On to Serious Business

I just got back from Politics and Prose, where I heard retired Columbia U. German history professor Fritz Stern talk about his new book of memoirs, "Five Germanys I Have Known" (namely, Weimar, Nazi, Bundesrepublik, DDR and the new reunited Germany). And I quote from the Introduction:

"Decades of study and experience have persuaded me that the German roads to perdition, including National Socialism, were neither accidental nor inevitable. National Socialism had deep roots, and yet its growth could have been arrested. I was born into a world on the cusp of avoidable disaster. And I came to realize that no country is immune to the temptations of pseudo-religious movements of represssion such as those to which Germany succumbed. The fragility of freedom is the simplest and deepest lesson of my life and work...."

Of course, National Socialism had, as one of its most core positions, anti-semitism. It has always made me wonder whether Nazi philosophy without anti-semitism would have been a possibility and, if it had been implemented in that manner, what would have been the course of history in the twentieth century. (After all, Mussolini's fascism for years had no anti-Semitic facets, and there were many Jewish Italian fascists.)

But perhaps without anti-Semitism, National Socialism would not have been accepted by the German people; that is a question I cannot answer.

That brings me to another book that I read while we were going to, in and coming back from Hawaii. "Constantine's Sword" by James Carroll. This is the history of the relationship between the Catholic church and the Jews. I am not quoting Carroll here, but a loose paraphrase of his main thesis could be:

"Decades of study and experience have persuaded me that the Catholic roads to anti-Semitism were neither accidental nor inevitable. Catholic anti-Semitism had deep roots, yet its growth could have been arrested. And I came to realize that no church is immune to movements of repression such as those to which Catholicism has succumbed. The fragility of religious tolerance is the simplement and deepest lesson of my life and work...."

Which then leads me to a very thoughtful question asked by a young woman at the Stern presentation. Again to paraphrase, she said:

"Can there be any positive movement of national [or religious ?] identity that does not need to demonize others?"

Of course, here in the United States of America, we have a constitution that guarantees religious liberty, and a history that more or less supports that constitutional guaranty. But on Saturday, I was speaking to a friend, who believes that Islam is not (no longer) a religion, but is an international movement for world conquest that needs to be fought with all the strength that we can muster. He would amend the constitution to eliminate protection of Islam by the first amendment, he would drive out of the country all Muslims (maybe not members of the Black Muslim movement), he would have Congress declare war on Islam, and he would fire bomb them like Dresden and nuke them like Hiroshima.

And surely we know non-Jews, who believe that Judaism is not a religion, but a movement of international control and conquest.

To quote Vonnegut, "and so it goes".

So could it happen here? (I have never read Sinclair Lewis's book; should I?) Probably not, but I did pick up a book (that no one has picked up in 75 years, and very few before that) by former Georgia Congressman William D. Upshaw, published in 1923. The book contained various speeches that Upshaw had made, including one entitled "Justice to the Hebrew Soldiers", presented to Congress in 1920, and which was basically a plea for Jewish chaplains in the armed forces. What sounded like a right thinking position, being pressed for all the right reasons, ended like this:

"and I say this as my last word, that personally, as a Christian man myself, I would that every honest Hebrew would see in the Hebrew Christ the Messiah who has already come and who has meant so much to me in my own heart and life, but until he does, as long as the Hebrew soldier wishes his own rabbi as his teacher, then......I saw let the voice of the Hebrew soul be heard.

"and so it goes".