Da Code, Da Belief, Da Danger

My recent trip to Israel on a United Jewish Federation Prime Minister’s mission was too short. A mere nine days, cut short because I didn’t want to leave Adam for the entire twelve, was filled with snapshots, images etched in my memory forever.

I think everyone should go to Israel and start in Jerusalem. I landed at the King David hotel, opened my French doors to overlook the walls of the Old City – a mere square mile inhabited by 35,000 Muslims, Jews, Christians and Armenians literally on top of one another.


The Old City 

I started at the Dead Sea – a visit to the Masada where 965 Jewish settlers felt it was more important to die for one’s freedom than to surrender to the Romans. Then to Qumeran – the home of the Dead Sea Scrolls – where this cultish sect of Jews maintained the very Jewish traditions that are kept, more or less, today. The fine invisible thread of a people, in fact of all people, and this seabed of belief, lies here in the dry hot dessert.

After floating in the Dead Sea, I slept the rift in time away. The following day I went to the Old City, walking through slippery lime stone streets to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and touched the ground where Christ was crucified. I walked about the Church, now divided into spaces owned by various Christian sects, walls built to illustrate regions of ownership within a formerly gothic style church – its flow entirely disrupted. The Greek Orthodox community owns most of the church now, but the keys to all the holiest Christian sites are held by a Muslim family – considered non-partisan enough to keep an equality and peace among the divided sects of Christians.

I walked through the Muslim market, to the Cardo (the Jewish market) and in one day, I visited Christ’s tomb and then prayed at the Western Wall. High above that is the Dome of the Rock -- the holiest place for the Muslims as it is thought to be where Mohammed ascended to heaven. That very evening, upon returning to the Kotel (wall) for Shabbat, watching the most religious (Hassidim) of Jews dancing and praying at the wall, I heard Church bells and Muslim prayers over speakerphone under the full moon -- a collision of smells and sounds in the cool evening air. If one listened carefully, the murmurings of history, the prayers -- the sentiments of faith could be heard.

I was here at a more peaceful time in Israel, knowing how dissention and violence can errupt at any moment, but for now, kept at bay by the seam line and the many police stationed around the the old Temple, where Palestinians sometimes throw stones at the Jews praying below. Coffee shops and restaurants are now guarded by security, so when I walk past the Hillel Cafe that was bombed just a short time ago, now rebuilt and filled with customers again, I can rest, a little, knowing that there are now people on the lookout for suspicious characters strapped with bombs.

I rode past the site near Gilo where a bus filled with children going to school was bombed -- the man thought to have spent the night in a neighbouring Arab home.

Jerusalem to me manifests human paradox – to co-exist and yet remain divided by this great ideological divide called belief. Religions claim ownership to holy sites, and other sites are deemed holy by those who want to believe (there is more than one burial site for Mary, for instance). People interpret scripture, and it too has been re-written. On the eve of the Da Vinci Code’s movie release and the idea of the quest for one truth, we must always remember that according to mankind, there is always more than one. Belief is the engine behind such quests and the etchings left by man the multiple truths of many beliefs. Israel epitomizes cultural and religious tolerance despite the violence. The violence epitomizes the dangerousness of belief -- the warbled footings of a human construct.

I have caught up with the news of the past days and the video distributed by Autism Speaks, "Autism Every Day." It is a repulsive video, a type of religious zeal taking away the dignity of a child, of many people with autism and example of how belief can ruthlessly expend human life, or the dignity of it. What is understandable is the "loss" in the sense that we all have to reframe our expectations in life. What is not, is the positioning of the video, the parents who choose to view people with autism as a loss. We can all choose to view and act positively or negatively in life. We all face the same challenges. I felt sorry for all the kids who had to hear their parents talk about them in that manner on the video. A child does live up to their parent's expectations. These parents have very low ones.

Marketing "religion" as this video does, is unforgiveable -- this shameless act of marketing pity to make a buck requires a vigilant response from all of us. As innocent and heart-felt as this video may seem, and in because I'm talking about Israel I will say it here: a visit to Yad Vashem (Holocaust Memorial) made me remember how inoccuous belief appeared on the surface of all European citizenry. It was a belief that the Jewish people were at fault for lowering their economic status, and were subhuman. In the case of these parents, there is no excuse to talk about one's child in the way they have here, or to mention that the only reason you didn't drive off the Washington Bridge (in front of your child) is because of your other neurotypical child waiting for you at home. The positioning of this video is classic propoganda.

In the fractionalized community of autism believers, this religious phenomenon of belief is no different. The complexity of human functioning is like the cracking of a code. Some scientists and autism organizations continue to perpetuate the idea of a “mystery” that requires de-coding. New codes are cracked about genetics and neurology and sects are created. And, as we come closer to "knowing," we begin to have an enormous responsibility to protect and covet all human life.

I prefer to believe that all life is incredibly awesome. At the end of all these paths, do I really need to know what causes autism? Does it really make a difference to know why Adam does the things he does? Or is it our exploitive curiousity? To what end do we study autism to the extent that we do? To help? At whose request -- the mother who might take the life of her autistic child becuase her life is too "hard?"

With knowledge, may be all beget wisdom.