Columns
Regular Columns
Israel-Lebanon: A Clash of Cultures
Fri 18 Jul 2008 • Responses: 0 • by David Aikman
The biggest loser in the “transaction” between Israel and Hezbollah is Lebanon.
In the Middle East last week, no two scenes could have highlighted more vividly the clash of cultures in the Arab-Israeli dispute than the contrasting events in Lebanon and in Israel. In Beirut, there were shouts of acclamation, brass bands, and kisses on the cheek for the returning heroes—along with crowing signs in Arabic that read “humiliation” across a photograph of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. In Israel, the return of the bodies of two Israeli soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, was followed by the mournful sounds of funerals conducted with quiet dignity in Nahariya and Haifa for the two men. The exchange of two dead soldiers for five living prisoners and 199 dead Lebanese and Palestinian fighters was the fruit of some eighteen months of painful negotiation between Israel and Hezbollah that followed the 33-day “July War” in 2006 between Israel and Hezbollah.
China’s Olympics: The Earthquake Dividend
Mon 30 Jun 2008 • Responses: 0 • by David Aikman
The long run-up to the opening of the Summer Olympic Games in Beijing in August has been more volatile than for any Olympics since the U.S.-led boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics. First were the serious questions about the degree of pollution in China’s capital city and pollution’s potential effect on athletes and their performance. Then came the controversy surrounding the much-publicized journey to Beijing of the Olympic Torch. Protesters in several countries tried to snatch or douse the torch because of sympathy for Tibetans who rioted against the Chinese in March this year. Counter-protests brought hundreds of Chinese into the streets of Western cities and inspired often vicious Chinese Internet blog posts against the West in general.
The Renaissance and Religious Toleration
Thu 26 Jun 2008 • Responses: 0 • by Joe Loconte
Erasmus of Rotterdam’s recognition that “Compulsion is incompatible with sincerity, and nothing is pleasing to Christ unless it is voluntary” is one of the foundations of Christian humanism.
Historians debate the most significant achievements of the Renaissance, the cultural revival that began in Italy and swept through Europe from roughly the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries. There were scientific advances, a return to the study of the classics, and political theorizing a la Machiavelli. A visit to Florence provides an almost overwhelming sense of the artistic accomplishments of the era. Yet a crucial aspect of Renaissance history is often overlooked: its contribution to religious liberty, an ideal whose origins have implications for our own age of religious violence.
Zimbabwe, the Scandal of Africa
Tue 24 Jun 2008 • Responses: 0 • by David Aikman
It certainly looks as if the Almighty’s help will be needed in removing Mugabe from power.
The average American—or average Irishman or Frenchman, for that matter—could be forgiven for not knowing the answer to the following question: which country in the world has inflation of more than 15,000 percent, unemployment of 80 percent, and the lowest life-expectancy rate in the world (age 37 for men)? The answer—Zimbabwe—is not only the scandal of Africa today, but also the current scandal of world politics.
The immediate crisis in Zimbabwe is that the country’s president, Robert Mugabe, seems quite determined not to permit opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai to assume political power in the country. In an initial election March 29, Tsvangirai, leader of the political party Movement for Democratic Change, won 47.9 percent of the vote, to Mugabe’s 43.2 percent. The election results, however, were not released until May 2, however, leading the opposition to charge that Mugabe’s party, ZANU-PF (Zimbabwe African People’s Union—Patriotic Front), had suppressed the results.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Supernatural
Thu 19 Jun 2008 • Responses: 0 • by David Aikman
Despite Lucas’s New Age leanings, he firmly sides with traditionalists in the view that ancient religious artifacts of traditional religions contain real powers that should not be tampered with by human beings.
Warning: This commentary contains spoilers for the latest film.
After nineteen years of absence from movie screens around the world, the re-appearance of Indiana Jones in a new movie, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was accompanied by security precautions worthy of a new Pentagon weapons project. Movie extras were required to sign a non-disclosure agreement about the content of the movie, and one actor was allowed just a few hours to read the script in London prior to contract-signing before a courier flew it back to Los Angeles to re-deposit it in a safe. In Los Angeles, in a police sting operation, a man was arrested for trying to sell production photographs that he had allegedly stolen from the offices of producer George Lucas.
Two Kinds of Tolerance
Tue 10 Jun 2008 • Responses: 0 • by Joe Loconte
Modern democracies like the Netherlands have turned the principle of religious pluralism into a pretext for moral agnosticism.
A visitor to Amsterdam, whatever his itinerary, will be greeted by a somewhat macabre mix of European Christianity and postmodern paganism. In the historic city center it is not majestic cathedrals that catch the eye. Rather, it is the ubiquitous storefront sex shops. They come in several varieties, offering merchandise, voyeurism, and intimate encounters. There are church buildings as well, to be sure, but they seem out of place. Despite the streams of tourists, they struggle to compete for attention. Some houses of worship have been converted into bars or other secular establishments. The “Old Church Coffee Shop,” for example, sits adjacent the “Sexyland Erotic Supermarket.” It is a city that seems thoroughly obsessed with sex.
Australia’s ‘National Sorry Day’
Fri 30 May 2008 • Responses: 0 • by David Aikman
It’s always risky for nations to apologize, but Kevin Rudd’s act of contrition for Australia was based in Christian conviction.
On May 26, while Americans were barbecuing hot dogs and collectively grumbling over their beers and Cokes about the outrageous price of gasoline, Australians, fourteen hours ahead of America’s East Coast, were reflecting on their tenth annual commemoration of National Sorry Day.
To most Americans, that phrase might sound like a cynical skit from TV’s Saturday Night Live. But for Australians it is deadly serious. For ten years Australians have been annually reflecting upon the suffering that the country’s white settlers imposed on the indigenous Australians, also called Aborigines.
Lebanon on the Brink
Thu 15 May 2008 by David Aikman
The international community is proving feckless in restraining the influence of Hezbollah and thus Iran in Lebanon.
Has Lebanon, one of the few states in the Arab world with a free press, free elections, and a broadly pro-Western orientation, finally plunged into the abyss of an Islamofascist dictatorship? It looked very like that last week as Hezbollah gunmen, well-armed and well-trained, poured into the streets of Beirut and for a while controlled the city and much of the country. Lebanon appeared about to resume the civil war that ravaged it between 1975 and 1990. More than fifty people died in clashes between rival militias.
China, Tibet, and the Olympics
Mon 05 May 2008 by David Aikman
Placing the Olympics above world politics is a valiant but vain hope.
When the French nobleman and historian Baron Philipe de Coubertin revived the idea of the Olympic Games in Paris in 1894, he was motivated by both nationalism and idealistic internationalism. He felt the French had lost their war with Prussia in 1870 because of their poor physical conditioning. But de Coubertin had also been inspired by an English physician, botanist, and magistrate, William Penny Brookes. Another eccentric idealist and philanthropist, Brookes had first organized an “Olympian Games” in 1850 in the English rural village of Much Wenlock, Shropshire. De Coubertin visited the Much Wenlock Olympics in 1890, and returned to France inspired.
Obama’s ‘Bitter’ Comments
Sun 27 Apr 2008 • Responses: 3 • by David Aikman
The rigors of the campaign lead to what may be a landmark moment.
Every presidential campaign cycle has its landmark moments. Television viewers watching the debate in 1960 between Richard Nixon and John Kennedy were shocked by how unattractive Nixon’s five-o’clock shadow appeared. He lost the debate on television, even though those who heard the debate on the radio thought Nixon had scored more points. Then there was the moment when Ronald Reagan seized the microphone during a 1980 Republican primary debate in New Hampshire and announced that he had “paid” for the microphone and was going to hold onto it. And who can forget Michael Dukakis, George Bush’s opponent in the 1988 election, trying, by driving a tank on camera, to look manly and in-charge and to demonstrate he was commander-in-chief material? Unfortunately, he simply looked absurd.
