詩人たちの島

　三月の終わり。学校暦？の一年の終わり。公立高校にずっと勤務してきて、あと２年で定年という者にとってはいくばくかの感慨がないわけではない。ふーっと長嘆息して、よくぞここまで持ったな、という思いが最初に来る。これは個人的に「持続する志」ではないが、そういうものを持つことができない性格なのに、「志」はどうかわからないが、ただよく持ったという思い。次に、後２年持つかという不安、これはもういつでキレテヤルゾという、これも個人的か、そういう気持が強くなってきたことに起因する。

　上の文章を書いて、昨晩は寝た。なんかいつも同じ気分と調子になって我ながらつまらないと思ったから。

　四月馬鹿を演ずる気力もなく、眼を覚ます。いいお天気。義父の調子もよいので今日はデイケアに出すことにした。午後４時ころまでは妻もひさしぶりにのんびりできる。二人で、弁当を買って片倉城址公園に花見に行く。「かたくり」と「桜」の二つの花見ができたのは望外だった。昼は汗ばむほどで、多くの家族連れやグループが頂上の公園で楽しく過ごしていた。缶ビール一本だけ飲む。

　帰ってきて、朝プリント・アウトしたスラヴォイ・ジジェクの”Defenders of the Faith”というエッセイを読む。これは今朝の新聞（朝日）のオピニオン欄に「欧州とイスラム・他者の信仰を尊ぶ無神論」というタイトルで訳されていたものの原文。例によって訳だけでは分かりにくい部分もあったので、ニューヨーク・タイムズにジジェクが寄稿したものということが分かったので、そこから今朝全文をプリントしたのだった。以下に全文をコピーしておく。新聞を参考にして読んでください。

EDITORIAL DESK

Defenders of the Faith
By SLAVOJ ZIZEK (NYT) 941 words
Published: March 12, 2006

LONDON - FOR centuries, we have been told that without religion we are no more than egotistic animals fighting for our share, our only morality that of a pack of wolves; only religion, it is said, can elevate us to a higher spiritual level. Today, when religion is emerging as the wellspring of murderous violence around the world, assurances that Christian or Muslim or Hindu fundamentalists are only abusing and perverting the noble spiritual messages of their creeds ring increasingly hollow. What about restoring the dignity of atheism, one of Europe's greatest legacies and perhaps our only chance for peace?

More than a century ago, in ''The Brothers Karamazov'' and other works, Dostoyevsky warned against the dangers of godless moral nihilism, arguing in essence that if God doesn't exist, then everything is permitted. The French philosopher Andr・Glucksmann even applied Dostoyevsky's critique of godless nihilism to 9/11, as the title of his book, ''Dostoyevsky in Manhattan,'' suggests.

This argument couldn't have been more wrong: the lesson of today's terrorism is that if God exists, then everything, including blowing up thousands of innocent bystanders, is permitted -- at least to those who claim to act directly on behalf of God, since, clearly, a direct link to God justifies the violation of any merely human constraints and considerations. In short, fundamentalists have become no different than the ''godless'' Stalinist Communists, to whom everything was permitted since they perceived themselves as direct instruments of their divinity, the Historical Necessity of Progress Toward Communism.

During the Seventh Crusade, led by St. Louis, Yves le Breton reported how he once encountered an old woman who wandered down the street with a dish full of fire in her right hand and a bowl full of water in her left hand. Asked why she carried the two bowls, she answered that with the fire she would burn up Paradise until nothing remained of it, and with the water she would put out the fires of Hell until nothing remained of them: ''Because I want no one to do good in order to receive the reward of Paradise, or from fear of Hell; but solely out of love for God.'' Today, this properly Christian ethical stance survives mostly in atheism.

Fundamentalists do what they perceive as good deeds in order to fulfill God's will and to earn salvation; atheists do them simply because it is the right thing to do. Is this also not our most elementary experience of morality? When I do a good deed, I do so not with an eye toward gaining God's favor; I do it because if I did not, I could not look at myself in the mirror. A moral deed is by definition its own reward. David Hume, a believer, made this point in a very poignant way, when he wrote that the only way to show true respect for God is to act morally while ignoring God's existence.

Two years ago, Europeans were debating whether the preamble of the European Constitution should mention Christianity as a key component of the European legacy. As usual, a compromise was worked out, a reference in general terms to the ''religious inheritance'' of Europe. But where was modern Europe's most precious legacy, that of atheism? What makes modern Europe unique is that it is the first and only civilization in which atheism is a fully legitimate option, not an obstacle to any public post.

Atheism is a European legacy worth fighting for, not least because it creates a safe public space for believers. Consider the debate that raged in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, my home country, as the constitutional controversy simmered: should Muslims (mostly immigrant workers from the old Yugoslav republics) be allowed to build a mosque? While conservatives opposed the mosque for cultural, political and even architectural reasons, the liberal weekly journal Mladina was consistently outspoken in its support for the mosque, in keeping with its concern for the rights of those from other former Yugoslav republics.

Not surprisingly, given its liberal attitudes, Mladina was also one of the few Slovenian publications to reprint the infamous caricatures of Muhammad. And, conversely, those who displayed the greatest ''understanding'' for the violent Muslim protests those cartoons caused were also the ones who regularly expressed their concern for the fate of Christianity in Europe.

These weird alliances confront Europe's Muslims with a difficult choice: the only political force that does not reduce them to second-class citizens and allows them the space to express their religious identity are the ''godless'' atheist liberals, while those closest to their religious social practice, their Christian mirror-image, are their greatest political enemies. The paradox is that Muslims' only real allies are not those who first published the caricatures for shock value, but those who, in support of the ideal of freedom of expression, reprinted them.

While a true atheist has no need to boost his own stance by provoking believers with blasphemy, he also refuses to reduce the problem of the Muhammad caricatures to one of respect for other's beliefs. Respect for other's beliefs as the highest value can mean only one of two things: either we treat the other in a patronizing way and avoid hurting him in order not to ruin his illusions, or we adopt the relativist stance of multiple ''regimes of truth,'' disqualifying as violent imposition any clear insistence on truth.

What, however, about submitting Islam -- together with all other religions -- to a respectful, but for that reason no less ruthless, critical analysis? This, and only this, is the way to show a true respect for Muslims: to treat them as serious adults responsible for their beliefs.