Many basic spiritual injunctions are ignored because they seem blatantly unrealistic. Love thy enemy? Yeah, right! Can you picture a major sports-arena packed with rabid fans, each jacked up on adrenalin, and no one cares who wins? Moi, I cannot.
There has been, through the past decades, in print and on the Internet, a spate of spiteful articles about Latino immigrants, depicting that group as a hazard to us. (Who we might be is never made quite clear. Presumably, we have blonde eyes and twinkling blue hair.) These “aliens,” we are advised, employ a secret stratagem for conquering the world: They reproduce more frequently than we.
Unless this trend can be reversed, our way of life is doomed, the authors say. Such xenophobes persist today, but have shifted their focus to Islam, of late. The Muslims, too, produce more young than we. Perhaps our goose is cooked. Let’s wait and see.
Consider bacteria, rodents, and bugs; implicit in these racist rants, you’ll find a “scientific” hint that lower species bear more young than higher species do. These brown folks from the South or East are talked about as if they were a swarm of hungry flies who want to lay Their anchor-baby eggs beneath our skin, so all their larvae, when they hatch, can feast on our pale flesh. Before our precious homeland has been occupied and stolen, we need to have the border fence patrolled by Truly Nolen, it appears.
The bottom line, according to these nervous “patriots,” is that we need to mobilize—take concrete steps—to stem the rising tide. And yet, such panic-mongers always stop just short of saying what those concrete steps might be. (Are we talking Kalashnikovs here? Mandatory sterilization?) You have to be a bit discreet, these days, when hawking hate or seeming to incite. (The F.B.I. stays busy night and day concealing data from the C.I.A..)
Nobody — not Kurds or Germans, Czechs or Congolese — or even dinosaurs, presumably — is pleased to find their culture’s future hanging by a thread. Nobody wants to be conquered, starved out, or displaced. We cling to our identity, our language, music, food. We cherish them. They make us who we are; or so we think. We’ll stand up to protect our kind; defend our heritage. And that’s considered normal, even virtuous, by most.
Let’s ask the larger question here: Who’s Us, and who is Them? Where does one draw the line between the two? Why do we get our panties in a bunch over the local Lobo Pack? Because they’re ours!! The other team, demonstrably, is not. But, face it Jack, if you moved out to L.A. or New York, you’d get your kicks by rooting for the Lakers or the Knicks. A basic law of nature is that living things compete. Yet, mammals are gregarious, as well, and almost always yearn to find their place within a group. So, when it’s time to draw the line (for those who need a line) more often than Me against You, it is Us against Them. We want, and we are pressured to be, loyal to our clan. With whom, then, can we go to war? With them, of course. That’s what they’re for!
But what if we’re all siblings in the so-called eyes of God, as some proclaim? Then, does it really matter who the victor is, this year? Why fret about his ethnos or the color of her skin? No matter who comes out on top, we win because we’re kin. If you have anything within you worthy of the name “faith” (confidence in the goodness and infallibility of the overall process), why should you need to worry or opine? Can you sincerely say to God “Thy will be done, not mine?” If so, however it turns out is, by default, just fine (i.e., divine.) Get over your affection for particulars of form, including ours. And if, after The Rapture or some fatal climate change, the ruling race is cockroaches, Norwegian rats, or we, embrace Whatever Happens; let it be. If you can make What Is your honest choice, you’ll always have good reason to rejoice.
Yeah, Right! Yeah, Right?