Courage

Monday

“Fear is the first adversary we have to get past when we set out to battle for freedom, and it is the one that remains until the very end,” said Aung San Suu Kyi.

But people fighting for freedom don’t need to be completely free of fear to do what must be done. She says her fellow freedom fighters “pretend to be unafraid as they go about their duties and pretend not to see that their comrades are also pretending.”

“This is not hypocrisy,” she says. “This is courage that has to be renewed consciously from day to day and moment to moment. This is how the battle for freedom has to be fought until such time as we have the right to be free from the fear imposed by brutality and injustice.”

Posted in:  Citizen Warrior

‘I’ve Got…Islamophobia!’

Posted by P. David Hornik Bio ↓ on Aug 30th, 2011

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I tried poring over the new Think Progress report, but it didn’t help. The paranoid delusions kept recurring.

I tried exercise, listening to soft music before going to bed, thinking only pleasant thoughts. And still, late at night, the dreadful fantasies came back.

I went to a doctor in Beersheva. Though he’s known in southern Israel as one of the best in the field, I don’t normally seek out help of that kind; I was pretty desperate.

I was sure that, in his line of work, he’d heard about all sorts of appalling phenomena. Still, some things are almost too shocking and shameful….

Sitting in his office, I sunk my face in my hands, sighed deeply.

Finally I mustered up the courage to say, “I’ve got…Islamophobia.”

I waited for the shock of the word to dissipate. He seemed to be sitting patiently; he seemed able to take it.

I sighed again.

“I have…these fantasies. They wake me up in the middle of the night, and I can’t seem…”

He waited patiently.

I stared stoically forward. “I hear air raid sirens, and I think…they’re shooting at me. Rockets.”

I added, “I hear…booms.”

Finally he spoke, slow, patient, and kind: “Who is shooting at you?”

I sunk my face in my hands again; raked it with my fingers.

“Who? Well…Muslims.”

Again his slow, gentle voice: “From where are they shooting?”

I removed my hands from my face, gazed forward like a grade-school kid who’s been asked a tough question in front of the whole class.

“From Gaza.”

Now we both fell silent. I thought that—with all his experience—this might really be too much for him. We both knew that the people in Gaza were Zen Buddhists.

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Posted in:  Front Page Magazine