Reflections
At Thanksgiving Time
By Emily Spence
21 November, 2007
Countercurrents.org
Years ago, a friend of mine,
when we were discussing goodness and malevolence, casually mentioned
that even the worst criminals nearly always thought that whatever they
were doing was constructive and the problem, then, became one in which
different people hold radically different outlooks concerning whatever
stands for benefits. In this sense, Josef Mengele (a human representing
the epitome of moral depravity) probably thought that he was advancing
scientific knowledge and ultimately helping humankind by his unconscionable
medical experiments carried out on Jews and gypsies during the Nazi
regime. At the same time, he was being an exemplary patriotic citizen
by, unquestioningly, supporting the atrocious aims of his government
for which he was commended many times. (Oh, how the leadership loves
to dole out accolades, medals, praise and certificates during grand
speeches when their nefarious objectives are backed by their lackeys
and cohorts.)
In a similar vein, I am sure that many European immigrants, who came
to America during the last three hundred years, thought that they, too,
were carrying out positive actions when they eradicated indigenous tribes
at the behest of their community leaders. I am, also, convinced that
many of those conducting the killings felt relieved that such a strange
scourge (as the "dirty savages" seemed to be) was systematically
obliterated. Indeed, there probably was little remorse on the part of
the majority of the butchers as the so-called Indians were viewed as
subhuman, just as were Blacks, Jews, Asians and many other persecuted
peoples in this country. Indeed, the killers' sense of identity, doubtlessly,
was strengthened individually and as members of a culturally cohesive
unit (i.e., an exclusive social assemblage) in the process of carrying
out their communally sanctioned, xenophobic brutality.
In this manner, the murderers managed to avoid acknowledging any sense
of shared and universal humanity in the maligned others with whom they
refused to identify. As such, they recognized few, if any, commonalities.
Instead they called the natives alienating terms (such as "blood
thirsty vermin," "Indian giver" and "scalpers")
that further strengthened a feeling of estrangement, made it easier
to destroy them and assigned them to the position of "The Other,"
an unfortunate and dangerous category in which to be placed.
"Lawrence Cahoone (1996) explains it thus:
'What appear to be cultural units—human beings, words, meanings,
ideas, philosophical systems, social organizations—are maintained
in their apparent unity only through an active process of exclusion,
opposition, and hierarchization. Other phenomena or units must be represented
as foreign or 'other' through representing a hierarchical dualism in
which the unit is 'privileged' or favored, and the other is devalued
in some way.'
"It has been used in
social science to understand the processes by which societies and groups
exclude 'Others' who they want to subordinate or who do not fit into
their society. For example, Edward Said's book Orientalism demonstrates
how this was done by western societies—particularly England and
France—to 'other' those people in the 'Orient' who they wanted
to control. The concept of 'otherness' is also integral to the understanding
of identities, as people construct roles for themselves in relation
to an 'other' as part of a fluid process of action-reaction that is
not necessarily related with subjugation or stigmatization [1]."
In any case, we are all quite
capable of too readily seeing negative traits that we personally abhor
in "The Other" rather than accepting and supporting whomever
or whatever we imagine exemplifies these qualities. In this manner,
some Catholics hate and fear Protestants, some Jews hate and fear Arabs,
some Moslems hate and fear Americans, some Whites hate and fear darker
skinned peoples and so it goes like a merry-go-round with each person
and social group denigrating and abhorring the next rather than being
inclusive.
In such a fashion, the mind set of us VS. them keeps circling around
and around to create an inordinate amount of deep lasting misery. All
the while, hatred and rejection are being taught in the process to each
successive generation of perpetrators and victims alike.
Meanwhile, one can wonder whether reparation is due to Native Americans,
Blacks, Latinos and others whose ancestors were viciously exploited
and killed. Should they have recompense since many have, indirectly,
become impoverished as a result? Should they be given funds and/or land
because they, on account of prior events, now live in dreadful slums
and have pathetically poor public schools for their children, as well
as low paying jobs for themselves? If so, who should provide compensation
and in what amount to whom? Who is culpable -- the offspring of the
originally predatory groups, i.e., those of European stock and our current
government whose prior members had ratified Indian Wars, theft of land
from natives, slavery and other wrongs? Is someone else accountable
for remuneration?
Meanwhile, I do know that societal and environmental problems (including
inequitable distribution of resources, as well as lack of sufficient
agricultural know-how and capability to feed the ever burgeoning population)
in Europe certainly did cause a large throng of desperately poor people
to want to flee their lands to other ones with better opportunities.
As such, they kept coming (and still do) in wave after wave of newcomers
to America while, for obvious reasons, many settled inhabitants (whose
ancestors also migrated here) unequivocally resent the changing conditions
that result.
In any case, I refuse to take responsibly for what any of my forebears
did or didn't do. It was not my fault. All the same, I am, when I consider
the topic, sorry for all who were involved. I feel sorry for natives
and the nearly indigent Europeans in the same way that I feel sorry
for a Kurd father who stole a loaf of bread from an elderly woman in
an attempt, during the Gulf War, to keep his eleven children and wife
alive. (It was thrown from a US military craft and the woman had snatched
it from the air a few seconds faster than the father could lay hands
on it. He, then, wrestled it from her with the ultimate result that
both the old woman and her husband died of malnourishment. So did some
of the father's children. Meanwhile, he now has to live with his painful
choice for the rest of his life. He has to remember the vision of the
aged couple and his children full of suffering, panic and the drawn
out process of their dying. He has to continually face his feelings
of regret, helplessness and rage over what he could not change.)
While I pity him to the depth of my heart, I am deeply grateful that
I do not have to bear the burden of subsuming his role. Likewise, I
am utterly thankful that I was not one of the women in a particular
broiling hot cattle car parked for days on end on the track leading
up to a Nazi concentration camp.
After having run out of food and water and with no one responding to
their plea for provisions, the women slowly came to the recognition
that they were not going to be given any. They also realized that they
were not being brought to a new settlement. So, rather than prolong
the agony of water and food deprivation, they quietly murdered their
children and each other one by one during the night while the children
slept. As such, their only satisfaction was in the thought that the
bloody mess that they left behind would render the car unusable ever
again to transport other Jews to the camp as the stains could not be
able to be removed from the wood [2].
Most of us are fortunate that we are not forced by circumstances outside
of our control to make such difficult decisions as had the Kurd father
and these Jewish mothers. We are lucky that we do not have choose whether
to battle others over desperately sought out American land, nor be in
a condition to possibly commit other heinous acts.
One individual, who hasn't had to face them, is an old Quaker woman,
who carries out a tremendous amount of social service volunteer work.
On account of her not having had to make awful decisions, she is in
a position in which she could state the opinion that her "sin"
(a term that she used for a lack of a better word devoid of religious
connotation) was not so much a "sin" of commission (the deeds
that she carried out), but concerned omission (the massive number of
undertakings that she neglected to accomplish). In other words, she
felt that she simply was not doing enough to provide uplift, care and
compassion towards others in less fortunate situations than hers.
Yet for how much are we responsible for each other and the state of
the world in general? Because I pay taxes, am I responsible for the
massacre in Iraq and Afghanistan despite that I didn't vote for President
Bush? Am I accountable for the sweatshops conditions and poverty level
wages paid by Wal-Mart owners and stock bearers because I was given
a gift from Wal-Mart by a relative? Would the right course of action
be to return it to the store? Would we be helping or hindering Wal-Malt
management [3] and the sweatshop workers if we all refused to purchase
the goods that they make?
Perhaps I should decline use of drugs because management at many pharmaceutical
firms routinely lie about the dangers of products so as to command a
huge fiscal gain from sales ($125,835,595,000 in 1999 of which approximately
only one fifth went into research while up to two-fifths were used towards
advertisements and marketing costs [4]) even as they only have to dole
out a modicum of that amount in wrongful death suits. ("The known
deadly side effects of prescription drugs are the fourth leading cause
of death in the industrialized world, surpassed only by the number of
deaths from heart attacks, cancer and strokes," according to Journal
of the American Medical Association, April 15, 1998 [5]. Dr. David Bates,
associate professor of medicine at Harvard University School of Medicine,
told the "Times" "... these numbers translate to 36 million
adverse drug events per year."[6]) Surely, it is hard to fiscally
support unconscionable companies like these without having some degree
of reservation.
In an analogous vein, should I stop eating certain foods because the
Frankenseeds and the poisonous pesticides used to grow them came from
Monsanto [7] and other vile agro-firms? How would I even know about
the foods to place on my rejection list? Likewise, should I stop driving
my car to visit my aged mother living in another state because it is
a frivolous waste of oil given that my act of doing so contributes to
global warming and more rapidly uses up a non-renewable, critical energy
source? Similarly, should I stop using paper and other wood based products
because I know that, with our rising population ever in demand, more
than three millions hectares of forest have been torn down in African
over only fifteen years (1990 to 2005) and forests are not being replaced
nearly as fast as they are being obliterated? Meanwhile, they ARE being
decimated at an increasing and appalling rate all across the globe.
For example: "During the 1990s, it was estimated that 214,000 acres
(86,000 hectares) of forest worldwide were being destroyed every day
— an area larger than New York City. In the mid-1990s, the World
Resources Institute reported that more than 80 percent of the world's
natural forests had been destroyed. Much of what remained was in the
Brazilian Amazon and in the boreal areas of Canada and Russia.
"Deforestation has a
variety of causes. It is in part driven by worldwide demand for wood
products. Deforestation can also accommodate population growth and the
desire to create new agricultural land or grazing land for cattle. However,
deforestation has serious consequences for the global environment and
for the continued existence of human life. It can lead to soil erosion,
flooding, and the loss of animal and plant habitats. The world's tropical
rainforests, which occupy only 7 percent of the dry surface of the earth,
hold over half of the earth's species. As these forests are cleared,
species become extinct at an estimated rate of up to 137 species per
day. Deforestation also contributes to global warming, since the burning
of forests releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The carbon dioxide
traps the sun's heat and causes temperatures to rise.
"Ecologists warn that
if current rates of deforestation continue, rainforests will disappear
from the planet within 100 years, affecting global climate in unpredictable
ways and eliminating a majority of the world's animal and plant species...[8]."
This all in consideration,
I have to, in the end, consider myself somewhat in a different way than
my Quaker friend views herself. It is because I recognize my deliberate
culpability. I use up a vast store of finite and renewable resources,
maintain the grotesque and enormous inequity of wealth distribution
in the world by being directly engaged in the economic and the social
systems promoting it, am responsible for an incredible amount of assorted
environmental damage (such as pollution of waterways) of which I do
not see direct consequences, as well as am caught up in an American
way of life that is largely structured by self-serving governmental,
business and other interests, which are undeniably outside of my control.
In a similar vein, I personally create the global warming outcomes through
my purchases, which depend on fossil fuels for their manufacturing and
transportation, as well as by my very use of products and services (such
as utilities).
All of this certainly is
cause for unqualified remorse. Yet, I cannot figure out a way to avoid
much of the harm for which I am liable even though my complicity in
the above circumstances is not entirely welcomed by me. So, the best
that I can do is to try as much as possible to minimize my ecological
footprint, strengthen natural environments where I can through community
sponsored measures (such as the building of bat houses and planting
of trees) and actively seek out other opportunities wherein I can have
a positive impact on behalf of other life on this planet. As such, I
realize that it is, also, a moral obligation for me to help others,
who have not had the opportunities in life to which I have had access.
All of this in mind, I will
not discuss fatuous repugnant myths concerning Indians and Pilgrims
when I sit down to my next Thanksgiving dinner with my elderly mother
who lives so many states away from mine. I will, instead, remember the
suffering that transpired after the "New World" became seen
as a land of opportunity -- a fresh spot to environmentally plunder
and through which to get wealthy. Simultaneously, I will contemplate
on the deliberate displacement and vicious slaughter of ever so many
natives [9] in the last three hundred years, which all together represents
a devastation similar to the ones continually sanctioned by the US government
in the Middle East and elsewhere across the globe. I will also muse
on those destitute relatives of mine, who fled desperate situations
overseas to this country.
At the same time, I will,
also, reflect on my joy to be with family members and the bounty of
the fall harvest, a harvest that came despite the lack of water in many
farming communities in the Southeastern United States and other locations.
In addition, I will recall that many Americans and others do not have
enough to eat, nor clean water to drink. As such, Thanksgiving will
be a mixed blessing, one in which I affirm all for which I am grateful.
Yet, it will also be a time during which I will avow to strive all the
harder to ensure that I am as supportive as possible towards other life
in the world. The reason for doing so is quite simple in the end. It
is because my life and every other one unequivocally depends on this
sort of caring provision.
Put another way: "The
race of mankind would perish did they cease to aid each other. We cannot
exist without mutual help. All therefore that need aid have a right
to ask it from their fellow-men; and no one who has the power of granting
can refuse it without guilt.” -Sir Walter Scott
[1] A more greatly detailed
explanation of "the Other" is located at: Other - Wikipedia,
the free encyclopedia (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other). [2] This account
can be examined in full in either the book or movie version of the following:
Shoah (film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoah_(film)].
[3] Assessments of Wal-Mart are located at :Wal-Mart - Wikipedia, the
free encyclopedia (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wal-Mart, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wal-Mart)
and Criticism of Wal-Mart - Wikipedia, the free encycl... (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Wal-Ma).
[4] This information was obtained from: Drugs companies (www.healingdaily.com/conditions/pharmaceutical-c).
[5] This evaluation is found in: The Dr. Rath Health Foundation | Responsibility
for a health... (www4.dr-rath-foundation.org/PHARMACEUTICAL_BUSIN).
[6] This quotation is located at: Both sides of the pharmaceutical death
coin: Jon Rapporport ... (findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0ISW/is_279/ai_n).
[7] For an overview of Monsanto, please go to: Monsanto - Wikipedia,
the free encyclopedia (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto). [8] This quotation
is from: The Forest: Definition and Much More from Answers.com, (www.answers.com/topic/the-forest-poem-5).
[9] The destruction of natives is discussed at: Indian massacre - Wikipedia,
the free encyclopedia (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Massacres, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Massacres),
National Day of Mourning (United States) - Wikiped... [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Day_of_Mou,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Day_of_Mourning_(United_States)]
and Native American Genocide (www.wicocomico-indian-nation.com/pages/genocide).
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