The Fish Stinks from the Head

Forty-nine people have been killed and at least 20 wounded in shootings at

two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. A gunman identifying himself as an Australianlive-streamed the rampage at Al Noor mosque to Facebook.

He had espoused racist, anti-immigrant views. BBC.com, March 15^th.

No, this blog is not about racism or religious/ethnic bigotry in Australia or New Zealand. Not that there aren’t politicians in both nations that just might fit the bill. Nor is this an excuse for people fearing migration as the lands of “others” become uninhabitable from global warming, civil war or dwindling resources, all combined with Malthusian overpopulation. You can reach those conclusions if you want some rational explanation for a global plague of immorality couched as populist patriotism or nationalism. 

“Them” versus “us.” An increasing global acceptability, supported in speeches and actions of leaders from some of the most seemingly “democratic” countries in the world, effectively condoning “excluding them.” Brexit. A wall. Expulsion of refugees and denying asylum in firm violation of international law. In Europe, Austral-Asia, Africa and the United States. 

Strangely, some of the most vitriolic racial/ethnic/religious bigotry comes from what Islam refers to as the “people of the Book,” Jews, Christians and Muslims. Sure, you can watch “militant” Buddhists in Myanmar murder and torture Rohingya Muslims, driving them to Muslim Bangladesh, where they were not exactly welcomed with open arms. Or tribal wars, such as the one between Hutu and Tutsi factions in Rwanda (1990-94), where neighbors murdered neighbors. But the most powerful and consistent racial/ethnic/religious bigotry on earth comes from these monotheistic nations born in the Middle East under the same basic vision of God.

Boko Haram (Nigeria), ISIS (Syria/Iraq), Religious Police (in Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia), al Nusra Front, Jemmah Islamiya (Indonesia, Philippines), al Qaeda (throughout the Islamic world), etc. are Islamic fundamentalists, most labeled as terrorist organizations (except for those state-sponsored agencies noted above), reject all things Western as corrupt and defiling God’s mandate; those practicing those Western values are often arrested, raped, tortured or killed. They crash planes, bomb, rocket and shoot. Internecine Islamic rivalries – mostly Shiite against Sunni – litter the landscape with violence and hatred as well. The Qur’an doesn’t preach that violent hatred.

It’s almost as if the horrors of Nazi Germany, the use of slaves at the beginning of our nationhood, and the modern-day ability to witness contemporary ethnic cleansing online or on television either “never happened” or simply have hardened us or made clear immorality “just the way it is.” Having been raised as a Protestant Christian, I cannot get over the fact that the New Testament – a pretty cool teaching even if you are not a Christian – is about tolerance, brotherly love, supporting the less fortunate and giving without expecting anything in return. The Old Testament (the Torah) is a harsher tome, but replete with God’s admonitions of equality of human beings, of setting basic moral standards that encourage us to live together. Yet I hear angry evangelicals spew that vitriolic racial/ethnic/religious bigotry as if the New Testament were withdrawn by God, Jews spouting hatred of the Arabs in their midst. 

Where you hear world leaders suborning racial/ethnic/religious bigotry, where they make speeches and cite slogans often repeated by mass-killers as justification for their murderous acts, it’s clear that practicing racial/ethnic/religious bigotry, leading the charge against “Them,” has allowed horrible hatred, long simmering beneath the surface – exacerbated by economic chaos and incomprehensible change – to become socially acceptable. Here are just a few examples:

In Israel: “‘Israel is not a state for all its citizens,’ [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently] said in a post on Facebook. ‘According to a basic law we passed, Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people — and the Jewish people only.’

“Netanyahu was referring to an enormously controversial law passed by the Knesset [Israel’s parliament] last summer that declared the country to be the ‘nation-state’ of the Jewish people. The measure downgraded Arabic from an official language to one with a ‘special status’ and took other steps to make it clear just whose country it was. Though opponents called the law racist, Netanyahu hailed it as a major achievement.

“That law was perhaps more symbolic than meaningful. Everyone already knows Israel is a Jewish state, don’t they? But it was nevertheless troubling and unnecessary — a provocation that sent an unmistakable message about Jewish primacy and the contempt Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition hold for Palestinians and their rights. It omitted the promises of democracy and equality that are included in Israel’s Declaration of Independence. And it followed on the heels of right-wing efforts to exclude Arab legislators from important votes and to require Arab citizens to take loyalty oaths or be stripped of their citizenship.

“Now Netanyahu has doubled down on these anti-democratic moves. In Sunday’s Facebook post, he not only suggested that Arabs in Israel were second-class citizens, but also that his electoral opponents Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz, if voted into power, would put together a left-wing government ‘with the support of the Arab parties’ that would undermine the security of the state.” Los Angeles Times, March 12th.

Hungary’s duly elected nationalist President, Victor Orbán, has drawn the wrath of the European Union by erecting barbed wire fences and refusing to accept the allotted number of refugees fleeing from Africa and the Middle East. Orbán tends to couch his racial/ethnic/religious bigotry by not directly denigrating “Them”… but by claiming that Hungary’s Christian cultural history is his nation’s strength and must not be diluted or violated, as he puts it, Hungary’s “cultural and ethnic homogeneity.” 

So, “They” are not welcomed in his country. But every once and a while, direct racism slips into his speeches, particularly when the “Them” – in this case gypsies (Roma) – have been part of Hungary for centuries. In 2015, his overt racism bubbled harshly to the surface:

“Hungary’s historical given is that we live together with a few hundred thousands Roma. This was decided by someone, somewhere. This is what we inherited. This is our situation, this is our predetermined condition…. We are the ones who have to live with this, but we don’t demand from anyone, especially not in the direction of the west, that they should live together with a large Roma minority.” Racism is alive and well all over Europe.

The “free movement of EU peoples” within the European Union, the Schengen rule, and the acceptance of refugees are not only on the hit list in Hungary and other hardliners in Eastern Europe. Angela Merkel’s fall from grace in Germany, the rise of the right in Italy (they won) and France (they didn’t) and one of the key motivators behind Brexit are in significant part the result of local Europeans wanting to exclude “others” with unacceptable cultural habits – like wearing hijabs in public – a perception of an unwillingness to assimilate and accept local Christian values.

The self-described “least racist person” you have ever known, wall-building Donald Trump, is probably the most racist president we have had since Woodrow Wilson and Warren Harding. His racist credentials are so well-established that I think only a couple of reminders are relevant to make my point. Klan leader, David Duke, is cheering for Trump, because The Donald enunciated long-held Klan mythology. 

During his campaign, where he presented his “build a wall” final solution against undocumented workers crossing from Mexico into the United States, he said: “They’re sending people that have lots of problems and they’re bringing their problems… They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists, and some I assume are good people, but I speak to border guards and they tell us what we are getting.” In June 2017, Trump said 15,000 recent immigrants from Haiti “all have AIDS.” Clearly false. When torch-bearing White supremacists marched in Charlottesville in 2017, leading to the murder of anti-supremacist protestor, Trump noted that there were “some very fine people on both sides.”

What all this means, what this has led to, is the social acceptability of being a racial/ethnic/ religious bigot, openly expressing that value and even proselytizing such sentiments as patriotic… and what’s worse, acting on it. The deaths in New Zealand find justification in this wave of acceptable bigotry. Last fall, when alleged would-be Florida pipe bomber, 56-year-old Cesar Sayoc was purported set to blow up Trump critics, authorities notices that his van (above) was covered with pro-Trump and Republican decals. 

It’s bad enough when such leaders openly espouse bigotry, it’s worse when that bigotry becomes the very basis for their popularity, but it is horrific when that bigotry directly inspires murder and hate crimes. It is disconcerting to note that the New Zealand shooter specifically praised Donald Trump as a “symbol of renewed white identity” in his manifesto. Immediately after the shooting, Trump repeated that he did not see “white nationalism as a rising threat worldwide.” We all know better. 

My deepest condolences to the families and friends of the victims of the atrocity in New Zealand. There is no excuse. There is no justification. The atmosphere that encourages such actions must end. R.I.P.

              I’m Peter Dekom, and exactly what are the lessons that such powerful bigots and bullies are passing down as the qualities we seek for future generations?