Holocaust

I have received one of those chain letters that drive me crazy.  Usually I just delete them, but this one got to me.  It starts out praising Eisenhower for ordering photos of Holocaust survivors and then it claims that England is about to take the Holocaust out of it's school curriculum to avoid offending Muslims.  

I agree that the holocaust should never be forgotten.  This misleading mass chain letter, however, is full of inaccuracies.  Here's one of many links I found de-bunking it.

http://www.hoax-slayer.com/uk-holocaust-removal.shtml

But I suspected it was nuts before I started checking into it.

First of all, the British people themselves suffered deeply during WWII and remain extremely proud of their resistance to Hitler.  They are not going to forget it any time soon.  Additionally, they are still dealing with the emotional scars that resistance caused.  We are more likely to forget it than they are.  

Secondly, this letter conveniently leaves out the millions of powerless people: homosexuals and people with disabilities and other "non-Aryan" qualities, who were also victims of the holocaust. This makes me suspicious that there is an unexpressed agenda here.  Was it okay for Hitler to experiment on them?  Or is it still okay to hate them?  

Thirdly, why would Muslims find Hitler's regime offensive?  The extremist Muslims we are worried about hate Jews more than Hitler did and have more justification.  (I do not advocate jihad, pogrom, holocaust or other forms of feuding.  I'm just saying that the on-going conflict between Israel and the Muslim world is not creating mutual understanding and respect.)  I personally think the whole point of this letter is in the last line where it warns that 9/11 will soon be forgotten because Muslims find it offensive.  Which makes this a not very subtle attack on Muslims.  Is it okay to experiment on Muslims and put them in camps?  If the people in those initial photos were wearing burkas would those photos be just as offensive?  

There is so much anti-muslim propaganda in our world today that it is very difficult to listen to reason.  We only hear about the crazy people.  Who wants to be judged by the crazy people?  As a Catholic, I certainly don't want to be judged by the Inquisition or the tiny number of sick priests.  Religion is a very tricky thing.  

Finally, Ike is famous for many things, not least of which was his warning about the dangers of the "Military Industrial (Congressional) Complex" in his farewell address.  (His original draft said "Military Industrial Congressional Complex" but he struck Congressional out.  His daughter has said it was because he thought it was counter productive to offend Congress.)  Fear and inaccuracies only give that dangerous alliance more power.  The relevant portion of his speech is found here: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y06NSBBRtY

"Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together."

Alert and knowledgeable.  I would add compassionate.  This letter fuels fear of Muslims and supports the Military Industrial Congressional wars against people who do not even have indoor plumbing.  I am in favor of security AND liberty for everyone.  Unfortunately, there is a balance.  Ultimate security can only be found by giving up liberty.  Give up too much liberty and you once again start to lose even security.  I worry that in this country we are letting our fears talk us into surrendering liberty for a false sense of security.  To a large degree, we have surrendered our ability to think rationally to our fears.  We have given our power to the Military Industrial Congressional Complex just as Ike worried we would.  He was a very thoughtful man and I suspect he would be very unhappy to have his reputation attached to this letter.  By fueling our fears of Muslims, this letter empowers the very people Ike warned us about.

Too often these mass mailings I receive do not seem knowledgeable, compassionate or even alert - they just seem ill-informed and scared.  They remind me of Beatrice in "Much Ado About Nothing":  "He is now as valiant as Hercules who only tells a lie and swears by it."  

Daughter of a scientist here.  My motto is "Check it out."  I will not forward anything on until I have checked it out.  If I do not have time to check something out or if I am not particularly interested in the subject, I just delete it.  This particular one, since it deals with and encourages hate and fear, upset me more than most.  So I decided to respond.

Religious Tolerance?

I was just remembering a wonderful conversation I once had with two people from Lebanon.  They were both Christians.  In fact, they called themselves Phoenicians and not Lebanese to distinguish themselves from Muslims who were also born in Lebanon.  They told me that they are direct descendants of the very first Christians and assured me that their style of worship and their theology was more "authentic" than Protestant, Catholic or even Orthodox Christianity.  I eagerly asked for more information.  

They were proud of the fact that their country is religiously tolerant.  They went to school with people of many different religious backgrounds.  They told me that they believed their country had a good chance of remaining peaceful because they grew up being friends with people from different religions.   (This belief was very strong in spite of the fact that one of them was living in the United States by choice as political refugee and the other was the son and grandson of refugees.)

I come from a very conservative evangelical Christian background which has long felt too narrow for the world in which I find myself.  I was fascinated by their very different understanding of Christianity, the bible and what it means to practice their faith.  I asked them about conversion.  Does anyone ever change from one religion to another or does anyone ever fall in love with someone from a different religion?  Apparently this does happen occasionally, but it is a very big problem.  Although they go to school with each other, each religion lives in a separate part of town and they all have last names that identify their religion.  Each of them had relatives who had married into another faith tradition and I got the idea that those relatives were not really welcomed into their families anymore.  

This struck me as both more and less tolerant than my own evangelical tradition.  I grew up believing that I had a moral mandate to convert everyone I met - for their own good!  It was unthinkable for me to pass up an opportunity to save someone from the fires of hell.  So religious tolerance in my youth was practically non-existent.  On the other hand, I can't imagine abandoning a relative because they married a non-Christian or choosing what house I buy based on the religion of my neighbors!

It seemed to me that they were saying that peace and religious tolerance were preserved by a careful balance of "separate but equal."  This flew in the face of everything I had learned as a child about the importance of saving everyone we met.  I asked them what they thought happened to their Muslim friends when they died.  They both looked at me blankly as if the question had never occurred to them.  Then one of them said thoughtfully, "Well, I suppose they go to their own heaven."  

This conversation was a real turning point for me.  I certainly didn't become an expert on Phoenician Christianity in one conversation!  But I learned it is possible to agree and disagree without desiring to change another.  It is possible to learn something new without accepting everything you hear the other person say.  It is possible to appreciate and respect a point of view you do not entirely share.  It is actually delightful to have a conversation with people who are different from me, to understand them a little better and to see myself a bit more clearly and walk away without changing them at all.

That conversation was many years ago.  I have had so many great experiences in my life and have allowed them to mold me.  I have learned to be myself among so many different kinds of people and revel in the differences.  I think true tolerance must be based on that "I Thou" principle.  I know who I am and I love who you are and I celebrate the fact that we are not the same.

This is true especially in my marriage.  Charley is eternally someone different not only from me, but also from who he was yesterday!  And yet he is firmly committed to the idea that we are exactly the same.  And that's really okay with me.  

White People

"White people can help us but they cannot join us." - Malcom X

Or anyway Denzel Washington said it in the movie by Spike Lee.

The one year of my life I didn't date Charley, I did briefly hang out with the president of the Black Student Union. That was around 1970. I went to a rally he ran for Louis Farrakhan. I didn't notice I was the only white person in the auditorium until practically the end when I began to notice the angry looks I was getting. I kind of slunk out and that guy never spoke to me again.

I started out life as a minority. I was a white kid on the Navajo Indian Reservation. Although we moved to California by the time I started school and I became a California Surfer girl and eventually a hippie just like my peers, I don't think anyone realized the impact that my early years had on me. I don't really believe there is a place where I "belong" outside of my own home. I am at home in my skin, but I travel through a world where other people are fascinating because they are different from me.

In high school, many of my friends were Japanese. (The rest of them were in the band.) In college, my friends were multi-cultural, flamboyant, counter-culture, gay. Then I moved to Japan where I felt completely at home unless I looked in a mirror. Sometimes I would catch a glimpse of myself in a window and be shocked. Who was that white person? Oh wait. That's me!!!

We attended an "inclusive" church for many years. That means that it was a church for gays, lesbians, transexuals and bisexuals and also us. It was a great church. But eventually we drifted away because, although the pastor wanted it to be an "inclusive" church, many members of the congregation often needed it to be an exclusive community where they could "come out" in safety. Our presence made them uncomfortable. We were intrusive.

I used to go to Native American things with my friend James who would introduce me by saying, "She's cool. She's not a Wannabe." It was fascinating and I learned a lot. I loved hearing pow wow drums again. But I was not really invited unless I was with James.

Now we live in the neighborhood "Hermosa" and, except for a few Polish families who have lived here for 30 years and more, everyone else is pretty much Latino. Charley teaches in a school that is traditionally Puerto Rican and I have been teaching children to play Puerto Rican Cuatro for the last 4 years. We are trying to learn Spanish.

But we are not Puerto Ricans. We are not Native Americans, we are not gay, we are not Japanese and we are not Black. (see photo).

I spend a lot of my time at Esperanza Community Services. (see link at left) I'm a board member there. But I do not have cognitive challenges or at least not many.

I am not a Wannabe. I don't want to be anyone but myself. But I think two things.

First, it is really important for people to get together as exclusive communities from time to time. The world is a horribly unjust place and our society (like many societies) does terrible things to people who are different. Like Denzel Washington speaking as Malcom X said, it is important for people to learn to love themselves, love other people who are like them and then love the people who are different. That's not a direct quote, it's sort of what he said. I get that. I really do. As a white person, there are things I can do to help, but I can't really become anything other than who I am.

Each of us needs to spend time learning to love ourselves and coming to terms with the unique crimes, responsibilities and gifts of "my people".

Second, it is even more important for people to spend time with people who are different. If we don't appreciate the value of people who are different we are in danger of becoming intolerant and perpetuating injustice. We are all one race. I really believe that. We have different colors of eyes and hair and skin, but we are all the same. We have different opinions and ways of behaving and abilities, but we are all the same. We have different genders and orientations and likes and dislikes, but we are all the same. We need to find that out by exploring other options. We don't need to change to do that, we just need to learn to appreciate the depth that variety gives to life.

I think this is the single biggest issue we face in the world today.

And here's the good news, it can begin with something as simple as a potluck.