Last month, Al Jazeera reported the following curious fact:
“Right-wing Israeli Jews dress as Muslims to enter the Al-Aqsa compound in efforts to change the status quo at Islam’s third holiest site.”
The Al-Aqsa compound, known by Jews as the Temple Mount, has been restricted since the year 2000 in the interest of public safety. Only Muslims are allowed to pray there.
Trouble is, while this 37-acre area is the third holiest site in Islam… it is also the number-one holiest site in Judaism.
Many Jews want the Temple Mount back. They want it back bad.
How bad? From the Al Jazeera article:
“The 26-year-old swaps his orthodox Jewish clothes with a thobe – a traditional garment also called a dishdasha or jalabiya, worn by many Palestinian men, and his black kippa for a white prayer skullcap. Peering into a mirror, he slicks his long, dark sidelocks back with hair gel to hide them under the cap, mumbling a few Arabic words to refresh his memory.”
It’s not just comsetic changes, either. The article says that the Jews sneaking into the Temple mount will take Arabic classes and study the Quran to be able to get past the security guards screening any non-Muslims from the Al-Aqsa compound.
So what?
So maybe you’ll say I’m taking an unwarranted leap here, but this brings to mind a quote from Eric Hoffer’s True Believer:
“Though hatred is a convenient instrument for mobilizing a community for defense, it does not, in the long run, come cheap. We pay for it by losing all or many of the values we have set out to defend.”
Hoffer’s argument is that in fighting the enemy, you often become the enemy.
I don’t know how universally true this is. Maybe it just sounds good because it’s shocking and counterintuitive. But I feel there’s definitely a kernel of truth there.
In any case, it brought something else to mind also. It’s the most valuable thing I got from Ben Settle’s Villains book (actually from Ben’s promo emails for that book):
Villains are proactive, and heroes are reactive.
In other words, Villains make the heroes and authorities react to them, while heroes wait for something to happen, always chasing after the fires set by the Villain to distract them as they carry out their machinations. (And notice when a hero does try to be proactive, you end up with Ultron…) If you look around at the most successful people in business and life, they may not be evil, but they are Villains, and do the same thing.
You might not like the idea of being evil… of being anybody’s enemy… of being a villain.
Fine.
Just remember Eric Hoffer and Ben Settle above. And at the very least, make sure you’re not cast as a hero.
Instead, set your own agenda, and then follow it.
Otherwise, you’ll end up playing catchup to other, more proactive people around you… and the shame of it is, in time, you will end up dressing, acting, and even thinking in ways that you hate the most.
On an unrelated note:
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