Make runs, not war
MANY TIMES LAST summer, I heard the languid remark that "we are
living through slow news times," that "nothing much seems to be
happening" It wasn't just the stupefying heat and humidity that
caused this; remember, we were passing a season in which all that
headline writers had to work with were impenetrable budget issues,
the dips and doodles of the stock market, unending White House
scandals and inconclusive investigations of them. When who should or
should not be ambassador to Mexico got prime-time coverage, one
couldn't help wondering if life in general had gone south.
Of course, things have since gotten much more interesting, thanks
first to the Asian financial crisis and, then, even more
dramatically, to Saddam Hussein. The Middle East, in particular,
should serve to remind us all that when Americans imagine times to be
slow, it is because they are thinking only of their own
backyard. Mob violence, mindless terror, general mayhem and
borderline insanity in high places aren't at all boring.
In point of fact, there is general agreement both within the region
and among those who study it from the outside that things have been
much too interesting of late. Even a short list makes the point.
Most telegenic for American pressmen, as always, is violence between
Palestinians and Israelis. There hasn't been too much of that lately
-- thank G-d -- but there is, of course, the bloody madness of
Algeria, the occasional tourist massacre in Egypt, the sundry riot in
Jordan, the colorful kidnapping in Yemen. There are also the wars and
woes of Kurdistan and the nearly constant political tightrope walking
in Turkey. And for those living in the region, the recent
Iraqi-Syrian rapproachment interests people very much --- just as the
more perspicacious, if nervous, citizens of south Philadelphia get
interested whenever any two notables local Mafia dons begin dining
regularly together.
One can hardly blame the typical, sensible American newspaper reader
who, if he should perchance hear of such things, wonders just what is
the matter with these people: "Why can't they just get along?"
Why indeed?
Several theories have been propounded over the years in answer to
this question. About four decades ago one popular candidate was
air-conditioning. You couldn't sit long in the presence of
experiences (and imbibing) foreign-service officers before hearing
such comments as: "The Middle Eastern sun fries their brains";
"They're all, well, hot-headed."
This may not have made much sense, but it had an exciting pedigree:
If T.E. Lawrence could claim, as he did in The Seven Pillars of
Wisdom, the sharply contrasting light of the stark Middle Eastern
desert explains why "Semites have no half-tones in their register of
vision ... they exclude compromise, and pursue the logic of their ideas
to absurd ends," then just about anything could pass for common sense
in that crowd.
Such notions were particularly common in North America and Western
Europe right when air-conditioning was first widely available and
quickly became more popular than sex. But this answer has not held up
well; after all, most major urban residential and especially
commercial buildings throughout the Middle East are now
air-conditioned, but the people who work in them keep doing the same
hot-headed things.
The real answer isn't a lack of air-conditioning, that's silly. It's
a lack of baseball.
For the most part, Middle Easterners don't play baseball. They need
to, because baseball is the most philosophically advanced of all
sports and has an enormous untapped potential to teach lessons that
can ease Middle Eastern crises. So, particularly for the benefit of
the non-baseball literate reader, let me briefly explain its
philosophical and political merits now that we are well into the season.
First of all, unlike football, soccer, basketball -- even tennis,
pingpong, and lawn bowling, for that matter -- baseball is infinite
in both space and time. It is particularly anti-war in not being
territorially bounded: Theoretically speaking, a ball hit between the
first and third baselines is a fair ball that remains "in play" no
matter if it rolls all the way to the Andromeda galaxy. Baseball is
also a sport in which, on any given day, the worst team in any league
can beat the best team, something that happens far more regularly in
baseball than it does in other major sports. Why this is so remains a
mystery, but what it means is that everyone who grows up playing
baseball learns how to lose as well as how to win, an experience that
could do a world of good for coming generations of Arabs and
Israelis, Turks and Kurds, Sunnis and Shi'a.
Also, any athlete, tall or short, fast or slow, can find a niche in
the game --- you don't have to be a pituitary freak as in basketball,
a behemoth as in American football or a masochist as in rugby and
lacrosse to enjoy participating without undue worry about imminent
hospitalization. Obviously, this is conducive to democracy and peace.
(Surely it is a well-known fact the countries whose national pastime
is baseball do not go to war with one another. Yes, Americans have
occupied and otherwise irritated some baseball-playing countries --
Panama, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Mexico, Cuba -- but those
occupations and irritations cannot be counted as full-blown wars.)
Now, some people claim that baseball is boring. Of course it is, if
you don't understand it. Well, to be honest, baseball can be a little
slow sometimes even if you do understand it --- but that is precisely
the point. Peace is often boring, too, while war is just downright
too exciting. If Middle Easterners can learn to appreciate
baseball, they'll get primed for peace as well.
There is hope for this, too. Thanks to the influence of Americans who
have emigrated to Israel, baseball has a fast growing presence there.
In Saudi Arabia, as well, due to the effects of its Aramco ministate
within, there is a growing appreciation of the game. The best news of
late, however, comes from Jordan. Thanks largely to the heroic
efforts of the journalist Rami Khouri -- a fanatical New York Yankee
fan (no one is perfect, alas) -- baseball is now being played in
Amman. There is even talk of an Israeli-Jordanian youth series,
perhaps as soon as next year.
There is a near-term policy implication to all this, as well. The
next time that Congress must rule on continued financial aid to the
Palestinian Authority, it might usefully attach a rider insisting
that the P.A. Sports authority begin mandatory instruction in
baseball, and that it prepare the fields in which to play it --- all
for the sake of peace. The slogan is obvious: If you build them, it
will come.
We should then look forward to the day when Yasser Arafat or Hanan
Ashrawi throws out the first ball on opening day, as perhaps, the
Tulkarmem Turbans take on the Kalkilye Kabobs. Can't you hear the
crowd now, shouting: "Hum one over, Ahmed," "Let'er rip, Mahmud.? If
these folks just have to throw things, better baseballs --- wouldn't
you say? --- than rocks and Molotov
The Middle East "situation" has been an ongoing conflict for far too long. Since every other effort to ignite peace has failed, writes the executive editor of The National Interest, Adam Garfinkle, maybe it's time to teach both sides the fine art of baseball.