Like most people, you probably know who King Midas was.
That's the fellow who used to turn everything he touched into gold, hence the
Midas touch. If you write Midas in reverse, you get Sadim that happens to be
the name of the fellow I wish to tell you about. He is current, and he has an
effect on everything he touches that is the reverse of the effect Midas had.
Instead of turning things into gold, he turns them into muck.
Actually Sadim is not a real personality anymore than Midas
was. Both are fictional characters used to construct metaphors representing
real entities; human or institutional. And so, I use Sadim in this discussion
to represent the individuals, groups and institutions that say they are doing
good things – whether or not they believe it – but do a great deal of damage
instead. It is that they turn everything they touch into muck because they have
the Sadim touch.
It started to happen decades ago when America began
to turn messianic. A number of entities, ranging from individuals to large
institutions, looked at the world outside the country in search of a cause to adopt.
Depending on the kind of people they were, they sought to fulfill themselves
spiritually, or they labored to win the label do-gooder which they knew they
may not deserve. To be sure, there was poverty to alleviate, political theory
to teach and religion to proselytize almost anywhere you looked in the world.
Enough Americans came from all walks of life to take up these causes, but not many
did well enough to deserve wearing the mantle of President Kennedy's Peace
Corps. Those that were sincere operated quietly and returned home without
fanfare, satisfied of what they had accomplished. They were the unsung heroes.
On the other hand, there were those who operated with an
ulterior motive that was not always noble. They were charlatans that went
abroad looking for personal gains, or went searching for opportunities that
would help them further their causes and their hidden agendas. Some of these
people were political, some were religious and some were both political and
religious. Needless to say that the needy of the world soon realized that these
characters were dangerous to them and to their societies; and so they reject
them.
The charlatans found themselves forced to do battle to be
able to advance their causes. In time, they learned to use the tactics and
strategies of the battlefield. One strategy called for the description of the
enemy as being a vicious entity that is dangerous to society; even dangerous to
the human race. The strategy of badmouthing the enemy was put into effect then,
and remains in use today. When the idea gains traction in a given society, the
charlatan appoints himself protector of the people he claims are in immediate
danger. He asks these people to help him fight the war, or help in some other
fashion by contributing to the war effort.
This is the kind of charlatanism that began to find
supporters inside the legislatures of some English speaking countries. You can
see an example of it when you look at the article that was published in USA
Today on December 13, 2013. It has the title: “No tolerance without
Christianity” and the subtitle: “Christian persecution in the Middle
East undermines hope for democracy.” It was written by Ken Starr.
The author begins the article by mentioning a British born
Muslim of Pakistani origin. She is Baroness Sayeeda Warsi who gave a speech,
out of which, he quotes a short passage in which she expressed apprehension
about the exodus of Christians from “some places” – apparently one place being
in the Middle East according to Starr's
highlight. Even then, the quote was but a small part of what seems to have been
a long speech on religion. Starr himself quotes the Baroness as starting the
discussion with this introduction: “Across the world, people are being singled
out and hounded out simply for the faith they hold.” As can be seen, she said
the world and not the Middle East , which is
contrary to the impression he leaves you with.
But that was good enough for him to zero in on the small
part that deals with “some places” and use it to generalize, thus make it sound
like the Baroness was saying the Christians are exiting the entire Middle East and nowhere else in the world. Well, this says
little about the region, and says a great deal about Ken Starr. Even if someone
did not know who he was, and what he did in a previous life, the only
conclusion that can be drawn from this performance is that he is a fanatic of
the most extreme kind. And he will do anything to deceive his readers, making
them believe in something that is as false as he is a fake.
Having bastardized the presentation made by the Baroness,
Starr now gets to make the points he was itching to make from the start. It is
that he wanted to say the exodus of Christians from the Middle
East has a “primary cause – the rise of Islamist extremism” and
that: “The Christian exodus represents ... a looming national security problem
for the West.” You see, my friend, when someone says national security, he
means war. But war against whom? Against the primary cause of all the troubles
which, he says, is Islam. In effect then, the extreme fanatic that is Ken Starr
has used the few words uttered by a Muslim woman to make a case for a war of the
religions. What shameless gall!