Islam and the West

It’s part of American conservative orthodoxy right now to consider Muslims as irredeemably evil. They’re trying to destroy our country as well as Europe. Even if they aren’t directly attacking Europeans (and they have mounted some horrifying attacks) they’re trying to take over by out-reproducing whites, at least in Great Britain. When they’ve attained a majority they’ll be able to impose Sharia law on Britain, which they plan to do in the USA too.

Is this view true? It’s true that some Muslims are extremists who carry out terror attacks, but not that they’re the only group that does so. According to Wikipedia, the first Muslim immigrants to this country began coming in the 1840s (other than slaves, many of whom were Muslim, but were prevented from practicing their religion by their owners, and were often forcibly converted to Christianity), and that 292 Muslims fought in our Civil War. Large numbers of Muslims immigrated to this country between the 1870s and 1920s, As far as I can tell, Muslims committed no terrorist acts in this country until the 1990s.

Why did they do so then? Many Muslims resented European colonial powers who, in their view, mistreated Muslim countries in seeking oil, which had revolutionized power generation in the West. European countries began seeking concessions to drill for oil in the Middle East about the beginning of the 20th century, and the Middle Eastern oil fields quickly became so important that Great Britain occupied portions of the Ottoman Empire to safeguard their supply of oil. European influence had a great deal to do with the breakup of that Empire into artificial countries: Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. Iraq in particular was home to a variety of peoples who had little loyalty to each other: Sunni Muslims (the majority of Muslims worldwide), Shia Muslims (the majority in Iraq), and Kurds, who wanted their own territory, but have yet to secure a recognized nation. The American invasion of Iraq destabilized the country, along with much of the rest of the Middle East. Saddam Hussein had certainly not been a nice leader, but I suspect few Iraqis would have opted to go through the violence and chaos they’ve experienced in the past fifteen years.

In Iran after the First World War British diplomats supported the takeover of the country by an army officer named Reza Pahlavi, who became the Shah. After World War II he was forced out of power and his son became Shah. In the early 1950s the Iranian prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh nationalized the oil companies in the country, greatly displeasing the Western powers. The CIA funded a military coup that displaced Mossadegh, and brought back the Shah (who had fled the country). The Shah wanted to modernize and secularize the country (the latter was disliked by the religious authorities), and used a notorious secret police force to force people to comply.

Perhaps the main issue that made Muslims unhappy, especially those in the Middle East, was Western support for making Palestine the homeland of the Jews. Zionists had been urging Jews to immigrate to Palestine since the mid-19th century, and many had. The trickle began to become a flood with the rise of Hitler, and Palestinian Arabs became alarmed and fought against the Jewish immigrants. Terrorism was committed by both sides. I think it’s possible to support Israel as homeland for Jews without agreeing with all its policies or excusing its expropriation of the property of the Palestinians or killing them. The existence of Israel enraged the Arabs of the region, and they tried to defeat it and allow Palestinians to get their property back. But the Israelis had a stronger economy and higher military technology, and successfully resisted attempts at invasion. They also had the support of many Western countries, including the United States. That was another thing Muslims of the region resented.

In the late 1970s Iran began rebelling against the Shah at about the same time he became ill and traveled to the USA for treatment. The Ayatollah Khomeini became the political leader of the country at about the same time that Iranians took a lot of Americans hostage. Not all approved of the Ayatollah’s version of an Islamic government, but many approved of Iran going its own way whether the United States liked it or not.

In 1980 the USSR invaded Afghanistan, and Arabs in various countries organized Mujahideen to help resist them. One of these was Osama bin Laden, who fought in Afghanistan and, after the Russians were driven out, returned to Saudi Arabia a hero. When Iraq invaded Kuwait, he offered (fearing Iraq would invade Saudi Arabia next) Mujahideen to repel the Iraqis. Some believe he was outraged by Saudi acceptance of American help to defeat the Iraqis and especially their allowing the United States to build a military base in the country. Other accounts say he believed the US was harming Muslims in the Middle East (Wikipedia quotes Michael Scheuer, who led the hunt for bin Laden as saying, “They hate us for what we do, not who we are.”) under the influence of the Israelis, and called upon them to cease fornication, homosexuality, gambling, and usury. He belonged to a particular school of theology that believed violent acts against innocent civilians were justified by jihad. 

Not everyone agreed with this interpretation. According to Wikipedia, “Jihad is classified into inner (‘greater’) Jihad, which involves a struggle against one’s own base impulses, and external (‘lesser’) jihad, which is further divided into jihad of the pen/tongue (debate or persuasion) and jihad of the sword. Most Western writers consider external jihad to have primacy over internal jihad in the Islamic tradition, while much of contemporary Muslim opinion favors the opposite point of view.” Wikipedia adds that in classical Islam there were elaborate rules against harming innocent noncombatants in jihad, and that modern Islamic scholars emphasize armed jihad as primarily defensive, a stance bin Laden obviously disagreed with.

Extremists of all kinds are liable to be violent. To condemn all Muslims for the actions of a relative few is to be unjust to more than a billion people. One guess is that we have between four and seven million Muslims in this country. If all of them were extremists, we would be in bad trouble. Despite our intelligence organizations, it would be nearly impossible to keep that many people from committing terrorist actions if they really wanted to. Did they come to this country to do that, or did they come for similar reasons to our own ancestors: because they wanted to make better lives for themselves? It’s interesting that Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson both advocated tolerance of Islam as well as any other religions, though of course they had little if any contact with any Muslims.

I suggest that Muslim terrorism is part of a larger problem: alienation. Alienation isn’t a necessary part of Islam, any more than of Christianity or any other belief. But so-called Christians have committed terrorist acts too, such as bombing abortion facilities, synagogues, and churches. I believe alienation makes people more vulnerable to drug and other addictions as well. Are Muslims in Great Britain trying to take the country over? Why would they want to? Have the British been mistreating them? If they’re accepted as citizens like any other, won’t they behave like most citizens?

At the same time, while Americans were justifiably enraged at the atrocity of 9/11, a lot of sympathy was lost for America after the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq killed at least hundreds of thousands. Was that not also terrorism?

The reason many Muslims are trying to leave their countries of origin is because they’ve become almost impossible to live in. Sometimes the reasons are drought or famine. Other times they’re political, like civil war. The French famously dislike the Algerians. Could it be because Algeria was once a French colony and the Algerians forced the French out? Could it be the English don’t like the “Pakis” because India (of which Pakistan used to be a part) was once part of the British empire? Europeans subjugated much of the rest of the world during the colonial period. Is it the turn of the Western powers to be subjugated by people from their former colonies? Or is it possible we’ll learn our lesson and treat those people decently, so they won’t WANT to subjugate us? Or are we assuming that Muslims (as well as other refugees) will behave the way some of our ancestors did, doing anything they could think of to take the land from its indigenous peoples?

What is written above is a very over-simplified history of Middle Eastern interactions with Europe and America. It says nothing about the early history of Islam when its civilization was much higher than Europe of the same time. When the Crusaders conquered Jerusalem they massacred everyone inside, Muslims, Jews, and Christians alike. When the Muslims retook Jerusalem they managed to arrange an orderly departure for the Crusaders without any massacres.

Muslim poets and philosophers also influenced Christian thinkers during the Middle Ages, often from Spain, where Muslims, Christians, and Jews managed to get along harmoniously for several hundred years until a new wave of more fundamentalist Muslim invaders came in, followed by a Christian terror of the Jews which led to the Spanish Inquisition and the expulsion of the Jews from Spain.

How different that is from the way the way the Sultan of Egypt reacted to a European invasion in the early 13th century by feeding the soldiers after having defeated them. Will it be possible for our civilization to respond as generously as did the medieval Egyptians, or are we too frightened to behave in a Christian way?

Choral Singing

This year is Leonard Bernstein’s centenary, and the choir I sing with did a selection of his songs for a recent concert. We’re doing other songs for Christmas, and it’s remarkable how much easier the songs are to pick up.

We begin with the Vivaldi Magnificat, which I’d never heard before, but which feels familiar in its intervals, besides having lovely harmonies. That the piece is about 300 years old means that its structure is a lot more familiar and, to my mind, logical than many of Bernstein’s songs.

His songs are all 20th century-influenced, and the 20th century is notable for experiments in dissonance and harmonies outside those 18th and 19th century composers used. But maybe the most difficult part in several pieces is the words. In his Gloria half the words are Latin, and since the tempo is fast, it’s hard to spit them out. In Chichester Psalms the words are Hebrew, quite unfamiliar to me and many other Americans. Even the English of Wrong Note Rag is difficult because there are a lot of them too.

The songs were worth working on for me, though, because although I’d been somewhat aware of Bernstein, I’d never really paid a lot of attention to him. I was kind of amazed to find that I knew a lot of the songs from West Side Story, but couldn’t remember where I’d heard them. I never saw the play or movie, and we never had the album when I was growing up. Maybe I heard them on the radio, but I can’t remember.

I was also surprised at how moving some of the familiar songs were, at least at first hearing. Maria, for instance, even though I still remembered the version one of my friends used to sing in which he substituted Dario for Maria (we had a high school classmate by that name) impressed me as an evocation of young love. One Hand, One Heart was similarly moving, though not one of the songs I remembered.

Boy, Boy didn’t impress me as positively, since it seemed more like a cartoon than anything heartfelt, but Somewhere did. It sounds like the heart’s desire of all couples, and the baritone harmony part seemed simple but perfect.

I had thought of Bernstein mostly as a conductor (not that I was sophisticated enough to compare his conducting with anyone else’s). Now I realize something of how wide a range of music he was able to address. Many musicians are content to be a virtuoso, part of an orchestra, a composer, or a conductor. Bernstein was able to work to some extent in each of these capacities, and in more than one genre. He wrote classical music as well as musicals. Jewish music inspired him, but he didn’t confine himself to it, and he loved jazz.

I was surprised to discover that Chichester Psalms set the same Psalm 2 text that that Handel set in the Messiah, Why Do the Nations, though that was in English and sounded much different. The portion of the Psalms we performed begins with a slow soprano solo that’s eerily beautiful, joined first by the women in the choir and then in the middle, by the men, who introduce an entirely new theme, which sounds like rock & roll by comparison. After the middle is finished, the women end the piece. A lot of the music we’re doing for the Christmas concert is from the secular Christmas genre, which I sometimes find intriguing, but not always. We Need a Little Christmas is from the Broadway show Mame, and sounds like the kind of piano-based tune you might find from the 1940s or 50s, which is competently put together, but not exactly to my taste. Zat You, Santa Claus is a kind of cutesy jazz-influenced 50s kind of thing–again, not exactly my taste. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas is a little better, but not as interesting to me as It is Christmas or I’ll be Home for Christmas. On the whole, I guess I prefer the overtly religious songs.

Especially from the Messiah. I have been lucky enough to sing in all the choruses, but it’s been a long time since I had the opportunity, so I was glad to find our director had chosen The Glory of the Lord for one of our pieces. The rest of the choir seems to be just as glad and just as familiar. We’ve sung it three times, and twice we’ve gotten it almost perfect.

I was introduced to the Messiah in family singalongs in which my grandmother, who had attended the Peabody Conservatory many years before, played piano and we sang. I followed my uncle on the bass part, which may have been my introduction to part singing. I had sung in elementary school, but I don’t remember singing harmony then. I sang in a choir one summer in a neighboring town, but I think we’d been singing the Messiah before that.

As I grew up I was generally more interested in listening than performing. The Beatles came to America at the beginning of 1964, and that was the beginning of a decade-long love affair with rock & roll for me. I sang in a high school production of The Mikado, but didn’t perform again until about ten years later when I sang in a church choir for a little while. But that didn’t last long.

Much longer was when I lived at a meditation school for some years where my cousin’s wife led us all in choral singing. The teacher there believed that everyone could sing, even if untalented, and that singing was something that could and should be done together, as with playing basketball. Competition is okay in its place, but there can be something almost mystical about teamwork. Music is one place where that can be particularly obvious.

I left the meditation school to go to nursing school, and was away from choral singing for about 15 years. I got back into it after my first wife died, singing in the choir at the church where we were married. I’d done it a short while at the beginning of the marriage, but when I started working the evening shift it was impossible. After my wife died I was working the midnight shift instead, which made choir rehearsals and Sunday morning singing possible. I found myself able to do that only about two years before I got too tired (the service began at 11 am, and I was working every weekend), but had a great experience while it lasted.

That was when we were doing a Christmas cantata (that choir did one every Christmas). I somehow managed to recruit several friends of a different ethnicity to perform in the cantata with me. I particularly liked the music of it, and having friends in it with me made it especially memorable.

I started singing in choir again two years ago after I semi-retired. I wanted activities, and that was an obvious one for the cold season of the year. I tried basketball, but reluctantly concluded that I was finished with that part of my life. Ping-pong turned out to be more doable, as did cycling.

So far, the group I’m in has worked out pretty well. I don’t like everything we do, but the director does pick out some very nice pieces for us. I’ve recently come to the conclusion that I need to copy the pieces I particularly like, because I forget them otherwise. I vaguely remember some writing by a 17th century English poet set by a contemporary composer that I particularly liked, but not well enough to remember the tune, let alone the words or the poet. I’ve also managed to make a friend within the group.

Maybe it’s that music is one of the few comfortable ways for me to be emotional. It’s based on emotion, for all its technical aspects, and though I rarely make new musical discoveries anymore, there are still moments where something shines out of what I sing or listen to.

World Series 2018

Watching the World Series reminded me what a difficult game baseball is. Hitting a round ball with a rounded bat isn’t easy: the vast majority of major league players hit safely less than 30% of the time. That may make it seem as if pitchers have an overwhelming advantage, but that’s offset by the ability of most players to hit home runs at any time, which is why pitchers no longer pitch as many innings as they once did–a trend deplored by baseball purists.

That’s why watching the best baseball teams can be exhilarating. The two in the World Series this year were both deep in all areas and very competitive, though the results didn’t seem that way. The Red Sox beat the Dodgers in five games, but they weren’t blowouts. The Dodgers were in each of them, but the Red Sox were just too good.

One thing the TV announcers emphasized was the Red Sox ability to concentrate on hitting and putting the ball in play no matter the situation. Most of their runs were scored with two out, which is unusual. I guess it’s tempting to kind of give up when the momentum seems to be going against you, but the Red Sox didn’t. The announcers emphasized that the Dodgers had more power than the Sox, but it didn’t seem that way.

One reason for that was the Red Sox pitching. Someone commented, years ago, that the Curse of the Bambino (the Red Sox didn’t win any World Series for 86 years after letting Babe Ruth go) had nothing to do with Ruth, but a lot to do with never having quite enough pitching. Since they broke the so-called curse they’ve won the World Series three more times, and pitching has always been a big part of that.

This year a key figure was David Price, who came into the post-season having never won a game in eleven starts. That streak got broken this year when he beat the Houston Astros in the League Championship Series and then beat the Dodgers twice, once on short rest.

He provided an example of how a pitcher can get in trouble by giving up two hits to begin an inning against the Dodgers, walking another, giving up the hit that scored two runs, then recovering to retire the side. He didn’t give up another run as long as he was in the game. In his second game against the Dodgers he gave up a home run in the first inning, then nothing else. He was impressive.

Also impressive was the third game. The Red Sox had beaten the Dodgers twice at home (announcers noted this was only the second time they had met in a World Series, the first being in 1915, when the Dodgers were in their first Series, and lost), and the Dodgers desperately needed to win the next game. The pitching was great on both sides, and the game went into extra innings at 1-1. Each side scored another run, and then continued. Nathan Eovaldi, who had started a game against the Astros and had relieved in the second game, came in and pitched for between six and seven innings before giving up the home run that won it in the 18th. That was impressive too.

Perhaps more impressive was the next game. Rick Porcello started for Boston and pitched well, but when he was relieved the Dodgers struck for three runs, leading 4-0 in the fifth or sixth inning. The Sox had been meekly making outs until then, and one wondered if they were ever going to hit again after having been able to score only two runs in 18 innings, but they began hitting, and scored nine runs in the last few innings. A reliever gave up a home run at the end to make it 9-6, but that wasn’t enough to make a difference.

The last game was the Dodgers ace, Clayton Kershaw, against David Price. Kershaw didn’t come out well, having given up three home runs and being behind 4-1 by the time he left. By that time the Dodgers must have been ready to accept the inevitable. They had come close several times, but had been unable to get runs when they needed them, nor to stop the Red Sox when necessary.

One wonders if it had anything to do with the desire to hit home runs. In the 19th and early 20th centuries it wasn’t unusual for battters to hit over .400, and that may have been because at least some had skills few if any players any longer do. The Baltimore Orioles of the 1890s are credited with having brought an emphasis on the hit and run, the Baltimore chop (pitches deliberately chopped at so the ball bounced high enough that the batter could get to first base before the ball could be fielded), bunting both for sacrifices and base hits, and “hitting them where they ain’t”. The Orioles were a superb offensive team in an offensive era, but that era began to be forgotten when Babe Ruth began hitting more home runs than anyone had imagined possible.

The home run may have required less skill, but it was much more dramatic, and a lot of players preferred it. But unlike Ruth, who was also very good at hitting singles, many players sacrificed batting average for home runs, and swinging for the fences also made them more vulnerable to striking out, which had previously been considered shameful. I’m told that 2012 was the first season in which strikeouts had out-numbered base hits, another trend which baseball purists deplore.

Both teams had good fielding and strong lineups. Both had good to great starting pitchers and deep bullpens. One Dodger reliever picked a bad time to pitch poorly, but the rest did generally well.

The result, however, was rarely in doubt. Almost every time thd Dodgers scored the Red Sox answered. The Dodgers had to make a supreme effort to win one game, and then were unable to build on that.  Not because they were a bad team, but they weren’t a superb team, and Boston was. They were criticized for not playing some of their left-handed hitters against left-handed pitchers, but when those hitters did play they weren’t that effective. Boston’s pitching was mostly overpowering. And when it wasn’t their hitting made up for it.

Of course I also like it when the team I root for wins. There are three other American League teams who are good to excellent: the Houston Astros, New York Yankees, and Cleveland Indians. The Indians came close to winning the Series two years ago, and I had hoped they would be able to do so the past two years, but they weren’t. The Astros shut the Indians hitters down, while the Red Sox were taking care of the Yankees. The Yankees have been adding powerful hitters the past two years, and as a Yankee-hater I didn’t want them to make the World Series. I guess they don’t have quite enough pitching yet.

But overall, it was a very satisfying season for me. I’ll be rooting for the Red Sox, Indians, and Astros next year, and against the Yankees. We’ll see what happens.