I invite you to spend seven minutes listening to Arnold Schwarzeneger's analysis of the insurrection we watched the other day. He steps back and looks at what happened in the context of his own childhood growing up in Austria after World War II and the legacy of the war - his father and all the neighbors' fathers coming home drunk several times a week and beating his kids. He likens last week to Kristallnacht (The Night of Broken Glass) when Hitler incited mobs to go out and destroy all the synagogues and Jewish shops. Often on November 9 my mother would remind me about Kristallnacht which she witnessed as a 16 year old Jewish girl in Germany. So his comparison hits home for me.
Schwarzeneger doesn't dwell on details but strongly outlines the danger, what we must do, and a reassuring belief that we will do what is necessary and come out of this stronger.
It mirrors my sense of things. Americans have denied having "a single racist bone in my body" as long as I can remember. Trump has called on those racist bones and people have shed their lie and found the courage to proclaim what they really believe. Now the widespread legacy of racism in this country is out in the open where it can't be credibly denied. So we have finally gotten past the first step of healing.
It won't be easy. The tens of millions of Americans who voted for Trump range from Neo-Nazis to people who simply believe the old Republican ideals of free market and rugged individualism, to those whose jobs have been automated or transferred overseas, and those with a very literal belief in the Bible. Their self insecurity has made them susceptible to the professional level propaganda and lies of the Right - from Swiftboating John Kerry, to denial of the dangers of smoking, guns, and climate change.
Those of us who supported Biden must find the will to punish the worst of the transgressors, and find ways to respectfully find common ground. Yes, there are many things we have in common - experiences (war, union membership, religious organizations, music of our youth), passions (gardening, dancing, drinking, fishing, cars, sports teams), and family (from dysfunctional families to happy families and for older folks, devotion to and from grandchildren.) Let's find ways to start with those common bonds and then ease into the more difficult discussions. Listening and asking questions rather than challenging.
Here's Arnold. I can't quite remember him so on point and articulate.
When I watched this yesterday, I was reminded of a book I recently read, 'Heimat: A Memoir of History and Home' by Nora Krug, a German illustrator living in NYC.
ReplyDeleteShe was writing about the post-war understanding of the war and its aftermath, the promise and shame of being a modern German. She wrote of her driven research about her grandfather as a National Socialist Party member.
I read this book because of my own ancestry, of recently finding a photo of a male 3rd cousin in full military uniform (with swasitka) standing next to his grandmother on Insel Föhr, a little island in the North Sea where so many of my German (Frisian) ancestors come from.
I read it too, as Germans I knew in South Africa, while my father served as pastor of a Lutheran congregation there in the early 70s, had little notion of the shame Krug writes of in her generation. These Germans were very proud of their heritage and their superiority. One of the members of Dad’s congregation trained Alsatian guard-dogs to attack people for being ‘coloured’.
It was the way it was. Arnold saw the men of his Austrian youth strike out at families for their own culpability in the rise of state-sponsored madness. I appreciate Arnold's story – he tells us of the harm to the soul of people complicit in such madness.
I listen to Americans culpable for Trump today and hear people who inhabit a country of uncompromising anger, devaluing anyone not of their creed. Schwarzeneger is right to say this is dangerous; that Trump-ism can and will lead them to shame soon enough.
For many who read American history, slavery and war on first nations wasn’t the original ‘sin’ of the United States. That sin was taking up the tools of empire. Just as German-speaking folk of Northern Europe were united in empire by Otto von Bismark in the late 19th century (an aspiration for Hitler’s Third Reich), Britain saw its empire grow when it colonised the American shore. Eventually, its rebellious colony took up its project for itself.
In many ways, Trump’s followers seize this path today in choosing rhetoric of war. Arnold’s video won’t deter their course. Their struggle is for a new nation conceived in their liberty. Their sword is tempered by passion, the battle ending in a rebirth of freedom for two United States of America.
Jacob, I think there's a difference between colonization and empire. I know that historically they two have been very closely aligned, but believe that it's possible to have one without the other. I question whether it would have been possible for the continents of North and South America to remain uncolonized once they were discovered, and whether, if possible, that would have been a good thing. What I wish is that once the colonies and then the US were established, we could have behaved better. There were plenty of treaties and decent relations with Indian tribes, but we breached them all. (Just as we promised the mule and 40 acres to freed slaves, but reneged on that promise -- how things might have been different if we had acted honorably then!!!)
ReplyDeleteI disagree that the original sin was empire. Yes, a lot of colonization was impelled by the profit motive, but much was also people trying to get away from repression of various kinds. Had they behaved decently once they got here, things would have been different. It was the way they went about it -- slavery, mistreatment of natives -- that spoiled the project.
Kathy, I've enjoyed your remarks on Steve's blog. Thank you for that. However, we'll politely disagree. Nearly all my friends of American history taught here in Britain see the American project as one of empire. There's quite a bit to demonstrate that intent, actually. Most Brits simply don't tell Americans we think so (in being a well-notioned, second-tier nation, we know our place).
ReplyDeleteI think many Americans would be surprised at how at ease many here are with knowing America as an empire -- after all, Britain was 'good' empire itself. And honestly, with all the flag-waving, religious and military hubris it glories in, the United States does come across a bit as a modern Rome (pre-empire, of course).
Be well. From your many times friendly (ex)American contributor in Britain.
Yes, a strong and moving statement from Schwarzenegger. His linking of the Capitol invasion and Kristallnacht is a brilliant stroke; the shots of the shattered windows and the battering rams will be among the iconic images of this event. ...
ReplyDeleteOn a separate but related matter, I strongly recommend an op-ed in today's NYT by a writer, Katherine Stewart, who has been reporting on the Christian right for some time. It's called "The Roots of Josh Hawley's Rage." [Note I'm posting this for Peter, a reader who couldn't get his comment up and emailed it to me instead. I'm also having trouble. When I come to this page (which you all can see) I get logged out from my Blogger account. I couldn't post this on the first try. I'll try the anonymous option.]
Kathy and Jacob, could it be that your disagreement hinges on which empire you're talking about. It seems to me that Jacob is saying that the US has become its own empire. Kathy seems to be saying that the US stopped being part of the British empire when the US became its own country. Just a guess here. [Not sure why I was able to post as "Steve" in the previous comment since I'm not logged in - according to the top of the page. It was a last try effort and it posted the comment. Blogger works in mysterious ways. I'm assuming this one will work the same way.]
ReplyDeleteActually I think I'm saying that "empire" implies subjugation of whomever was there first for the fun and profit of the occupying nation. I'm not sure that 100% of the establishment of the 13 colonies was done as empire building. Some, of course, but some was more benign.
ReplyDeleteI do agree that you can fairly describe American activities for at least two centuries as empire-like, although we haven't been so explicit about it as the Brits were ("Empress of India," and all that). And recently, we have not attempted de jure occupation/possession/rule of our client states, just de facto economic and maybe military dependence.
I read Jacob's original comment to say that America's "original sin" was empire, not slavery/mistreatment of natives. To the extent that "originality" implies coming first, I'm not sure that's true. Slaves were brought in well before the US was independent, and well before we had any ideas of expanding our territory by taking over areas occupied by others.
Also, I believe that in the theological meaning of original sin, slavery has left a far greater blot on the American soul than empire-building. (we're guilty of both, of course) So that's two reasons why my vote is on slavery as original sin.
Okay, you've nudged me to respond further to Americans who talk of its 'original [meaning foundational] sin’ being slavery. I admit I've not been present for what seems to be a now widely-accepted phrase (having left the USA in 2006). Maybe this is why it strikes me as naive that the American construction of race and its consequents would have possibly happened without a priori European empire-building and the American succession to that order.
ReplyDeleteGreed’s was cause for colonial acquisition in the ‘Age of Discovery’: it sprang from state ‘mercantilism’ in which nations measured wealth in gold and favourable balance of trade. Finding gold in growing trade most certainly was England’s reward for its colonies in North America.
I’ve stated that a young USA gained England’s lands as its first ‘sin’ (empire); I can add that slavery was profitable to trade as well. If agreeing first origins is what we need for accord, I’ll restate my position this way: America’s original sin was for its settlers not to respect indigenous borders. This disrespect was amplified in its later 'manifest destiny' doctrine, itself a doctrine resting upon a much older -- indeed, Roman -- principle in European (canonical) law: ‘Terra Nullius’ (Latin ‘no-one’s land’; later taken up as the Discovery Doctrine).
Yes, African slave-trading was profitable for European-American business. But before this, terra nullius stated it was moral & lawful for a Christian monarch of Europe to seize land from non-Christians, as they were not subject to God’s dominion. If one throws in the then received knowledge of America’s first peoples, e.g. not ‘actively cultivating’ land or setting out boundaries, the stage was set for their domination, the very ends of Christianising empire.
I will say it this way: England first set out its dominion upon indigenous peoples in North America. England’s rebellious colonies laid claim to those same lands with words knit into the US constitution depriving black and Indian people of civil rights. Few colonists or newly-named Americans thought this wrong; many thought it a moral and legal good. You may be right that America’s original sin isn’t its systematic annexation of first nation lands and its Indian wars. For my part, maybe what I’m calling out as racial abuse of first peoples would be better called ‘squatting’* for just as the English settled Indian lands, American successors acquired these same lands by ruse, offering little but broken promises to first Americans.
Why do we call America’s ‘original sin’ racism alone? This isn’t a Bible study matter. America’s ‘sin’ is also recorded in the early prerogatives of its Empire that are still practiced around our world today.
*English: To occupy a given piece of fallow land in order to acquire title to it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_doctrine
Kathy, in all the above, I think we both missed the criticism of racism as what I may agree is closer (for both of us) to America's 'original sin'.
DeleteThe formation of the concept of 'race' is fairly recent in world history and the economics of the formative USA was instrumental in its creation. If originalism is key to our agreement, I would agree that European doctrine around new world lands was based in religious conviction that Europeans were 'saved' and the those of the non-European, 'unsaved'.
A bit like a Billy Graham crusade, then, the rush to see to it the first peoples of the 'new' world would be saved. Funny thing along the way to salvation is that racism came to define who it was who needed such saving.
Again, empire and racism may be joined at the hip and I just can't say one is inferior to the other.
The literal Jesus savior is the original sin. It is a symbol, turned to sin, by being stripped of what it suggests.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry, but I really don't know what you're trying to say here.
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