The Day Principles Triumphed
By Ali
Sina
Garry Wills, an adjunct professor of history at
Northwestern University, in an op-ed that he wrote for The New York Times,
blamed religious conservatism for the victory of the President Bush and
ruefully titled his article “The
Day the Enlightenment Went Out”.
He argued that “
America
, the first real democracy in history, was a product of Enlightenment
values - critical intelligence, tolerance, respect for evidence, a regard
for the secular sciences. Though the founders differed on many things,
they shared these values of what was then modernity. They addressed ‘a
candid world,’ as they wrote in the Declaration of Independence, out of
‘a decent respect for the opinions of mankind.’”
Then he went on to say that “The secular states
of modern
Europe
do not understand the fundamentalism of the American electorate. It is not
what they had experienced from this country in the past. In fact, we now
resemble those nations less than we do our putative enemies.”
Mr. Wills did not stop there. He even wrote:
“Where else do we find fundamentalist zeal, a rage at secularity,
religious intolerance, fear of and hatred for modernity? Not in
France
or
Britain
or
Germany
or
Italy
or
Spain
. We find it in the Muslim world, in Al Qaeda, in Saddam Hussein's Sunni
loyalists. Americans wonder that the rest of the world thinks us so
dangerous, so single-minded, so impervious to international appeals. They
fear jihad, no matter whose zeal is being expressed.”
He then equated
America
to the terrorists and the most despicable countries of the world, and
said, “Often enemies resemble each other”. He continued with his
harangue berating the President and said Bush has not been a uniter but a
divider.
“President Bush promised in 2000 that he would
lead a humble country, be a uniter not a divider, that he would make
conservatism compassionate. He did not need to make such false promises
this time. He was re-elected precisely by being a divider, pitting the
reddest aspects of the red states against the blue nearly half of the
nation.”
What Mr. Wills, and the rest of the brooding
supporters of John Kerry missed was the most important dynamism of this
election. Wills neglects the fact that Bush was elected because many
secularists and many registered Democrats cast their votes for him. It was
the support of this group that made Bush win and not the votes of the
religionists. The number of religionists in
America
has not grown disproportionately since the election of Bill Clinton. The
secularists did not vote for Bush because they suddenly had a religious
epiphany and a conversion of faith into fundamentalist Christianity.
The elections are never decided by the extreme
left or the extreme right but by the swing voters. The question is why the
secularists decided to vote for a religious president. The answer to this
question is what eludes Mr. Wills and others who still wonder what
happened.
In one word the answer is PRINCIPLES.
Mr. Wills says that the founders, who wrote in the
Declaration of Independence, had "a decent respect for the opinions
of mankind."
This is the fundamental mistake of Mr. Wills and
others who think like him. The opinions of mankind do not have to be
respected. What have to be respected, is their human rights, their rights
to life, to liberty and the right to express their opinion without being
harassed or killed.
If a group
of people believes that it is their God-given duty to murder those who
disagree with their belief, to subdue and humiliate people of other
religions, to beat their women, to rape (or as they call it, give in
“marriage”) girls as young as nine years old, to stone the single
mothers or to behead the unbelievers, that belief does not have to be
respected. Not all beliefs deserve respect. In fact, no belief in
itself deserves respect. All beliefs must be scrutinized, weighed with
facts and, if found wanting, they must be discarded. Beliefs and opinions
are not sacred. What is sacred is human life and human rights.
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