A Prelude To The Balkanization Of America
By Morgana d'Wessington
23 August, 2010
Countercurrents.org
When I was a child in America, every day in school we had to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. You know how it goes: remember that it ends with "..with Liberty and Justice for All"? There was no qualification of who "all" was.
The deep division in NY over the Park51/Mosque two blocks from Ground Zero make those words ring very hollow. Some would say that words are just words, they mean nothing in reality. However, it is with words that we express our deepest feelings about our society, laws, opinions, sacred texts, joys, sorrows, epiphanies, successes, fears, loved ones, friends, enemies, failures, passions, and yes, our anger.
So what is happening with the "Mosque question" is perplexing to anyone who can still think independently. Can it be that we spent all those hours, years, memorizing and reciting the Pledge for nothing? We either meant those words or we didn't. Or did we - for it seems now that we may have meant them only for the people we like; people we know. However, the Pledge was not intended to represent an elite, that fact was drummed into us as if we were little soldiers of Freedom. Here is a fact: xenophobia has the people by the throat - a pitiable state of affairs.
I lost a friend whom I loved dearly, who was an inspiration to me, to my soul. Ironically, she had survived the Blitz in London during WWII with thousands of children, sent to the countryside to be safe. She had the biggest heart and soul of anyone I have ever met. She was on the 102nd floor of Tower 2 the day the planes came. She is gone. For all I know, her ash-encased bones still live under the dirt and rubble of the 9/11 site. Those bones must be crying out for justice, not retribution or revenge. Not crying out about "the Mosque", but about the idea of an office building (!) built on such sacred space. "The Mosque" is two blocks away, not on top of this vast yet unanticipated cemetery. I know in my heart that she would never have thought of depriving anyone of the rights assured to those here in the US - to wit: freedom from religious persecution.
When you step back and look at "the Mosque" within the larger picture of what is going on in this country today, this era’s xenophobia is dangerously reminiscent of the xenophobia that laced the American psyche during WWII, placing thousands of Japanese Americans into concentration camps. Television ads for the upcoming mid-term elections show candidates brandishing guns to prove their 'sincerity'! What???? Where on Earth are they obtaining this poisonous pablum of reprobation? I am agape at the ignorance, the panic and the smell of sweat of fearful human animals.
If we don't hold fast to the values that the Founders of America intended, (in part, that people should be free to worship as they please without harassment, in peace), it will be the very rending of the fabric of American society. "The Mosque", amongst other similar issues is tearing America apart. Not just party by party; people who dare to articulate their steadfast devotion to "with Liberty and Justice for All" are being threatened daily. They are being shouted down by people who are rank with fear and ignorance.
What happens if this kind of thing continues? The Balkanization of America the Beautiful. For what else can come of this hatred-filled rhetoric? Have our past and current warriors died for nothing? They died defending the Freedoms of this land. To deny "the Mosque" on grounds of religious belief is to spit on the grave of the Unknown Soldier. The people who want to build "the Mosque" want peaceful interchange with their neighbors. At last count, one survey put 68% of New York City residents in favor of letting them build their Center where it is. I give the planners of Park51 great credit for adhering to their rights and their plans to extend understanding and reconciliation to their neighbors. We used to be a country that faced our fears down, then learned from them. Please spare me the counter-argument that we can't build churches or synagogues in Mecca. We are not speaking of Mecca, we are speaking of the Land of the Free, Home of the Brave. I see no Courage in the opponents of "the Mosque", only fear. I hear no Freedom in their chants, only hatred and exclusion. How on Earth can there ever be reconciliation and friendship without understanding and cultural exchange?
This is the prelude to the balkanization of America. Is that what we, as youngsters, were pledging to our Flag and Country? NOT when I was a kid. No way. We believed in what we recited, welcomed anyone who wanted to come upon our shores to share our freedoms, our neighborhoods, and to share their cultures with us to help us learn about outside world. My forbears depended upon that creed to escape a Europe in decay under the steamrolling of the Third Reich. I deeply fear that our Country is eroding into a pile of megalomaniacal, fear-based, totalitarian nation-states, for that seems to be the only way some of these people will be satisfied. Is that what the Declaration of Independence was all about? Is that what I was pledging myself to as a child? No way. I was pledging to One Nation Indivisible...with Freedom and Justice for All. I pray that everyone regain their sanity, their souls, their consciences, their humanity, before we fall into a bunch of small, petty states run by warlords. Now that sounds eerily familiar. What a sad ending to America, the United States...the UNITED States, folks. I myself would have to leave my homeland in that event, for I made a Pledge, and pledges are for keeping.
Morgana d'Wessington is a freelance writer who is also a human rights, environmental and animal welfare activist. She resides in upstate NY, in the USA
