary!” And they do not stop to question the moral issue at hand. At what point is it reasonable to assume that an unarmed man is more terrifying than an armed man, solely on the basis on prejudice? We do this all the time – we take guns out of the hands of citizens (as in the case in countless states, counties and municipalities), but we don’t question that police should be armed. Or, as the commenter points out, we feel less threatened by white police (even if we are not white) then blacks dressed as militants, and we support the police officer’s right to be armed, and to use deadly force, and are frightened if the black man is.
Of course that means that we have made a value judgment that the police officer (and the Israeli soldier) is armed because the opposition is so scary, but we fail to question the system of thought that leads to the value judgment – That is, that the police officer and the soldier are empowered by a state that is controlled by the very people that find the opposition threatening, thus completing a nice little bit of circular reasoning that ultimately grants power to the strong and stigmatizes the weak. The moment the weak choose to resort to violence in an effort to destabilize this unjust relationship between the powerful and the police, the stigmatization becomes even more justified, inevitably to the degree that the weak becomes a terrorist, and therefore may be fought, “without prejudice,” no matter how prejudicial the conflict really is.
written by [ Will Donovan ]The Dao that can be experienced is not true;
The world that can be constructed is not true.
The Dao manifests all that happens and may happen;
The world represents all that exists and may exist.
-Dao De Jing
Word.
Not sure if I agree with absolutely everything you said… but I think I do. I’ll give it a good think.
well let me know what you conclude
I, a white American (albeit one who has lived in Arab countries), look at that picture and am terrified of the Israeli.
Strangely though, my immediate reaction upon reading this was to get defensive, despite knowing myself to be an exception and not a rule. I guess the flaw that I see in your argument comes after the racist part – I understand and don’t dispute Gladwell’s studies, but it’s what comes after that; it’s this part:
Well fine – But what is even more curious is that, in this case, the self-justification that immediately arises if the viewer knows anything about the conflict. If that is the case, then the viewer, if they are (as is likely the case if they are American) sympathetic to the Israeli cause, will say to him or herself “well of course the Israeli must be armed, the Palestinians are so mean looking and scary!” And they do not stop to question the moral issue at hand.
That part is where I think the media is irresponsible and at least, partly, to blame. I also don’t think that supporters of Israel in the US DO know anything about the conflict (with the exception of American Jews, whose perception is already skewed by their Biblical feelings about the land, and perhaps some evangelicals, who also lay claim to the land for similar reasons). They know what they ingest from the mass media, but aside from those of us who read deeply, or have experience in the region (positive experience at that), or have academically studied it, most Americans – particularly those outside of urban areas – are never going to dig deeper than what they’re told. That scares me the most.
[...] Donovan saw this photo on Reddit and decided to post it on Facebook. He saw the power of unarmed resistance against Israeli oppression, but ultimately focused on how [...]
jillian – thanks for your comments. i dunno – some people might say it’s the media, and i’ve made a case for an element of racism, but really i think it just boils down to haves and have nots. *most* americans (i should have probably put the *most* in there on several occasions in this post) are programmed to assume that the haves are justified in oppressing the have nots. that has less to do with media than it does the concept at the root of american capitalism. remember, ronald reagan once said that he believes that anyone who is poor is doing something wrong – this image evokes a response from *most* americans because the israeli soldier is so clearly on the side of the haves, and the arab is clearly not – it is self evident even if you know nothing about the conflict.
*most* americans take israeli’s side not only because of their religious inclinations, but because they represent the western *haves* and the palestinians represent the *have nots.* yes, this is backed up by the media – there’s that horrible scene in the beginning of transformers when the soldiers fight with the machine in qatar, which is represented as destitute hovel, despite the fact that qatar is one of the world’s wealthiest nations.
but it is also just the way that most americans think. there’s no room for an equitable solution – somebody has to have and somebody has to not have, and in this case the israeli’s *have* and the palestinians *have not,* hence this picture having the stuipifying effect of making the palestinian look scary even though he is unarmed. add a healthy dose of subtle racism, and you have yourself an answer.
p.s. thanks for the notice, kabobfest.
i, as a white man who has visited Palestine and Israel, am in awe of the restraint of this Palestinian man; to contain the rage that comes from the ongoing humiliations at checkpoints and the impotence and humiliation a man has to endure when his home is bulldozed. i have seen this. and i see the same exhaustion in this young mans eyes that i have seen in so many Palestinians mens eyes. it is the psychological cruelty of the occupation.
and i also feel sad for the young Israeli, maybe 20 years old, that he has to enforce the injustice and cruelty, and in the process corrupt his own soul. in Israel, what i experienced more than anything else was fear, fear and denial. this young israeli represents fear as much as zionist colonialism.
having sat and listened to many Palestinian men; having been invited into homes, i know one thing: Palestinians are people of the heart, hospitable beyond measure, and ready to forgive the oppressors as soon as the oppressors wake up from their collective bad dream.
If only that was the root of the problem…
but you fail to ask yourself how it is that they can become terrified.
It’s a lot of things unfortuately; Racism, Guilt complex, Induced states of fear, Disregard for real world education, distance, the culture of convenience…. the compiling of issues continues.
All of these psychological elements will eventually bring the construct down, the fear of a bomb under a guy’s jacket is a good destraction from what their real enemy is I think, and that is their own unfathomed levels of utter stupidity.
[...] Read the cogent write-up by Will Donovan here. [...]
I found you through a WordPress post referral.
Very intriguing thought process and very accurate. I’d like to add my 2 cents if I may: that the root of the problem is really the stealing of Palestinian lands by Zionists! This was stated by the founders of Israel (quotes posted on my site) or Haartez articles confirming such facts or even Israeli historians and professors attesting to this: as in Illan Pappe and Dr. Sand’s findings!
In simple terms, Ashkanazi and Sephardic Judaism, has nothing to do with Palestine or the origin of the Hebrews. Yet the Zionist movement succeeded in manipulating the truth and convinced us that these Jews are really descendants of the Israelites! Hardly true!
The other problem is religion: that Abraham, we were taught was Jewish! Excuse me? Judaism started really after Moses and NOT before! According to Islamic and Arabic History, the early inhabitants of Palestine are bani-Israe’el (Israelites) and these are the 12 tribes. They, according to Islamic history, are Muslims in their beliefs and as such hold Abraham, Ismael, Issac, Jacob (Israel).. David and Solomon and all the way to Moses in the highest regard and respect.
But Zionism also convinced us that those people were Jewish!
As Dr. Sand pointed out, (http://attendingtheworld.wordpress.com/2008/10/09/on-israels-bestseller-listwhen-and-how-was-the-jewish-people-invented/)
“It is not taught in Israeli schools but most of the early Zionist leaders, including David Ben Gurion [Israel’s first prime minister], believed that the Palestinians were the descendants of the area’s original Jews. They believed the Jews had later converted to Islam.”
ATW
i don’t want this post to become a discussion about religion, because the conflict doesn’t have to be seen through that lens. in fact, i find that it begins to make less and less sense when that lens is applied, and simultaneously it becomes more and more hyperbolic.
atw i’m not disowning your comment, i’m merely stating – this is not a forum to discuss the merits of zionism or islam. i hear enough of that in lebanon.
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Will,
Here’s something you made me think of with your comment (something I can unfortunately only tell using my own life as background). I grew up with no real knowledge of people of other races and in a town with like, 20 non-white people. I had the mainstream media as my main source of information.
And yet, upon learning about the conflict later on (college, let’s say), I understood it as you do.
So, what is it REALLY about Americans that makes them think this way? I would argue that – again, save for Jews and fundie Christians, who have the Biblical argument – anyone who does learn about the conflict genuinely would feel the way we do. I live in Boston, where I find that, more often than not, people agree with me (though they’re not actually DOING anything about it, which is another story). So what are we looking at when we say “those Americans?” The people who rely solely on the mainstream media for news, and the religious folks!
(An aside: I highly recommend you institute a feature on your blog that allows people to subscribe to comments. It’s practically a built-in in WordPress. I would’ve responded two days ago, had I remembered.)
Who’s the bad guy in this picture?
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2009/09/03/world/03jerusalemB.ready.html
j.k.h i bet this picture would confound many. great pic