Entitlement: I Did It Because God Said I Could

By Don Bustany

This is about entitlement—the right of a particular group of people to certain privileges that other groups are not accorded. For example, through our political processes, we have established an entitlement to financial assistance for the economically disadvantaged to minimize the suffering of people who have no control over their circumstances. It's called "welfare." In another kind of entitlement, Black Americans, Latinos and certain other minorities are entitled to the benefits of affirmative action to help counter unfair social obstacles to their pursuit of equal opportunity.

The reasonableness of those two examples of entitlement is pretty obvious. The beneficiaries did not bestow the benefits upon themselves. Our society as a whole recognized their need and democratically conferred the entitlement upon them.

Now let's shift focus to a different kind of entitlement—the kind where the beneficiary of special privilege bestows it upon itself. On a recent trip to eastern Africa, I learned a little about the very fascinating Masai people who inhabit that part of the continent. The Masai are tall, slender Africans who wear their hair very short and carry long spears whose iron blades seem half the spear's length. We see them periodically in National Geographic or on TV documentaries.

We saw some of the Masai and were told about them by Kenyans of other tribes, mainly the Kikuyu, during a motor safari through Kenya. They said if we saw a solitary figure walking through lion country, we could be sure it was a Masai warrior. Lions, they say, will not attack a Masai. The other Africans believe that the Masai rite-of-passage from boyhood to manhood—in which the young Masai male has to survive for weeks in the bush and successfully take on a lion one-on-one with only his spear—has taught the lions to stay away from them. Our Kikuyu guides also told us that the Masai, whose culture is built around ownership of cattle, steal cattle from other tribes.

A week later in South Africa, we learned from a professor of sociology that the Masai believe that God created all the cattle on earth exclusively for them. So, when the Masai steal cattle from another tribe, in their minds they simply are taking possession of what God has given them. They were chosen by God to possess all cattle. They are entitled. It is only the other Africans who see them simply as cattle thieves.

Some Jews and the Masai seem to believe that God has chosen them.

The Masai are not the only people who believe that God has chosen them for special entitlement. Much more famous for that are those Jews who—along with some Christians—believe the Jews were entitled in ancient times to the land of the Canaanites and, in modern times, to the land of the Palestinians. Members of another group presuming an entitlement are the Notre Dame football team—which, some believe, God has blessed to win more games than it loses. No sarcasm is meant by this comparison.

There is no cause for any Masai, Jew, or Catholic, whether they do or do not believe in such entitlements, to take offense. The case of the Notre Dame football player who makes the sign of the cross before a kickoff is familiar to anyone who watches college football on autumn Saturdays. And his example of seeking a pact with God is something with which many of us can identify. Who among us has never said, "Please, God, if you'll do this one thing for me, I'll be the most faithful believer in your flock?"

As soon as we buy into the idea—or a charismatic leader convinces us—that we have an understanding with God, we become unstoppable, invincible—because God has guaranteed our success. So here we have Jews, the Masai, and the Fighting Irish who believe they are God's chosen people. But wait a minute. What about other Christians and Muslims? They, too, believe God is on their side. But that's not the same as being "chosen." Christianity and Islam are open-arms religions. They welcome everybody into the faith. They openly seek converts of every race and every nationality. God hasn't chosen Christians and Muslims—they chose God. And their choosing is conscious and deliberate.

But some Jews and the Masai seem to believe that God has chosen them. And, imbued with a strong resolve by that belief, each has appropriated the property of others under circumstances that the rest of the world recognizes as outright theft. Three thousand years ago the Jewish people—led by Moses, Joshua, King Saul and King David—took by force the land of the people of Canaan. In this century—still led by Moses in a sense—they took by force and some unsavory diplomacy the land of the Arabs of Palestine. And they still are taking pieces of what's left. Now that isn't religion; it's politics rationalized by religion.

Purposes of Religion

Speaking anthropologically, religion seems to have two main purposes: to establish rules of behavior necessary to a society's successful functioning and survival; and to provide a belief system that engenders emotional security for the individual. Less clinically, we might say that religion's purposes are to connect us with the Creator and to enable us earthlings to get along with one another.

But look at the uses to which religion has been put by those who seek power. Political leaders have been exploiting the faith of the people they lead probably from the time of the cavemen, through the Pharaohs of Egypt, the Prophets of the Hebrews, the Greeks, the Romans, a long string of Christians, the Masai, Knute Rockne, and a wide array of those who, we are told, distort the true teachings of Islam.

How do we protect ourselves from these false prophets? Well, we must beware of those who claim to know what God wants—or claim to speak for God. As if God needs anyone to speak for Him/Her/It. If God has a message for us, we'll get it direct—not through another human being. And when someone tells us that God has chosen us for special privilege, if we believe it as others before us have, we may be led to commit acts that violate the basic teachings of every religion.

Don Bustany is co-chair of the Arab-Jewish Speakers Bureau of Los Angeles, past president of the ADC Los Angeles Chapter, and co-president of the Media Image Coalition, LA County Commission on Human Relations.