Neither freedom nor patience is endless in our world

Even the most dedicated libertarians (people who desire the preservation of freedoms) have a breaking point. In America, we want free speech, freedom to worship, freedom to think and, yes, even freedom to protest. We’ll fight for these rights for ourselves and historically we will even fight for these rights for others. At the heart of that catchall word, democracy, is what we really believe in: the freedoms we cherish.

Last week, a woman stepped into a crowded street in Iraq and blew 54 people to kingdom come, many of them children. The bomb was hidden under her full-cover abaya. Now, go ahead and tell me you want to protect her freedom to dress as she wants, serve her religion as she wants. Darn hard, if not impossible.

She took the lives of innocents in her act of what she saw as (or was indoctrinated to believe was) religion. She dressed in a long black cloak, with hood, covering her features as her religious leaders told her to. She used the cloak to hide the bomb strapped to her waist. Was not her right to wear the abaya the same as a Jew’s right to wear a yarmulke, or a Christian monk’s right to wear his habit? What about nuns? What about Sikhs? Couldn’t they wear (and indeed they have worn) bombs beneath traditional religious garments?

Civilization and society is a hard master. Sometimes, to live in peace together, we have to give up freedoms for the general good. And sometimes the obviousness of what we should discard gets clouded by philosophical well-meaning libertarians telling us we need to turn the other cheek, take the bad with the good, integrate and absorb the pain.

The problem with this altruistic premise is that humans are not hard-wired that way. The teachings of Mohammed and Jesus are replete with lessons on kindness, peace, tolerance and forgiveness but that has not stopped us from killing as many of our enemy in times of war as possible, often in the name of our god. Are all soldiers evil or corrupt? Or have they simply been used as a societal tool to bring balance, to stabilize our civilizations we enjoy, to act against our foes who would change it in ways far worse than the momentary lack of civility?

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Much of the world we enjoy is at war, under threat, or attack. There is no use pretending otherwise. Like the people back home during World War II who complained that sugar was in short supply while tens of thousands of soldiers were getting killed, there are those who weep for the freedoms overrun while battles rage — here and abroad. Something has to give and it is usually individual freedoms.

France has barred a man for citizenship because he made his wife wear a fully hidden form of clothing called a burka (usually blue, you’ve seen them on TV). In England, headscarves, hijabs, and veils, niqabs, are not permitted in schools by teachers or pupils. In Germany, the burka is outlawed as are hijabs and niqabs in government buildings. Is this all too strict, or is it common sense?

It all comes down to human behavior and culture. We greet someone and inspect their face. If they look angry or threatening, we move away. The brain takes about 1.4 seconds to make this evaluation. When it does not recognize the right patterns we become wary out of self-preservation. This cautionary evaluation has served mankind for millions of years. Just because we’re modern and can think past it, doesn’t mean it is easy.

In our world where everything moves with the speed of light, all human cultures and habits cannot be so easily learned, or so quickly absorbed. And it really doesn’t help when those within other cultures are using religious dress to blow up their fellow citizens. The woman who killed all those children was from a  different sect of the same religion in Iraq. They have a Northern Ireland situation underway there and it will be decades until it is resolved.

Meanwhile, the French are deciding to ban all these body and face coverings. Why? Because it prevents anti-terrorism visual warning and it is frightening the majority of the population.

So, freedom for everyone gives way to freedom for the majority. It may seem un-democratic and anti-libertarian, but it is, for now, seen as a necessary step until a reliable warning system can take effect. Human tolerance and patience are not endless and they may be virtues we can no longer afford.

Of course, we all have to be careful, for all humans everywhere have a habit of wanting only the best for themselves and the heck with the disadvantaged. It is easier (and self-serving) to look the other way. Just ask anyone who lived through segregation.

The writer, a former resident of Amenia Union, now lives in New Mexico.