This weeks In These Times has an article titled In Search of Solidarity. Usually I don’t read In These Times because I’m not a fan of socialism. It defines solidarity as “the fact or quality, on the part of communities…of being perfectly united or at one in some respect, especially in interests, sympathies, or aspirations.” I thought to myself that solidarity sounds like a good thing. We need a little more of it in most aspects of the society (especially in Muslim/Western relations). People want solidarity, it is just the way the human works. A lot of lonely people find solidarity in online communities, through churches, and unfortunately in terrorist organizations. It would be nice if we could find solidarity in our families (it’s happening less and less), in our communities (imagine the ‘typical’ suburbia, like Truman’s neighborhood), or in our world (we’re all homo sapiens). Unfortunately, we seek alternative places to find solidarity and those alternative places and the desire for solidarity can be twisted. Twisted enough to cause things like 9/11. After 9/11 the American people and the western world came together and found a great deal of solidarity. Instead of playing that up, President Bush decided to tell everyone to go shopping. After Hurricane Katrina a similar thing happened, but everyone decided they would donate some money and forget about it. Maybe one of the reasons we no longer have solidarity is because we believe money will solve everything. Terrorists destroyed the WTC? I’ll donate money. A Hurricane destroyed New Orleans? I’ll donate money. As Christopher Hayes says in his article, “donating money is an act of charity, not solidarity. Once we’ve paid off our conscience we’re free to go back to our lives.” I find that attitude very representative of the American population. I also find it very disgusting and hope it will change but know it will not, unless something crazier than a huge hurricane and terrorist attack occurs. 
It’s interesting how Hayes ties it into socialism: “if we lose unions, we lose the concept of solidarity itself.” In my opinion, not so much, but he is entitled to his opinion. It was also interesting to see how he said the term ’solidarity’ is never used in the American press. Just today the New York Times printed an article on the Mohammed cartoons and similar pieces of art in the past. It says, “That in turn led European papers to republish the cartoons in solidarity with Jyllands-Posten and in defense of free speech.” Obviously, we find solidarity in supporting our inalienable rights, including free speech. One could argue that without unions we would no longer have free speech, but I don’t think most would agree with that. While some valid points are shown about the state of our society, I don’t think solidarity hinges on the future of unions.
Speaking of free speech, the Piss Christ picture created a similar discussion to the Mohammed Cartoons that were printed in the Jyllands-Posten paper. I heard that the man who drew the Mohammed cartoons was trying to write a children’s book about Mohammed, but because he is the prophet and no graven image can be created
of him, no illustrators would take the job. As a sort of test to see how the Islamic population would respont, he created the political cartoons. Although Jyllands-Posten had refused to publish controversial pictures of Christ, many cartoons that blaspheme Christ have been published all over the world. I have no recollection of Christian groups making a big enough deal to get the front page, especially more than one day. I’m curious to see where this goes. Personally, I find it revolting that those cartoons were drawn, let alone published. I also find it revolting that the Islamic people are not standing by their peaceful religion and digressing to violence to make their voices heard.
