Posted on 10/20/2008 2:34:12 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Natan Sharansky defied Soviet tyranny during the Cold War and thereby earned the gratitude of free people everywhere, including the United States, which in 2006 awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
After enduring years of persecution in Russia, Sharansky emigrated to Israel and became a political leader. In his new book, Defending Identity [1], he sets out to defend Jewish national identity by asserting that national identity as such is a good thing. We must belong to cultures and nations, Sharansky asserts, rather than to the insipid soup of global citizenship. The trouble is that some identities are hostile to other identities by their nature. Democracy should solve this problem, Sharansky argues, except
that some identities are by their nature anti-democratic, and so on.
A worthwhile thought was gestating in Sharansky's mind, but was stillborn in the present volume. Sharansky wants to say that the particularism of Jewish national identity offers universal benefits for humankind. But he does not want to say so in religious terms, and cannot find a clear way to say so in secular terms.
Jews often are loath to make theological claims for their own importance, which sound megalomaniac to secular ears. But the Jews might as well resign themselves to being hanged for a sheep as well as a lamb. Except for its religious implications, the world has little use for Jewish nationhood, and considers the presence of a few million Jews in the Middle East an inconvenience at best, and a danger at worst. That is why the only true friends of the Jewish state are American and some other evangelicals, and a few leaders of the Catholic Church.
(Excerpt) Read more at atimes.com ...
High Volume. Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel. or WOT [War on Terror]
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Some “geniuses” (idiots) thought it a good idea to turn America and the West into a giant open psychotherapy ward that treated “identity” as a psychopathology to be avoided. Now those same idiots wonder why they are surrounded by sociopaths, so ask Syd Blumental the last ‘hole to quote the “Authoritarian Personality.”
Spengler is usually interesting, but often wrong.
I have a very minor connection with Nathan Sharanksy. I was on duty in the control tower at Tempelhof Central Airport in West Berlin the day he was released by the Soviets and cleared his aircraft, a USAF jet, for takeoff. I remember an item in the local AFN news that he was flown by the Soviets into Schonefeld, their airport in East Berlin. After exiting the aircraft he was told to walk straight towards a waiting Russian limosine that would drive him to his exchange point. Instead of walking in a straight line he walked a zig-zag path from the bottom of the aircraft stairs to the car door. Not sure if that is a true story but it is a good one.
Democracy is rule by your neighbors. Being ruled by your neighbors, who outnumber you by definition, does not lead to either freedom or security in your person if the neighbors who rule you do not respect your right to live free and unmolested.
We equate democracy with freedom because love of neighbor is inculcated in the average American from birth, it is a part of the culture. That this culture is judeo-christian is not happenstance, it is everything. The idea that each person is made in the image of God and worthy of respect is what makes this culture free; democracy is just the gearbox.
A culture in which love for neighbor never reaches critical mass is a culture which will never be free, no matter how many elections are held, no matter how smoothly or violently the power changes hands.
And this is why nationhood matters. A key part of "rule by ones neighbors" is the idea that you agree to be ruled by neighbors who share your values. And you refuse to be ruled by "neighbors" who do not; indeed you would fight to the death to be free of those "neighbors" who would by sheer violence or brute force of numbers take away your freedom. Democracy in the absense of "love for your neighbor" is a one-way ticket to fascism and subjugation. Your nation may be a small and insular, or large, diverse, and cosmopolitan, but mutual love and respect is either at the heart of it or freedom will never take root.
That is why cultures in which individual life is respected are generally and in varying degrees, free. And those cultures in which individual life is not respected are not and won't be.
It’s a shame Sharansky is no longer active in Israeli politics, he’s an honest and principled man.
the tragic part is that Israelis are, at least in part responsible for his departure from politics - we marginalized him, treated him as an outsider because he wasn’t a part of the old elite running the country, and i don’t even want to talk about the way the media treated him.
Now the type of people who are left are the olmerts and livnis.
I’m telling you, it’s a freaking Greek tragedy.
I don’t understand why.
Bump
It seems to me (from afar) that Sharansky is more a thinker than politician, and lacked organizational skills, and frankly desire to be involved in the bloody sport of politics. He tried, and then moved on. It is a loss, but nothing surprising.
“He argues that democracy will solve the problem...”
I did not read this book. For what I know about Sharansky’s views from his other publications, he was against open elections in Gaza, and his criteria is freedom, not elections. He defines freedom as condition when anybody can get to the main square and say what he wants about the rulers, without a threat to his life or even threat of intimidation or prosecution. Obviously, Palestinians are far off ...
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