Thomas Friedman and the Sin of Humiliation

by Samuel Z. Anvil

Thomas Friedman, one of the resident always-politically-correct pundits at the New York Times, has been chanting the mantra of “terrorism is a result of our humiliation of the Islamic world” for so long that it’s become yet another of those liberal “truths” that are so convincing only until you actually think about them.

The gist of Friedman’s chant is this: we Westerners have been beating the Moslems at everything for these last centuries, and now we’ve left them to wallow in their utterly failed backward poverty-stricken dictatorships, seething in humiliation – is it any wonder they’re crashing airliners into skyscrapers and blowing themselves (and us!) up in buses and trains? Wouldn’t you do the same? Poor fellows. It’s all our fault, you see, according to the sage from 42nd Street. We’ve embarrassed them by not being losers like they are, and now we’re getting what we deserve.

Well, there are two subtle points about humiliation that Thomas has missed.

First, failure doesn’t have to lead to humiliation. Take Thomas himself as an example. For years he’s been analyzing the Middle East and the world situation, as respected liberal columnists tend to do, and he hasn’t gotten anything right, ever. Remember that Saudi peace plan he more or less invented and waved around the world in 2001, assuring everybody that here, finally, his good friend Prince whatever-his-name-is had finally come to terms with the Jews’ right to breathe the same air as everybody else? Do you remember too what happened next, on the very day of the Arab summit that was supposed to adopt that wonderful made-in-Manhattan peace plan? The Passover Seder Massacre, that’s what happened.
Some peace plan.

And all of Tom’s deep incisive commentary and analysis about the quagmire of Iraq, and the fighting spirit of the Taliban? And all of his reasoned, learned advice about how to wean North Korea and Iran from their nuclear toys? All nonsense, every column, every word. Events proved him wrong about everything, every time.

And yet, despite being a total failure as an analyst, Thomas isn’t feeling the least bit humiliated. No, he’s still pounding away at his word processor, still going to cocktail parties and proudly pontificating to the wide-eyed cute little wannabe journalists and the oh-so sophisticated “cycle of violence” groupies.

And second, did Thomas ever notice that the word “humiliation” is closely related to the world “humility?” That’s what humiliation really means, the humiliated party humbly figures out that maybe he’s not God’s gift to humanity after all. Maybe he’s just a pathetic little screw-up who should get his act together and start behaving like a human being.

By that meaning, Moslems aren’t humiliated at all.

What they are is mad. Mad that their societies are still spinning their wheels in the third world mud. Mad that young men have nothing to look forward to except emigration. Mad that young women have nothing to look forward to but a life somewhere between a camel’s and a donkey’s. Mad that everybody else knows the truth.

If there was any shred of humiliation among them, they would have the humility to admit that their societies’ problems are of their own making and that they alone, Moslems, had better get cracking to fix what they themselves have screwed up.

But they’re not being at all humble. Instead, they’re waving their swords over their heads, straight out of an Indiana Jones movie, pounding their chests like King Kong, making all sorts of awful noises and wild threats, demanding martyrdom for us all. And their cheerleaders, Thomas Friedman and his friends at CNN and BBC and Reuters, are dancing on the sidelines and waving the “Noble Savage” flag, urging them on and finding excuses for every atrocity they commit.

Well, I for one have faith that one day they’re going to run out of oil, and then there will be no more money to buy expensive cars and cheap journalists.