i am currently teaching sophocles' play ANTIGONE and i have started my discussion of the play with the theme of god's law vs. man's law. the major players, creon and antigone, represent the two sides, and the end result of the play is that no one wins when you are trying to win. in this case, everyone loses. antigone kills herself to make a point. creon's son, haemon, is engaged to marry antigone, but kills himself because she has, and he does so after trying to stab his father for having driven antigone to her death. creon loses his son and his wife, who kills herself and curses him for having driven their son to his death. all of this comes as a result of pride, and our inability to admit we are wrong.
what i taught my students today was that this play is worth reading because we are living this same conflict. certainly the current crisis over the mohammed political cartoons is a point in fact. the islamic law calls for no pictures or portrayals of mohammed. man's law says we have the right to draw, publish or question anything. nothing, however, is mentioned about respect for another's opinions. man's law says we can, so we do. another issue of god's law vs. man's law is unquestionably the ongoing debate in this country over abortion. a few truly crazy christians believe it is quite ok to uphold god's law by killing off the abortion doctors. they are no better than the islamic terrorist who flies a plane into the trade centers to avenge allah. the issue of the death penalty rages on, with conflicting "god's laws" being debated. on one hand, thou shall not kill. on the other hand, and eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. then we have the even more controversial issue of gay marriage/civil unions. the religious right say that we must make man made laws prohibiting gays from marrying or having civil unions because it is against god's law. clearly, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of separation of church and state in that one. in virginia, this will be put to the vote in november. our state is likely to join the ranks of 19 other states putting the ban on the books. but is it god's law to deny a certain element of the population the ability to have what all other people have? very interesting how people's "truths" get changed and twisted to meet the needs of the day.
the u.s. government, and likely the population for the most part, seem to be culturally ignorant in our zeal to let everyone in on our great gift: democracy. however, not every culture needs or wants to be democratic. why do we need to put our belief system upon others? if the saudis suddenly bought the u.s., would we be angry at having to worship at a mosque and wear the burka? yes, i imagine we would. so why are we so suprised when other cultures rebel against our presence and our insistance that our way is the right and ONLY way? why is our truth the ONLY one?
i am predicting that within a week those political cartoons are going to find their way to the front pages of some american papers, and likely on the television because the american "need to know" is going to trump over the respect for the religion. so far, only ABC news has briefly flashed a picture of the cartoons, and that was back in september before the controversy got out of hand. with more and more protests and riots breaking out all over the world, the american public is going to put pressure on the media because we want to SEE what all the controversy is about, and someone will make the decision to give in. i am hoping that smarter heads will prevail, and we will not be exercising our man made right to know and see everything. a little discretion would be a very good thing right now. at least if we want to stay out of the line of terrorist fire.
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