We now know what to name the
thing in the closet that goes bump all night long, disturbing our sleep. It is
the Taliban, up to no good. The Taliban rules more than 90 percent of
Afghanistan, keeping women the powerless, propertyless, uneducated captives of
their fathers and husbands, covered from head to toe. Now the Taliban-those
destroyers of ancient Buddhist statues-has decided to force Hindus to wear a
special cloth to distinguish them from Muslims, supposedly to prevent the
religious police from bothering them. Never mind that the men are already
distinguishable by their lack of facial hair, the women by their own tradition
of veiling. Except for their costume, these holier-than-everyone rulers could
be members of any Christian militia group in this country. They could be part
of the anti-immigrant, right-wing movement in Austria, Italy or France. The
mind-set is similar: These are folk that the Enlightenment passed right by.
The stage is set. The yellow
star upon the sleeve makes a comeback. Another ethnic cleansing waits in the
wings. There is no reason to believe that a people so certain that their code
and their way to God are the only ones will not find genuine virtue in creating
a new human tragedy. What fun is there in smashing statues when flesh and blood
is available and conveniently marked? There is no reason to believe that the
Taliban will respond to the calls of prime ministers, presidents and diplomats
to cease and desist. It is tempting to think of the Taliban as a primitive
group, Lord of the Flies writ large, a fun-house distortion of the human
capacity to live a moral life. But there is a little bit of Taliban in every
country, perhaps a little bit of Taliban in every living soul.
We desperately need a
“Springtime for the Taliban” before the event that threatens us all. Perhaps we
could laugh them off this planet. Otherwise, prepare for tragedy.
Here in New York City, summer
is upon us. Jitneys ride the road high and proud, like elephants carrying
rajahs, delivering us to the Hamptons. Fire Island ferries toot and whistle.
Oils and beach towels move to the front of the store. Traffic steams and
stalls. Electronic signs above the Long Island Expressway read “Steer Clear of
Aggressive Driving,” as if anyone could steer clear of anything. We are so far
away from Afghanistan, from Kosovo, from Gaza that it seems as if we can wrap
ourselves in personal worries and carry on: Dow Jones dips and sings, our
children’s grades arrive, a romance or two absorbs our attention. Our Mayor
might make a fuss about some version of the Madonna hanging in the Brooklyn
Museum, but on the edge of his divorce, he is hardly a frightening defender of
the faith. So far, he hasn’t asked artists to wear a special piece of cloth on
their T-shirts so the police can spot a potential blasphemer a block away.
Here in New York, we can
pretend that Texas is in another warp zone. We can wonder about people who have
guns hidden in shoeboxes and people who want to chew up the ground to make Dick
Cheney richer. We can take a moment to shudder about nuclear power plants and
their waste products. And we can calmly consider what America will be like when
the rich are so much richer and the middle is still strapped and the poor have
no health care or pension funds. But what will happen when the Texas crowd has
its way and the safety net has great, gaping holes in it, and the schools have
plenty of tests but fewer teachers and more crowded classrooms? What will
happen when the surplus has metamorphosed into Taj Mahals for C.E.O.’s, leaving
the rest of us to pray-in public schools-for a reversal of our fortunes? Here
in New York, we can content ourselves with our lack of responsibility for what
is going to happen. We voted for the other guy! But that will be little comfort
in the days ahead.
This summer, more than any
other summer I can remember, I feel like a failure. Everything I had hoped
would be will not. The candidate who lost the popular vote is in the White
House, planning to fill the courts with judges who will do me and mine bodily
harm. Israel stands on the brink of something so terrible, I won’t name it in
public. The peace movement in Israel came so close to success and then lost
everything-at least for now. The nuclear-war fears of my youth, which had been
put to rest, have been reawakened by missile-defense systems rattling their
threats around the globe. The rest of the world is uneasy with our nation’s
arrogance and frightened of its power. What will they do in response to
right-wing posturing? This summer, I will try not to think of it.
Every now and then, one of my
children asks me why I take the world drama so personally. This is a good
question. I know many people do not. They read their papers without trembling
and keep their emotional distance from earthquakes and upheavals and political
disasters in the making. Perhaps extending the instructions of the yearly Seder
to feel as if the exodus happened to me, I have grown accustomed to imagining
myself in many tight spots. The first pictures of Auschwitz that I saw as a
girl told me it could have been my body burned in the ashes, and that I was obligated
ever after to feel the flames, fight the injustice, protect the weak. That was
pure childish bravado. I have protected no one, changed nothing, lived a most
ordinary, selfish life, but imagined a good deal. That may make me ridiculous,
but it’s true.
I once had a friend who told
me that when she was a 9-year-old child in Vienna, the Nazis hounded her and 30
others into an apartment. Sitting on the window seat with furniture from seven
families piled up around her, she wondered if anyone in the world knew what was
happening to her. If they knew-really knew-she believed, they would stop it. So
I feel this obligation to keep on imagining what is happening outside the
perimeters of my own life. I don’t know how to stop anything. My imagination
doesn’t change anything. But it seems to be the least I can do.
It is in the act of imagining
the experience of others that politics become humane, and it is in the
abstractions and the absolutes and the God-given truths in which particular
faces disappear that politics become monstrous. The Taliban that lives within
our minds is always ready to cut off someone else’s hand for some sin or other.
I counter my Taliban with inner protest. I do take it personally. Therefore, I
expect a hard summer, with no relief in sight.
