Story Three

That time my journal aged well.

I was going through my old journals and found this unpublished piece dated June 6, 2018. It is unfortunately aging well.

***

The Trump Administration has announced that it is looking for land on which to erect what it is calling a tent city to house thousands of immigrant children after they are separated from their parents at the border by the United States government. These should be called what they are: prison camps for brown children. It is a prison when you are not allowed to leave, when paid guards ensure that you eat at mealtimes and never get too close to the fence.
It’s the latest of the never-ending outrages to humanity which authoritarianism always ushers in; it feels unreal or as though there must be a mistake in the reporting somewhere. Surely, we think, someone has to ask our permission before doing anything this drastic?
It is an understandable question, but the answer is not edifying. The answer is that they don’t have to ask us - but also that they only dare because we have already given our tacit permission. When we have chosen to believe a party line rather than search for truth, we have asked for this. When we have seen people protesting and chosen not to join them, we have informed those in power that we see nothing there worth protesting. When we have talked with our friends about our despair that “they” can even be reasoned with, and when “they” are our fellow citizens, we have helped build this culture of fear and distrust and disempowerment, and it is that division which Trump exploits to enact his mad schemes. We are disunited, squabbling like children over whether words are mean or whether hypothetically one should punch a Nazi, and while we are distracted the tents will go up in the desert.
A society does not crumble without the consent and aid of the people in it, whether they intended harm or no, and there is no one segment of society which is blameless for the state of affairs we find ourselves in. We talk about the Blue Wave and the #resistance as though either of those things can or will do much to stop this relentless march into horror; remember how strong the Democrats stayed on DACA not many months ago. There will be no political solution in a nation where political leaders still jockey for advantage and airtime, in which they bargain away our freedom bit by bit and tell us they have no other choice but appeasement.
We have allowed this, because we have not known what to do. We do not talk honestly about what might be done, because to do so means that we must acknowledge the state of things as they are, with no filter. It means we would have to accept that we have a government which is no longer functional nor serving the will or general good of the people. It would require us to understand that there is not such thing as American exceptionalism, that we are prone to the same weaknesses and pitfalls as every other nation in the world’s history has been.
You cannot fight fascism by dehumanizing your neighbors. You can only aid its rise, help its spread, by doing its work for it. We win by understanding that not all people are good, that some people work towards active evil, but that there are far fewer of those people than we fear. We win when we stop assuming that everyone we don’t already know is the enemy.
Authoritarian rule depends on a fearful and distrusting populace, needs people it can turn against each other. It depends on division and confusion to cover its tracks, so that by the time the dust has cleared there is no question of who is in power. The best, most effective way to disrupt it is for each of us to decide that we will not allow this. We can decide not to believe the lies we are being told about each other.
We are quickly approaching the moment in this nation where we will have to choose sides, and they will not be the traditional teams of right and left. There will be humanity, and there will be the despoiling of humanity, and that will be it.
People ask what is to be done, and so far they have meant “what single action can I take” because we have not yet understood that we need a sea change in the way we conduct our society.
What can we do? Go be kind. You have a sphere of influence, however large or small. You can spread knowledge instead of disinformation, can disabuse people of wrong notions. You have the opportunity to meet fear with equanimity and hate with love.
It is a terrible love that is required; this is no sweet romance. The love we are called to enact is merciless in its honesty. It asks us to first look into our own hearts, to confront our own biases and wrong ideas. It is a love so deep and ancient and pure that there is no room left in one’s soul for fear or lies. It is the sort of love which prompts you to see the homeless, to inform a police officer that you are filming them, to understand that the universe and humanity are infinite and infinitely connected.
All of this is real. All of this is happening. We can either look around in horror and ask who can save us, or we can begin to save ourselves. Vote, call your legislators, protest. Volunteer and organize. Read. Learn history. But understand that it is society itself which needs changing. All of this starts with each of us remembering that we are in this together.
It is as simple - and as impossible - as that