This is a song for the labradors
Off the coast
Who swim with their wet necks
And paddle like the sun is going down real soon
This is for the wet dogs who lick their paws and don’t know all that is wrong with the world

The sea is calm tonight
Waves beating helplessly along the shore
The trains run quiet on the track
With just a spark in the darkness
Reflecting off the sea

The sea is wrong tonight
The calm before the storm
The place where fireflies lay low
Because the rapture may be coming

How are we supposed to know what the answer is
The cathartic snapping of the waves against the shore
The light from the train tracks
The sound of humming far off
And we wonder where the world is tonight
And where we are
And where we are going
And why we won’t get there any time soon

Note:  This was originally published in the Hypocrite Reader in May 2011.

In a subtle valley among the rolling green hills of the South African veld, there is a rural village enclave known as Orania. Established on private land by a small group of South African citizens, the village is a bastion of memory for its 800 residents, within which they have attempted to recreate a failed 20th-century sociopolitical experiment architected by the man whose statue overlooks the town square. That man was H. F. Verwoerd, and that experiment was apartheid, arguably the most brutal and sustained violation of human rights since World War II.

Although Orania maintains a somewhat isolationist policy due to its decidedly awkward status in modern South Africa, I was given the opportunity to interview the residents of Orania and its leaders in order to study the realignment of the South African white identity after apartheid.

*              *              *

Apartheid is often misunderstood, by Americans in particular, as a system of segregation not unlike that in the pre-Civil Rights southern United States. In reality, apartheid was an absolute, undeniably fascist, fully compartmentalized system in which arbitrarily designated racial groups were not only relegated to separate citizenships, but operated within separate economies, polities, and juridical systems. (In one telling example, at one time during apartheid there were ten separate departments of education—one for each “race,” and one for each dependent “homeland” territory.) The Afrikaners were a white, Dutch Calvinist population that settled in South Africa in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and developed their own linguistic, ethnic and cultural heritage, so much so that by the time of the British colonization in the nineteenth century it was the Afrikaners, not the native African populations, who put up the most resistance to British rule. Apartheid’s underlying philosophy was born of the political determination of the Afrikaners.

The Afrikaner dream of an independent volkstaat (“people’s state”) was delayed during the period of British colonization. It had to wait until 1948, when the National Party came to power. Its first order of business was the attempted establishment of a utopian, linguistically and culturally pure Afrikaans nation, in a political system that came to be known as apartheid. In 1960, Verwoerd, then Prime Minister, tried to fulfill the Afrikaner dream of full independence by separating from the British Commonwealth and establishing the Republic of South Africa.¹

Increasing international isolation and internal demands for reform led to the demise of apartheid, and in 1994 the new multi-racial and multi-party democracy promulgated a new constitution that outlawed racism and guaranteed recognition of all South African ethnic identities. The new constitution offered many oppressed South African ethnic groups, such as the Zulu and Xhosa, who had been relegated to poverty and insignificance in the “native” homelands set up during apartheid, the opportunity to practice their linguistic and cultural heritage freely, and participate in the South African democratic project as equal citizens. But for some, like the Afrikaners, this constitutional provision was necessary to allay their fears of post-apartheid marginalization. After their protected status under apartheid ended, they feared the loss of their national and linguistic identity as they suddenly became a disempowered minority. Although most Afrikaners adapted to the transition by embracing non-racialism as an essential component of the new national order, some felt a compelling urge to entrench themselves further in the land, reaffirming their belief that Afrikanerdom constituted a culturally distinct and uncompromisingly African heritage.

Enter Carel Boshoff, grandson-in-law of Verwoerd himself, who, along with his wife and 30 Afrikaner farmers, professors, missionaries and clergy—and along with Verwoerd’s 92-year-old widow—spent half a million dollars on a ghost town in the Northern Cape to found Orania in 1993.

*              *              *

Orania, as a constitutionally legal self-governing entity with its own currency, banks, schools, and farms, occupies a fascinating position in the new South Africa: a group of Afrikaners, wishing to extend the nationalist project of apartheid, created a self-determined nation unto themselves, by citing their constitutional right to cultural advancement. Indeed, Oranians are overwhelmingly, if not unanimously, conservative Afrikaners who support a return to the ideals of Verwoerd and apartheid.

That sentiment in itself is not surprising. What is surprising is the nostalgia of these Afrikaner purists as it relates to their own self-determination. Frequently the residents express discontent over the “sapping of Afrikaner identity” and their fears of marginalization in the new South Africa, and they suggest that the Afrikaner ideal could be lost due to “Afrikaner pragmatism.” Observed Carel Boshoff IV, the grandson of Orania’s founder, “What was once a resolute community that demanded respect has now developed into a loose bundle of individuals that totter between nostalgia and opportunism.” However, Oranians do not consider themselves to be victims, but cultural crusaders who seized the opportunity of the transition to found a self-determined community of proactive, proud Afrikaners. Oranians hope to practice Afrikanerdom in all its purest linguistic, racial, religious and cultural forms free of outside molestation. Only Afrikaans is spoken, the only church is the Dutch Reformed Church, and no non-Afrikaners are allowed to live in Orania—not even white, English-speaking South Africans (unless they identify as Afrikaner).

The community, to them, is not about racism but about the continuance of Afrikanerdom as a legitimate cultural project. They see themselves therefore less as racial purists than as cultural purists, and view their town very much as a bastion of Afrikaner purity. Said one Oranian teacher:

Orania’s growth depends to a large extent on the situation in the rest of the country. If Afrikaners feel threatened in [South Africa] Orania will grow quicker, but fear should not be the driving force for people to move to Orania—neither racism. Orania cannot be seen as a place to escape—it may not be a negative action, but proactive and a positive challenge.

Furthermore, Oranians are surprisingly willing to engage in the national political discourse. They consider themselves to be citizens of South Africa, and are proud of the Afrikaner contribution to its history. Most moved to Orania because of what they perceived to be their victimization by the government when it came to employment, and fear of white-targeted crime. (It is a matter of debate among scholars whether the high crime rate in South Africa disproportionately targets whites.) They take a stance against the assertion that Afrikanerdom is merely a racial identity, and defend their right to exist in a closed community. Finally, they believe that living in such communities should be a goal of most South Africans. Said an Oranian engineer:

True peace can only be found in the co-existence of the different peoples of South Africa. If each group can find peace with themselves and peace with their neighbors then South Africa will be a good place to live in. You can only found peace with yourself if you respect your own identity and be prepared to protect it. The only way to protect it is to group with your own people.

This sentiment is echoed by another resident, who told me:

Yes, I think there should be more towns like Orania, as we are a bit far from our families, I would say, one Orania-type town in every province, maybe. No, never will the whole of SA ever be like Orania, as it is a rainbow nation, but to have a few places for each nationality in and around SA where your own culture is kept, will be a good idea, I think. [emphasis mine]

Certainly, this concept is nothing new—apartheid itself was an experiment in “Bantustaning,” the practice of allotting land to different ethnic groups. The Bantustans were legally treated much in the same way that American Indian reservations are today—separate governments, with little to no assistance from the apartheid government. The Bantustans, which date back to the 1913 Natives’ Land Act, were the government’s solution to the problem of the black majority. By giving them “homelands,” it was hoped a large-scale demographic catastrophe would be averted. The Oranian position, for this reason, has been challenged by South Africans who reject separatism and see echoes of the racist apartheid project in Orania. Orania has been criticized by many South Africans for being a racist enclave and continuing to support and teach apartheid-era ideas. One professor observed that the ruling African National Congress (ANC) opposes places like Orania because it fears a trend toward the Bantustaning of South Africa.

*              *              *

What is to be made of this group of rural settlers whose primary goal is the continuation of an apartheid system in the face of overwhelming national opposition? Are they to be celebrated for their commitment to a nationalist cause, or ridiculed for their refusal to assimilate into an increasingly democratized South Africa? Are they politicized? Whom do they represent, if more than just themselves? And finally, are they merely racists? Or do they represent a complex identity crisis, where whites have been forced to reexamine their own conceptions of themselves?

White introspection is not a peculiarly Afrikaner phenomenon in post-apartheid South Africa. It is a common discursive theme in the collective white experience, drawing from feelings of inadequacy and hopelessness in the new regime. After apartheid, the white identity in the new South Africa is no longer seen as a specifically racial concept, but as representing a complex relationship between culture and class. Whites have experienced a dismantling of their own worldview, a correction in their previously assumed conception of themselves. In response, many have created an environment of collectivism tied to a common history, in an attempt to legitimize whiteness as a compelling identity. The narrative of whiteness has become one of separation, of delegitimization. In other words, whites have finally had to come face-to-face with their minorityhood.

For Afrikaners, the identity crisis gains another level of complexity. Afrikaners have always had a strong conception of their own national heritage, born of religious persecution, anti-colonial resistance, rugged pioneering, and entrepreneurship. They were the first European settlers in South Africa, and they feel the same right to their country as white Australians feel to theirs. The deconstruction of apartheid, to most South Africans (including white non-Afrikaners), was the deconstruction of a racist aberration; for many Afrikaners, it was the deconstruction of a dream of independence and self-determination. Thus, many Afrikaners have been unable to adjust to their new post-apartheid minorityhood, but instead have found themselves to be a shadow in search of a form—a stark contrast to the previous regime, where the definition and elaboration of an Afrikaner national identity was an accepted dogma of state policy. In this search for recognition as a new minority, they have been met by a hostile South Africa that cares more about lifting the disenfranchised masses out of desolation than protecting a privileged few.

Thus it is not particularly surprising that since apartheid, a sentiment has emerged among Afrikaners that racism, while still very much active, has been turned on its head. A 2009 documentary, “Poor Whites/Rich Blacks,” depicts a poor Afrikaner family faced with the realities of the new South Africa. The man tells the interviewer that apartheid still exists, but in reverse: “Yes, we were in the good position, that was apartheid. Now it’s the opposite, but it is still apartheid.” The conception of “reverse apartheid” has become a rallying cry for Afrikaners. One Afrikaner wrote: “I continue to be against it [apartheid], also now that the role players have been swapped around and the policy of race differentiation is being labeled ‘affirmative action.’ Under the policy of apartheid, particularly the Afrikaners sought to obtain certain privileges and protection for themselves. Today the black majority seeks to do likewise.”

The use of the term “new apartheid” is particularly controversial because it draws an equivalency that is not historically or sociologically accurate. However, it is a common theme in interview responses from Afrikaners, especially those in Orania, to state their objection to the apartheid system, then draw a moral equivalency between apartheid victimization and their own experience. In doing so, they hope to legitimate their own position. It does not follow that white racism and black racism are morally equivalent, or that the white “victims” of the new order occupy the same historical position as their black counterparts. The compulsive desire to be sympathetic while simultaneously apologetic is reflective of a new type of white identity characteristic of the new South Africa, which has become ideologically linked with the persecution ethos of previous generations. Within the Afrikaner pro-nationalist and pro-white historiography, South Africa has always been a land of racial conflict, from the natives to the English, and now from black nationalism to black power. Thus, while it is hardly possible to demonstrate a moral equivalence between white racism and black racism, there may nonetheless be a relationship between the white fear of marginalization and the black fear of marginalization. Certainly this undercurrent runs through Afrikaner discourse on their experience, and it has permeated the modern Afrikaner society, causing it to reevaluate its own status in a post-apartheid world.

Many Afrikaners feel that to see evidence of their victimization, they need look no further than the systematic dismantling of Afrikaner institutions and linguistic heritage after apartheid. This was a bilateral process: not only did Afrikaner influence in government, education, and law wane, but after apartheid, Afrikaans-language publications, Afrikaans-identified businesses, and traditionally Afrikaans-identified political parties started to downplay their Afrikaner roots and integrate with mainstream society. Afrikaans festivals and cultural organizations saw a drop in funding, and the previously unabashedly Afrikaner bank, Volkskas, diluted its stake in Afrikanerdom by making the first “black empowerment” deal, courting Coloured management and selling its insurance policies to majority non-Afrikaner customers. Even the National Party, whose roots lay solidly in Afrikanerdom, disassociated with Afrikaners in an attempt to form new coalitions, notably merging with the ruling ANC in 2005.

However, despite a persistent fear among most Afrikaners in South Africa about delegitimization, Orania is one of only a couple such Afrikaner enclaves in the country, suggesting that on the whole, most Afrikaners participate in civil society and seek to protect their interests through the democratic process within public, diversified communities. This phenomenon is nowhere more apparent than in the activities of AfriForum, a major white advocacy group. Its charter draws heavily from the post-apartheid South African constitution and stresses the importance of minority rights vis-à-vis the rights of the majority, a common theme in the philosophy of liberal democracy. AfriForum’s commitment to the democratic process and its belief in the constitutionalism of the new South Africa legitimizes the organization, allowing it to be accepted, if begrudgingly, not as a fringe group seeking extremist or racist goals but as a lobbying group interested in advancing the interests of the white minority. (AfriForum is currently embroiled in a national controversy over the hate speech trial of Julius Malema, president of the African National Congress Youth League, who has been criticized for his use at rallies of the apartheid-era fight song “Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer,” which has been used in the past to incite violence against Afrikaner farmers.)

AfriForum’s foremost concern, according to their literature, is the “apathetic withdrawal” of whites into their own political disenfranchisement, which leads to further non-involvement and lack of influence in the political process. In describing this apathy, they refer not just to the citizens of Orania, but to the attitude of the white minority in general, which they feel is a victim of its introspection as well as that of the ruling majority. They advocate a “Come Home” campaign, seeking to bring disaffected whites back to South Africa, and a campaign “for the protection and consolidation of civil rights,” which seeks to address specific policy points in the new race discourse, including employment inequity and crime.

*              *              *

Are Oranians merely racists? Indeed, many Oranians admit, even insist, that they are racists. However, the point of divergence with mainstream society, observed one foreign reporter, occurs when they insist that “There’s nothing wrong with racism.” The society of Orania has coalesced around a modern, and virulent, sort of racist white exclusivity—it is a way of life. However, unlike their white counterparts in the rest of South Africa, who live their lives in a “bubble” within a sea of black labor, whites in Orania do all of the work themselves. As a British journalist observed, “It’s not a photo opportunity in Britain to snap a white person holding a spade. For Afrikaners—hell, most of white South Africa—it’s a shock.” Orania can be viewed as a microcosm of the newfound white identity in South Africa, where racism lives on, but where new expectations regarding racial roles are being accepted. The racism of the people of Orania is almost a nostalgic throwback to an earlier era, to which they cling to retain cultural legitimacy. However, unlike some right-wing Afrikaner reactionaries who seek to dismantle the new democracy using violence, Oranians seem to be content living their lives in their cultural bubble, seemingly without ill will toward the larger South African state, with most actively participating in national elections as supporters of the Freedom Front Plus (FFP) party. As one resident told me, “I don’t mind being part of South Africa and having a loyalty toward the country as long as it does not mean that I have to sacrifice my own identity as Afrikaner.” Greater South Africa has not been as hostile as might be expected toward this community: Nelson Mandela, Julius Malema, and current president Jacob Zuma have all visited Orania.

So one has to ask: is it not so much a return to apartheid they crave, but a return to cultural independence? Is it minority rule they seek, or minority acceptance? Maybe in their search for their own apartheid, they hope to capture what control they can achieve: self-determination, self-government, and, if possible, self-respect. However, many Oranians hope that such a system will one day be unnecessary, and they can live in a greater South Africa free of the burdens of the past. One of my respondents wrote:

If there were ANY cure for this ugly mess in our lovely country called crime or violence, the necessity for an Orania would not have happened, as we are not people for hatred, fights and murders, no, no, no, we are loving people, that would only like a place in the sun, and a haven for our children and old people, where we can live like normal people, and not locked up in our houses that became our jails! If ever there is a cure for all of this, please let us know, and we will implement it immediately, so that we can have a SAFE and LOVELY SOUTH AFRICA again, which we love so much! Where else can we go, where can we hide, nowhere, so we will just have to stay, and pray to our Lord that all will end well!

It is hard to see these residents as anything but the people they have become: a minority—now perhaps an unprotected minority—who feel, sincerely, that their salvation will come not in their assimilation but in their separation. They do not view themselves as whites: that is a racial identity they would rather subordinate to their Afrikaner heritage. Instead, their very definition of Afrikanerdom is intertwined with their idea of cultural uniqueness, of rugged individualism, and above all else resistance to domination. As one of my respondents wrote,

What is an Afrikaner? To be proud of your heritage as a group of people that was forced out of their original mother country, to regroup in a foreign continent, and to build a community with strong Christian living norms, create their own language and norms and use it to better the living conditions not only of themselves but also the other people of South Africa.

The question today for the residents of Orania is how they can reconcile their new identity with a new nation that is also striving to identify itself—how they can be reabsorbed into the new South African identity without losing their own.

I was reading recently about a peculiar custom in Israel of not performing Richard Wagner. Although the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that enforcement of this custom isn’t legal, it still continues to be an ongoing, rampant phenomenon in a country that has an established tradition of free speech. In recent years, Israeli musicians planning to travel abroad to perform Wagner have been lambasted and widely condemned.

The reason? Both Wagner’s documented antisemitism and his great admirers, the Nazi Party of Germany and its leader Adolf Hitler.

Truth be told, art has been used too often as a weapon by the evil and powerful, and not often enough as a line of defense against them. Artists like Richard Wagner and the film director Leni Riefenstahl were instrumental to the propaganda of the Nazi movement. Wagner’s works were performed extensively throughout the Third Reich and Riefenstahls’ cinematic masterpiece, Triumph of the Will, was as efficacious to the Nazi media campaign as the Blitzkrieg was to the war campaign.

At the same time, artists are often the first to be targeted by regimes: they are those on whom the hardest tests for free speech and a free society are conducted, upon whom an understanding of a national culture and way of life are based, and with whom a true cultural life would not be possible. It is the artists who are the first to criticize accepted beliefs and the first who pay for it. The history of banning artists is as long as the history of regimes. The Romans had a long history of censoring Etruscan and Carthaginian authors and artisans, not to mention early Christian art from both Romans and non-Romans. More recently the Beatles were banned in the USSR as if they were poison to the regime: nothing more than words and music in a language understood by less than 10% of the population, and yet somehow they posed as much a threat to the country as an invading army. (The “British invasion” carried much more weight in this context.) Today, artists such as Ai Weiwei in China languish in prison for their critical art.

In almost all cases, the source of the ban is a belief that the ideas presented in art are somehow dangerous. If enough people believe those ideas, the fabric of society itself will be torn apart. As a particular columnist writes, “That Israel’s Wagner ban serves as a still-useful reminder that ideas have consequences — and that those who spread evil ideas should be held responsible for their evil consequences. Even geniuses.” After all, how many regimes have been shattered or created by the power of ideas? The ideas of Jefferson, of Marx, of Mao, of Herzl, and today, the ideas of millions across the Arab world.

But it’s a universally accepted belief among scholars–even those who don’t follow their own advice–that free and open expression is a necessary condition for a free society. So I won’t continue to preach to the choir.

What is outrageous about the Israeli practice is the fact that Wagner’s art is not banned in Israel for its ideas–after all, music is an abstraction that is fully interpretive–but it is banned for its admirers and its composer. It has been tried and convicted by guilt by association: It is banned because its composer held antisemitic beliefs, and its admirers went on to perpetrate the greatest mass murder in world history. But Richard Wagner, though known to have been an antisemite in his lifetime, was not known for his published works or his writings on Jews, no more so than Hitler was known for his art. And yet the politics of Richard Wagner are under as much scrutiny today as his music, if not more so.

But what I find the most ironic is that Wagner’s opinion on art, that he presented in his masterpiece opera Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg, is the finest repudiation of Israel’s practice that unfortunately can never be heard there:

Honour your German Masters,
then you will conjure up good spirits!
And if you favour their endeavours,
even if the Holy Roman Empire
should dissolve in mist,
for us there would yet remain
holy German Art!

The idea that art is transcendent of regime, is bigger and more grand than any individual or government, is precisely why Israel needs to hear Wagner. The people of Israel would benefit from the presence of transcendent, abstract art which calls for the lifting of souls and the perseverance of culture.

Would an Israeli know a Wagner if he heard it? If not, would he not be as moved to emotional exuberance as any other listener. Would his heart not vibrate? The time has come for free regimes to put aside the ghosts of the past and embrace the music that can set them free.

It’s happening in France today as it has happened across Europe.  The steady declination of individual liberty and the overstepping authority of the state.  It is not just an isolated incident anymore, but a pattern of invasion.

The latest outrage is a new ban in France which went into effect today.  Anyone caught wearing a full face veil, an Islamic burka or equivalent face covering, will be subject to a fine and a “citizenship course.”  (I don’t know what “citizenship course” means, but that sounds an awfully lot like Mao’s reeducation camps to me.  But I digress.)

Islamic women, like any other people–if they are to be acknowledged as people–have as much a right to wear what they want to wear as anyone else.  States historically have often intervened in the clothing choices of its citizens, often in the legislation of “public decency,” such as a ban on nudity in non-designated areas.  States have also legislated occupancy-related clothing requirements such as masks for doctors or helmets for motocycle riders.

What’s ironic in this case is that the people who are most effected by this new law in France are not only exempt from any occupancy requirements, but they are practicing an extreme form of modesty that shouldn’t offend anyone.  And if they DO offend people, that isn’t a justification for banning the veils on legal grounds.  That goes against every fundamental notion of free speech:  that the speaker has a right to speak as much as the listener has a right to be offended, but that no speaker or listener’s right is more important than anyone else’s.  This is why even hate speech, in America at least, remains tolerated: because of the hesitancy of any court to open the door of deciding which speech, or which offense, should matter more in the eyes of the law.

But more important than a fundamental right of expression through clothing–a right that has been taken away in history to deprive citizens of their humanity in more than one case (yellow stars of David and the Scarlet Letter come to mind)–is the ever creeping infringement of the French government–and indeed, governments across Europe–on the rights of their citizens.

It starts with restrictions on free expression where they will be missed least:  bans on anti-semitism or denying the Holocaust, bans on hate speech, bans on religious symbols on display in classrooms, and last year, bans on minarets.  Add to the long list of activities citizens can no longer perform: wearing clothing that many believe–like it or not–to be either traditional or required by religious law.

These bans may seem innocuous, mostly because they are the most publicly supported.  It’s easy to ban speech when people can universally or near-universally despise it.  There are many people whose speech shocks the conscience.  But it is just in these situations where the freedom of speech is MOST important.  The rights of the minority of an opinion and the majority are indivisible and logically equivalent.  As John Stuart Mill wrote in his treatise on the subject, On Liberty, “If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.”

What’s next for France and Europe?  The banning of political groups that support the Islamic veil?  The banning of public Islamic prayer?  The banning of private Islamic prayer?  What about the banning of the Koran itself?  And how quickly these new laws can be used to turn against all other French citizens, to deprive them of liberty, to take away their fundamental rights because an arrogant belief in uncontested moral superiority?

There are two arguments I have heard routinely to justify the ban itself, on legal and political grounds:

A)  The ban does not target Muslims, but applies to all people, therefore it is not a targeted ban on any one group.

This is pure crap.  The bill was passed as a burqa ban, understood to be a burqa ban, and continues to be a burqa ban.  And the law makes exceptions for occupancy-related masks and “Masks used in “traditional activities”, such as carnivals or religious processions,” which somehow doesn’t include the right to practice one’s religious laws in public.

B)  The ban is there to protect France from Islamization; as Sarkozy himself said:  ”The burqa is not welcome in France because it is contrary to our values and contrary to the ideals we have of a woman’s dignity.”

This argument is logically equivalent to a state banning a value system, a way of life, an act of speech or anything else that goes against the “values” and “ideals” of that state.  First of all, who is Sarkozy, or any French politician, to decide what constitutes the “values” of French society?  And if he has that right to decide, what rights is he giving his successors?  The right to decide that Muslims, and their very existence, are a threat to the values of the French state?  These very arguments were used in Europe–and France–before, albeit for a different religious and cultural minority.  The BBC is even calling this situation “the Muslim question”–if that doesn’t make your hairs stand up on end.

Furthermore, if the logic of the ban is to encourage equality and French unity, it will clearly have the opposite effect.  French Muslims who are forced to wear the veil will be forced, now, to stay indoors to avoid the fine, thus rendering them effective prisoners in their own homes.  Not to mention the alienation of Muslims in general from the French state: a recipe for more dissidents, more protests, and no doubt, more reactionary behavior from the state.

This creep of unilateral state action against citizens may seem justified–it may even seem necessary–but therein lies its danger.  I fear for the French people, as they have just given the state the power to decide key questions on their liberty, and sooner than they think, they will be unable to stop the juggernaut when it has gone too far.

You’ll never hear anyone happy about yesterday’s shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), who was the victim of a targeted attack that has claimed the lives of 6 people so far, including a federal judge.  But the response to the tragedy has been overwhelming, and a reminder to Americans that our bitter partisanship, no matter how divisive, has its limits.

Compare the way our political foes aligned immediately behind the violence against the institution of government–and with one voice denounced it–to the response to a similar incident in Pakistan this week, where the Punjab state governor was gunned down by a police chief and his assassin was showered with rose pedals.  Despite the vitriol in our electoral politics, Americans of all political persuasions, for the most part, share a respect for the institution of government and the importance of stability.

In an odd way, tragedies such as this are a sober reminder that for all our opinions diverge, Americans still have a common interest in safe and productive politics that transcend party lines.  After all, our freedom from fear matters more than any one debate over the constitution and its meaning.