By “ism” I don’t mean Islam—or perhaps I do, (and not all isms are bad)—I mean any belief system that approaches tyranny over the minds of man.
There are lots of isms. My university had a weekly Marxist-Lenninist study group—yes, like in the Sheryl Crow song—where the students were as sincere as the Christian fundamentalists on campus: “fundies,” my protestant chaplain called them. Too bad I had a time conflict, so I couldn’t attend any communist meetings to get myself indoctrinated. And too bad the fundies club office was only two doors down from GLASS: Gay and Lesbian Academics, Students and Staff.
My chaplain centre was often visited by a professor emeritus, a reverend who had marched with Martin Luther King, Jr.
As for race-ism, in the 19th century, back before the confederacy adopted a constitution enshrining racially based slavery, you could not so much as be elected dog catcher in a southern town unless you were known to be actively in favour—not neutral, in favour—of slavery. Because it had “done a number on their heads” to be “defending the indefensible.” Today, of course, according to a professor, white students who mentally “time travel” all write in their papers that they would have been “abolitionists.” (For abolishing slavery) Such sincere students.
And in my own 20th century, regardless of what history might say of the German version of fascism, at the time army officers swore a loyalty oath to Hitler personally, and defended him right unto the roof of his Berlin Bunker.
As for life in the ruins of postwar East Germany, where a new ism meant new thought police…
It was recorded by (I think) economist Kenneth Galbraith how while senior Nazis were hung by the neck until dead, dead, dead, many of the minor officials transferred their allegiance to communism and kept on working for the state, because the senior communists knew that folks who believe in an ideology could transfer that ideology. They knew something about a sincere mindset.
Maybe it’s not politically correct, right now, for me to say anything against any isms, any political beliefs, religions and ideologies specifically. I lack first hand knowledge. I have tried to get a little knowledge, where I could. Back in 1970’s, when I was just a poor boy who managed to get stationed in exotic Europe, my commanding officer would not sign any leave papers allowing me to enter into East Germany to see communism for myself. But I was allowed to carry Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book. About guerrilla warfare. “West Berlin Okay, East Berlin no way.”
Lots of isms around. To me, the quotation “by their fruits you shall know them” means that I can look past any glamorous “tree of ideology” to look at what it produces. Maybe only the “bad” ones imprison minds. If there was a central fruit of evil, a fruit that all “bad” isms —but not the good ones— would share, then what would it be?
That fruit would not be “fear of a truth” shared by regular folks around the planet, a truth merely enforced by social norms—NOT by violence and the justice system. Good fruits come where one is freely allowed to opt out and “vote with your feet.” Like Grandpa leaving the Loyal Order of Water Buffaloes. My Christian Grandma showed a good fruit when she said, “Tell the truth, and shame the devil.” She would not commit violence, or any other crime, after an unflattering poem that a Japanese outsider wrote:
The children of God
are very queer,
but very dear.
Very straight,
But very narrow
As for “voting with your feet,” the Korean War was extended —as innocent soldiers on both sides kept dying on patrol— by the communists: No treaty until the United Nations finally agreed not to let any Chinese soldiers freely walk out of camp, when the war ended, to go defect to South Korea or Taiwan. Instead, all the “volunteers” who had crossed into Korea had to be “forcibly repatriated” back to China. No young veteran was to reveal what lurked behind the Bamboo Curtain.
To me the poisonous fruit is: Believing in something, but “killing the messenger” who tells. This week the Make America Great Again types, (MAGA) who believe in thwarting “fraud, abuse and waste” have destroyed funding for handicapped children, but they won’t admit how many special therapists and other workers they have fired. Their proud statistics, perfectly legal, are not to be released—what do you think they would do to “a liberal in MAGA clothing” who blabbed?
Here’s the Youtube link, 4:42, Belle of the Ranch. Watch it and weep.
(Defensive note for stupid trolls: Yes, I do realize not all Muslims are Saudi Arabian. I know it was fellow Muslims, Turks, who exposed the Saudi embassy for killing that journalist and smuggling his body parts out in suitcases. In London, I shared a nice vegetarian pizza with a Muslim from a nonArabian country, and I was so excited I wrote an essay about it)
Here’s the fruit of a bad ism: An oil company took out a full page newspaper ad (this was in the tasteless US, where full page ads are not unheard of) to prevent PBS showing a documentary about an honour killing of an Arab man and woman, ‘We hope that the management of the Public Broadcasting Service will review its decision to run this film and exercise responsible judgement in the light of what is in the best interest of the United States.”
This according to Rahaf Mohammed (page 136 onwards) Rebel, first Canadian edition, copyright 2022. (Link to Goodreads, where she is verbally attacked, just as surely as some people during my youth, with no intention whatsoever of crossing the Berlin Wall to live in the east, would claim that East Germany was “a worker’s paradise” and verbally attack capitalists)
I am reminded of what an East German woman told me in the early 1990’s, regarding people who defect. While the State also claimed they were “stealing” the education that the State had given them, the biggest reason for killing the people escaping over the Berlin Wall was, she said, “They were (considered) traitors!” For funerals, the family had to pretend the casualties had been in a car crash.
As for cars in the US of A, an old college professor of mine, driving around the US when the Professor Emeritus was marching with Martin Luther King, told me he was amazed at how his car was so often stopped by police down in the US, if he went off the interstate. I wonder if police were afraid he would aide the African-Americans trying to resist segregation.
Escaping to tell the truth is treason; freedom of thought is treason; and Ms Mohammed, in our brave 21st century, having escaped, can never go home to her dear Arabia again: For her crime of telling the truth about how Saudi women are segregated… a truth that Muslims are supposedly proud of—but aren’t.
… …
… …
Sean Crawford
October
2025
Notes:
~The poem is from The Big Wave by Pearl S. Buck, 1948
~My London essay is on my old, unimproved, discontinued blog, titled I met a Muslim in London.
~I haven’t finished Mohammed’s book yet, still angry, so I can’t follow Crow’s advice to “lighten up.”
My thought: As for how Arab boys can be so absolutely cruel and abusive to their own mother and sisters, without developing self control, but instead getting worse, I think Lord Acton covered that one : “Power has a tendency to corrupt.” There’s a reason the US Constitution doesn’t allow kings.
~I can’t resist ending on a happy note: Here’s a Sheryl Crow song where she and her girlfriends can soak up the sun while the boys they know (pictured standing as passively as any “good girl”) have self control.
