Last year, summer began in Seattle at the end of April; this year, I find myself saying, we are paying for that.
And yet, record-breakingly gloomy as it still is, I can hardly believe I’m really saying such a thing. True, I say it half-jokingly, but that’s the problem — at least half is serious. What do I mean by “paying for it”? Am I implying there’s some kind of divine retribution at work, biblically cruel and vengeful?
In fact I’m not sure if I think of this strange weather as a matter of divine intervention, or climate change, or simply the way of the world. But I do suspect I’m subject to some kind of hangover from childhood — an almost superstitious way of thinking in which one needs to be aware that every good may be balanced by bad, and nothing good can be taken for granted.
I was reminded of this by something in Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s new book ‘Nomad‘ — an unpleasant read as it dawns on you just how reactionary her views are, starting with her constant harping on “the Muslim mind” (replace the word Muslim with male, female, Jewish, black, gay, or any other category, and you’ll see how gross such a generalization is, let alone how absurd). At one point, she fumes at her sister’s constantly adding “Insh-Allah” to the end of any sentence about something planned for the future. In Hirsi Ali’s newly atheist and devoutly anti-Muslim eyes, her sister is a believing fool.
I found this fuming particularly grating because my father, a deeply observant Jew, used to do the same as Hirsi Ali’s sister, employing the identical phrase in English: “God willing.”
Even as a child, I registered this less as a profession of faith than as one of deep insecurity. For all his religiousness, my father clearly doubted the benignity of God’s will, as any thinking person inevitably must. It was as though to plan for good could only tempt fate and invite the possibility of bad. But then his own childhood — an almost Dickensian one of beatings and abandonment — had given him good reasons to mistrust the world’s capacity for kindness, let alone God’s.
Once, not long before he died, he asked me very seriously if I thought that God really exists, and the way he asked made me realize that he must have put this question to each in the series of rabbis who’d presided over the Reading Hebrew Congregation over the years, and never with any satisfactory answer.
I wish I’d said simply “I don’t know.” Perhaps we all wish too late for greater kindness to our parents. Instead, I ran on about the idea of God and the nature of belief and the human need for mystery — an evasive, intellectual answer that could only disappoint him. I didn’t actually say that I thought his question simplistic, even child-like, but I must certainly have implied it.
Perhaps I was right, but so what? In these gloomy Seattle days, I find myself adopting my father’s outlook despite myself. God or the gods or fate is not willing. I didn’t propitiate them. I made the mistake of taking summer for granted.
So I find myself longing for kindness — for a kinder idea of God, a kinder childhood and a kinder daughter for my father, and right now, the kindness of summer: the gift of warmth and sunshine and the simple enjoyment of what is. Free. like a child, of all sense of consequence.
Hi Lesley, Sorry about your gloomy weather, sounds like what we’ve endured for the past three years on the trot. However, we’re now having a heat wave here in the south-east, which for once has coincided neatly with Wimbledon – wish you were here! Of course it won’t last, you know the old definition of an English summer: three fine days and a thunderstorm.
But what I’m really logging on for today is to send you this item from this morning’s BBC Radio 4. Since you were on about Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s harshness, I thought the attitudes of these women would be interesting to compare and contrast. It also has some bearing on your To the Slaughter thread:
By Zubeida Malik
Today Programme, BBC Radio 4, 1 July
A group of Muslim women from around the country will be laying a wreath at the National Memorial Arboretum to pay respects to those who have died fighting for their country, and to show support for the armed services.
Their outward act of commemoration follows a series of Islamic extremist demonstrations at homecoming parades, which caused disruption and angered many locals and families of the troops.
Angry scenes broke out during the homecoming of the 2nd Battalion Royal Anglian Regiment in Luton when Muslim extremists waved banners and jeered at passing soldiers.
Five protestors were later found guilty of using threatening or insulting words and of behaviour likely to cause distress.
Demonstrations in Luton and Barking, and the threat of protests in Wootton Bassett, have made headlines across the world.
But Tahmina Saleem, who lives in Luton, says she was revolted by the extremists’ actions: “You had a sensitive situation where families were welcoming home their loved ones from abroad then suddenly these images appeared of placards with very vile things written on them and I was really horrified.”
She says the small group of extremists are trying to divide society. “They are trying to polarise people into them and us, Muslim and non-Muslim, and I’m just horrified by it,” she adds.
Tahmina and a group of friends began talking about how they could show their support for troops. She believes there is a silent majority of Muslims who don’t speak out enough.
”I think that most people unfortunately do get their impressions of Islam and Muslims from the media… I think that people are happy to say that they completely disassociate themselves from extremists but its finding a voice in society to be able to do that.”
Muslims have long served in the armed forces fighting in World War I and World War II, and on 1 July 2006, Lance Corporal Jabron Hashmi became the first British Muslim soldier to be killed in Afghanistan.
L/Cpl Hashmi died along with his comrade Corporal Peter Thorpe in an attack on their base. A statement at the time was issued by his commanding officer, Lt Col Steve Vickery, which described Jabron Hashmi as “enthusiastic, confident and immensely popular”.
Group Captain Zahur Ulhaq and chairman of the Armed Forces Muslim Association (Afma) says that the presence of Muslims in the army, fighting in Muslim countries is seen as taboo and that ”generally the public doesn’t realise that there are Muslims serving and fighting and willing and prepared to die for their country.
“We’re no different to anyone else in the armed forces whether you’re a Christian, a Jew, Hindu or a Sikh, we’re all one, we’re all one body, we’re all one family,” he says.
He has also found this false assumption when speaking to Afghan clerics who were ”surprised, and I would use the word shocked” to find that there were Muslims within the UK armed forces fighting in Afghanistan.
Group Captain Ulhaq works within the Muslim community to try and expel the myth and to help the community understand what the armed forces do.
”I think the laying of the wreath is for us a symbol of our remembrance and our solidarity for the families and the individuals both men and women who’ve sacrificed for our country over time.”
Thanks for posting this, Charlotte. Yes, it’s amazing how people forget that the word ‘extremist’ describes someone at the extreme. And there is indeed a huge silent majority of Muslims, some believing and observant, some not, who are deeply committed to western-style democracy. What particularly interests me about Tariq Ramadan’s work — especially books like ‘Western Muslims and the Future of Islam’ — is how he directly addresses the issue of how to be both a believing Muslim and a European democrat. In fact substitute the word ‘Jew’ for ‘Muslim’ in this book and you have a pretty fair idea of discussions around my family table when I was a child in England — i.e. what it meant to be part of a small Jewish minority (worth pointing out here that only some 4% of Europeans are Muslim, despite Islamophobic anti-immigrant talk of a flood) in a hugely majority Christian country. Or simply, what it means to be a minority, and how to preserve one’s integrity and identity while participating fully in the majority culture.
My “summers” are in the smiles of people I see and hear through the day, those I know as well as strangers.
Your dad most certainly knew you and he asked your opinion because that’s what he wanted from a daughter he most certainly respected. As do all who know you.
XO P