The False War Between Civilizations

As the subway trundled along, the boy stood alone in terror, tears beginning to pool in the corners of his eyes. Now, our car was populated entirely by men, and while I felt that one of us should do something, there was all about us a palpable fear of “getting involved.” See, at 16, even I was cognizant of society’s judgment of strange men who approach children on subway cars.

Finally, a rough young Arab-looking man, 20-something and bedecked in leather, beckoned the boy over to him. “Do you know where you’re going?” he asked in a Middle-Eastern accent, to which the child responded by shaking his head. “Okay,” the man said, “come with me.”

Out of both curiosity and concern, I followed the pair as they exited together at the next stop. I saw them wait on the platform for the next subway car, from which the boy’s mother emerged, snatching the boy without so much as a tender look for her child or a word of thanks for the youth who had protected him.

I learned several things from that small vignette of city life. First, the negative weight of political correctness, so much in the news in those days, was a thing of real behavioral force that had the power to compel adult men to choose discretion over assisting a child in distress. There were likely other factors that might also help to explain our inaction that day, but this was certainly one of them.
Second, I learned that one should never make assumptions of character based upon appearances alone. That the only person to act in the boy’s best interests was a young, tough-looking man of Arab extraction is a poignant observation, especially now in a time rife with ready criticisms of non-Western societies. There are many today who would readily attribute savage, rapacious, and other “uncivilized” qualities to this heroic man, based solely upon his swarthy appearance and ethnic origin. Indeed, such voices are gaining in confidence, volume, and centrality.

There is a trend among some circles of creating a “war of civilizations,” ostensibly between the West and the nominative “Muslim world.” Certainly, terror master Osama bin Laden is known to favor such a conflict. But Western personalities are also guilty. And while we can fulminate all we like about the crimes and motivations of bin Laden and his ilk, it is perhaps most useful to first examine the indefensible behaviors and bloviations of representatives of our own Western cultures.

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