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Religion, Culture and COVID-19

by Jonathan Golden

In this edition of Reflections, Jonathan Golden, Director of Drew University’s Center on Religion, Culture and Conflict, addresses the implications of alarming trends to “point fingers” and assign blame for our current pandemic.

The COVID-19 virus is “double blind” in the sense that it sees not who it infects nor is it seen by its victims.  Still, as social beings, we humans have a hard time avoiding our tendency to put all phenomena into social categories.  In doing so, how can we ensure that we don’t let the search for answers and explanations lead us to bigotry and xenophobia?

Crises such as these tend to bring out the best in people.  It is truly amazing to see the courage and selflessness of so many healthcare workers working around the clock at their own peril to save lives.  Unfortunately, we have seen some instances where this pandemic seems to have brought out people’s worst.  Deliberate efforts to brand it as the “Chinese Virus”, for instance, have already had disastrous impact on people across America.
There is a famous saying about pointing fingers: when you point one finger at someone else, three fingers are pointing back at you. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there was nothing Spanish about the Spanish Flu.[1] That unfortunate nomenclature was Spain’s “reward” for being the first to openly report on it. The origin of that pandemic, which killed tens of millions, is still unknown today, but evidence suggests that the first cases appeared on a military base in Kansas. Similarly, the H1N1 influenza, aka the “swine flu” pandemic that infected over 1 billion people and killed over half a million, was first reported in the U.S. and may have originated in factory farmed pigs in the United States.
Of course, it is vital that we do our best to trace the origins of any pandemic: this information is critical to helping us understand the current outbreak and to preventing the next one.  But jumping to conclusions is unhelpful at best, and, at worst, can create a whole new set of problems.

In 2015, the WHO offered clear guidelines for naming viruses, calling on scientists, national leaders and media outlets to follow “best practices in naming new human infectious diseases to minimize unnecessary negative effects on nations, economies and people.”  They point out that names such as ‘swine flu’ and ‘Middle East Respiratory Syndrome’ are dangerous in that they stigmatize certain identity groups and communities or economic sectors.  As Dr Keiji Fukuda, Assistant Director-General for Health Security, WHO, compellingly observed, “We’ve seen certain disease names provoke a backlash against members of particular religious or ethnic communities, create unjustified barriers to travel, commerce and trade, and trigger needless slaughtering of food animals. This can have serious consequences for peoples’ lives and livelihoods.”

Unsurprisingly, calling the COVID-19 virus the Chinese Virus has already had a serious impact on the Asian American community. According to a review of news articles by San Francisco State University, in a one-month period (Feb. 9 and March 7) there was a 50% increase in the number of articles reporting anti-Asian discrimination related to the coronavirus. And it appears the number of incidents is growing as over 150 cases have been reported on a site set up just last week to track incidents by the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council.[2] There have been reports of anti-Asian attacks in the subway, in restaurants, on the streets of America. A writer for The New Yorker was verbally assaulted in front of her own home.

Coronavirus-related hate has found its way to anti-Semites as well. The Anti-Defamation League reports multiple examples of extremists using the pandemic to advance anti-Semitic conspiracy theories which have leaped from dark web exchanges to circulation on mainstream social media platforms. Some insinuate that Jews are responsible for the spread of the virus and are somehow profiting from it, while others suggest it is a Jewish media hoax/hype intended to frighten the public, and undermine the president. One message on the Telegram encrypted messaging service stated: “Finally! Science has discovered a cure for the most insidious disease of our time … Jewishness.” The FBI is warning Jewish organizations and offices that neo-Nazi extremists who are infected may try to intentionally spread the disease to others. They are threatening to infect police as well. Sadly, it seems things have changed little since the medieval plague known as the Black Death, where Jews of Europe were accused of spreading the disease, with brutal attacks on those who survived.

The truth is, no one person or people are responsible for this nightmare. Mistakes have been made and opportunities missed. But no Asian, Jew, or anyone else should be blamed. The great irony is that across America, and around the world, Asians, Jews and people of all races and religions, are risking their lives on the front lines of the current health crisis, while working tirelessly behind the scenes in search of treatments and vaccines. It is noteworthy that even in the Middle East, a region we often associate with ethno-religious conflict, Muslims, Jews, Christian, Druze, are working together to save lives.[3]

We should also stop short of reading religious meaning, some type of theodicy, into this natural disaster. The COVID-19 virus is a soulless, amoral entity that strikes at people of all ages, religious and races. Anyone suggesting that God is somehow doing this to punish people needs to reexamine their faith. All of this speaks to the human need for answers. The invisible nature of this “enemy” is one of the things that makes it so unsettling. It looms everywhere, but still we cannot point to it. And so, the pointing begins.

With all of us working together, a cure for COVID-19 will someday be found, just as we have fought virtually every other biological pathogen before. But the most persistent disease humans have ever known – that of bigotry and hatred – is the one we have not yet succeeded in eradicating. Unlike the random replication of a biological virus which lies beyond our control, the answer to intolerance is in our hands. It resides in our human compacity for compassion and empathy. It lies in our ability to inform and educate. Knowledge is the antidote for ignorance, compassion the cure for xenophobia. We don’t have a vaccine for prejudice and bigotry just yet. But we are working on it.

[1] https://www.who.int/influenza/pandemic-influenza-an-evolving-challenge/en/

[2] http://www.asianpacificpolicyandplanningcouncil.org/stop-aapi-hate/?fbclid=IwAR3JVKlK6InoJIVAS2brulW7EGgoVTSPsbiwZxQ16TyRgD4F5VYXI8gTqD0

[3] https://worldisraelnews.com/snapshot-of-coexistence-during-corona-crisis-goes-viral

Jonathan Golden, (@jgoldenCRCC), Director of Drew University’s Center on Religion, Culture and Conflict, is working on a book titled Turning Point, based on interviews with victims/survivors and ex-combatants of ethno-religious conflict.

Reflections Archive

Turning Tragedy into Opportunity: The Forgiveness of a Grieving Parent

By Jonathan Golden

In this edition of Reflections published in 2018, CRCC Director Jonathan Golden drew parallels among the responses of parents around the globe to tragedy and loss, and discussed the power of forgiveness.

On August 14, 2017 Mark Heyer gave an interview regarding the murder of his daughter, Heather, just a few nights earlier in Charlottesville, Virginia. On August 11, as many as 1000 marchers – a collection of white supremacist, white nationalist and other hate groups – came together for the so-called Unite the Right march. Their stated purpose was to protest the removal of a statue memorializing the Confederate General, Robert E. Lee. Swaztikas, confederate banners, and symbols representing hate groups from around the country were on full display as the marchers chanted variations of Nazi slogans. The following day, hundreds of people, including the 32-year-old Heather Heyer, a paralegal who lived in Charlottesville, took part in a counter-demonstration. That is when 20-year-old James Alex Fields, a U.S. Army reject who had traveled all the way from Ohio to attend the white supremacist gathering, rammed his Dodge Challenger into the crowd at roughly 50 miles per hour, killing Heyer and wounding 35. Heyer’s father gave an emotional, presumably impromptu interview in front of his home. He spoke about his daughter’s record of always standing up for equality, justice and the causes she believed in. He spoke about her courage, “…my daughter’s life, I’m proud of her… she had more courage than I did.”

But Heyer made a further point as he spoke about his own steps to forgive the young man who had killed his daughter. “People need to stop hating and they need to forgive each other,” he said, “and I include myself in that, in forgiving the guy that did this, okay? He don’t know no better, you know. I just think of the what the Lord said on the cross, ‘Lord, forgive them they don’t know what they’re doing’.”

I wonder if Mark Heyer had any idea that almost 30 years earlier in a small town in Northern Ireland another bereaved father named Gordon Wilson had given a similarly haunting interview. It was November 8, 1987, at the height of the conflict known as the Troubles, when the Provisional IRA detonated a bomb near a war memorial in Enniskillen. The bomb went off at 10:43am in a building immediately adjacent to the memorial known as the Cenotaph just prior to the scheduled Remembrance Sunday ceremony held each year to commemorate those lost in World Wars I and II. Eleven people were killed – one more would die from his injuries years later – and 63 were injured. Among the dead was a 20-year-old nurse named Marie Wilson.

Gordon Wilson, Marie’s father, was also injured in the attack. In an impassioned television interview given to the BBC just hours after the incident, he described his parting conversation with his daughter as she lay dying in the wreckage. He spoke about the love expressed between him and his “wee lass,” then added the immortal words, “But I bear no ill will. I bear no grudge. Dirty sort of talk is not going to bring her back to life…I will pray for these men tonight and every night.” This statement would become one of the most memorable moments of the conflict, gaining international attention while earning Wilson both the adulation of many and ire of others throughout Northern Ireland. The Troubles, a bloody, decades-long conflict that destroyed thousands of lives, had been characterized by a cycle of reprisal and revenge; violence invariably begat more violence. Wilson’s bold offering of forgiveness and call for peace and reconciliation was different: it offered a chance to break the cycle of violence and changed the conversation in Northern Ireland.

The deaths of Marie Wilson and Heather Heyer were no accidents: both young women were killed through the intentional acts of hateful terrorists. Nor were these acts personal: neither was singled out as a target. But these events were not random, and it would be misguided to call these women “random victims,” people who had the misfortune of being in the “wrong place at the wrong time.” Both were exactly where they were chose to be, standing for causes they believed in: Marie to honor fallen soldiers of the World Wars, Heather to protest the very type of bigotry that took her life. There is little solace that comes to families who have suffered the greatest of all losses: laying a child to rest. But perhaps it helps them – and us – just a little to know that their daughters’ deaths were not in vain.

Everyone familiar with the Troubles of Northern Ireland knows the name Marie Wilson. Her death and the words of her father became a rallying cry for the peace movement and marked a turning point in the conflict. Heather Heyer was killed one year ago and already her name has become synonymous with the courage to stand up to hate. In the days and weeks following her murder, hundreds gathered for vigils, chanting Heather Heyer’s name. In my own research on the responses of victims and survivors to conflict, I have spoken with fathers, mothers, children, and siblings from around the world who have lost close family members to hatred and sectarian violence. One shining example of a transformative reaction is seen in the works of Robi Damelin, an Israeli woman who lost her son to the conflict there. Today she is an international ambassador for the Parents Circle Family Forum, an organization for bereaved families. She has dedicated her life’s work to bringing Israelis and Palestinians together. Across the globe, there are courageous individuals like Robi who continue to work tirelessly to turn tragedy into a force for peace and reconciliation.

Which way will American society turn? This remains to be seen. The sad truth is that many members of the white hate movement are emboldened by Heyer’s murder and the events in Charlottesville. But the response of people on the side of love and peace has been encouraging, as Americans and people around the world have shown that they will not stand for hate. Last year, roughly one week after Charlottesville white supremacists planned another march in Boston, but that time the demonstrators against hate and bigotry outnumbered their opponents by at least 100 to 1 – and by some counts, much more.

At Heather Heyer’s funeral her mother, Susan Bro, spoke of the complexity that forgiveness posed for her personally. But she was unequivocal when it came to her understanding of what her daughter’s murder stood for. “They tried to kill my child to shut her up. Well guess what? You just magnified her.” She closed her eulogy with an even stronger message: “I’d rather have my child. But by golly, if I’ve got to give her up, we’re going to make it count.” One year later, have we all made it count? Have we made it count enough? That is still up to all of us.

Jonathan Golden, (@jgoldenCRCC), Director of Drew University’s Center on Religion, Culture and Conflict, is working on a book titled Turning Point, based on interviews with victims/survivors and ex-combatants of ethno-religious conflict.