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EDGES MAGAZINE Issue 18 |
Jun-Aug 1999 |
.............being racists
Elaine Kennedy works for Edges Magazine.
Prejudice is as old as man himself; it began when early Man first grouped into tribes and communities. Prejudice and racism are not modern inventions, their roots are steeped in antiquity. Modern communications being sophisticated as they are, we are just made more aware of their existence. Are they, then, an integral part of our human natures?
In the past, when teaching literature, I used to tell students that human nature does not change, only the superficial surroundings which make us believe we have become civilized. There is a tendency to think that we of the late Twentieth Century are so sophisticated that we bear no resemblance whatever to our ancestors. How could WE, with our 'Laptops' and 'Pot Noodles' possibly be compared with the generations of Julius Caesar and Atilla 'The Hun'?!
I stand at the edge of this century, this millennium, and feel a sad and overwhelming sense of re-reading the same old story books. God gave us our natures, Man and Woman, to compliment one another. Alone, each one of us is only ever half of the whole; the wholeness of God. In that human nature given by God, was simplicity, beauty and fathomless constructive energy. His plan was for the wholeness to spread to the wider community: family, friends, neighbours all pooling talents, sharing gifts and the fruits of the earth and of each other, in ever increasing circles of community. But the oldest story tells of Man's obstinate denial of that wholeness of God. What a different world we could have had!
All along, instead of looking at the community and the common good, people have chosen to indulge their egos by seeking momentary self-gratification by status-building, power-seeking, domination. Endless spiritual energy is re-routed from the common good into meaningless adulation; it is siphoned off Ad Nauseam by those who have raised themselves onto pedestals. Meanwhile, those who have become arid by having their supplies of energy cut off can only stand in lethargic, silent awe at the medals and pomp of those who suffocate the energy of God out of them. Looking back over history, Man made glory has always been short-lived and has invariably left devastation and anguish in its wake. Yet we never learn; indeed we are more prone to sectarianism and racial segregation than ever before. In God's plan, pride in one's community was meant to be healthy; pride which emanates from love and peace; not pride which leads to denigrating our neighbor's way of life; assuming superiority over him and harboring aggressive feelings born out of ignorance and fear. Gradually, as the human race expanded, small prejudices grew in proportion. Racism, as we know it today, is the cave-man's tribal hatred on a massive scale. It follows that the bigger the problem, the worse the destruction when Man's limited ability to recognize the good of the community over his own selfish needs, disintegrates altogether.
My Grandparents, who were of the gas light and horse-less carriage era, fought 'The War To End All Wars'. Hardly twenty years on, my parents were caught up in the horrors of Nazi domination. 'Civilization', by the way, had by then taken to the skies, and motorways were just around the corner! Now, here we are watching horrific pictures of Ethnic cleansing which are beamed to us by satellites in outer space. For Heaven's sake! Technology has escalated almost as fast as our sense of the value of the human condition has regressed. The need for a vision of a Global community, which was God's plan, has been carefully swept under the carpet.
Through literature and historical writings, we can trace bigotry from it's roots. We have all, as nations, at one time or another, been guilty of spreading those roots. If we look at ourselves today, things look bad. How can we ever hope to eradicate racism on a vast scale, when within a race there is turmoil and prejudice. Look at us Brits: Southerners scoff at all life forms North of Watford; Yorkshire now wants to become independent! The whole nation is obsessed with archaic class structures. Ludicrous prejudices concerning peoples' lifestyles are instilled into children, whose minds are atrophied before ever having a chance to think for themselves. The food one eats even comes under fire as ammunition for prejudice! Jealousies within a family can poison existences. Prejudice is accumulative. If a community is fragmented by individual members showing hatred for one another, then that community will look beyond for gratification of its aggression; and who else will it strike out at than a community whose lifestyle is totally different from it's own? Immigrants tend to be the butt of such aggression. The integration of immigrants is not a modern phenomenon, it has been an on going process since the beginning of the history of our Island. So if you are Pro-National Front, look more deeply into your rich and diverse ancestry! Angles, Saxons, Vikings, Romans, Greeks, French, to name but some of the blood which flows through our veins! Everybody has a right to this soil, no one can be excluded.
With all our inherited pride and accumulated prejudices we have become like balls of tangled, knotted, explosive material which needs urgent unraveling before we spiral out of control and annihilate each other mutually.
Is it too late for our future generations? We need to look at ourselves from afar and accept that we haven't changed, but need to. Take a cave-man, knife in hand, lying in wait to stab a rival hunter. Take a football fan, knife in hand, waiting to stab a rival fan. The difference between the two? Only the Nike trainers. We need to look afresh at the essence of God's gift of human nature an at the nature of our relationships in the context of the community. Can we still create Global wholeness out of the existing chaotic fragmentation? Only if we accept that Prejudice is not an integral part of our basic human nature - we can exist without it - we have a choice - we always have had a choice.
Why do I get this feeling, though, that someone else will be standing here, on the edge of the third millennium, reading the same old story-books?!
