Growing up in America and in Western culture, I have swum in the ideals and worldview of many well-known American and Western historical figures. The perspective from this Western lens formed my pre-teen, teen, and adult years until over a decade ago.
Example 1: Throughout elementary, junior high, and high school history classes, I learned that Indians, as they were called at that time, were all blood-thirsty savages. They were barbarians and dangerous. They attacked new American settles moving to the west without cause. And look how they killed people? So savagely. In such an uncivilized manner. Scalping people, tearing open their chests, slicing the skin open on their arms, arrows all over their bodies. How totally barbaric! They were nothing more than animals was the message I got throughout those years.
Example 2: For the last 40 years, I was told there were terrorists in the world, and all of them were located in the Middle East. That anyone who wore turbans or head headcoverings, flowing clothing/robes, had tan skin, and believed differently than us were extremists and terrorists.
Back when I listened to mainstream media and was gullible, believing anything they said and broadcasted, when 9/11 happened and within a couple of hours, the murderers were named without any investigation, I swallowed it whole. There wasn’t any reason, in my thought process then, to think we should wait and see.
All the terrorists in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran. I remember being afraid sometime around 2004 or 2005 that the killers of the journalist, Daniel Pearl, were somehow going to fly over to my country and hide under my bed, waiting to lop my head off while I slept.
It’s embarrassing to admit that, but I think it’s important to admit these types of thoughts and fears because I’m sure I wasn’t alone in this and that many people feared this post 9/11. Let’s not forget the daily alert charts with colors: Blue = Guarded; Yellow = Elevated; Orange = High; Red = Severe.
Did this do anything but keep the public in constant fear? No. I think that was all it did.
So, I believed for many, many years that every Arab was a terrorist, and that included Palestinians. After all, we didn’t really get views from both sides on the Israel/Palestine conflict that has been going on for many decades.
Again, I took what was spoon-fed to me by the media and government officials.
By 2009 I became disenchanted with the Republican Party and realized after coming closer to Christ at that time that I was beginning to disagree with some of their stances, such as capital punishment, environmental issues, never-ending wars, and the importance of social programs for me and my fellow citizens. Unfortunately, the Democratic Party that I looked into following this revelation grew to be just as bad and even worse in some circumstances from my perspective.
I discovered many lies the media and our government have been telling for nearly a century. Perhaps I’d finally grown and came to understand the world, people in power, and the old sins of pride, greed, and lust for power.
For all my life and reading through history, the rulers of the West, which I concentrated on since I live within this, were often saying that the ways those with little and sometimes no power fought back was considered “uncivilized”. Their warring tactics were not civilized like us civilized, progressive people of the West.
But there was a huge irony and plain absurdity in this.
All the while the Western leaders, especially my country’s, were spouting off these arrogant words, it was my country’s government leaders who dropped two atomic bombs.
Somehow, atomic weapons, tactical nuclear weapons, huge many-ton bombs, and biochemical weapons are the “civilized” way to kill people.
I don’t see how white phosphorus is in any way a “civilized” way to kill people. Neither do I see the total annihilation of hundreds of thousands of people with one atomic bomb is “civilized”.
Listening to a you tube channel’s interviewer talking with Colonel Douglas Macgregor a couple of months ago, I found this information incredibly important and valid.
When asked about the slaughter going on in Gaza, the colonel, who has always supported Israel, used this comparison in how decades-long oppressed and horribly-treated people will sometimes react and lash back at their oppressors.
He said, “Bear with me. In 1227, an English army was sent to Scotland by Edward I. The army met a Scottish force in the vicinity of a place called Sterling Ridge. Ultimately, the English army was destroyed, defeated. It wasn’t simply defeated. The Scots proceeded to murder everybody in the organization. Very few people managed to get back to the border of England and escape with their lives.
“The hero of Scottish history, Sir William Wallace, got a hold of the two leading knights who commanded the army, skinned them alive before he killed them. And then had belts that he wore for the rest of his life made from their hides.
“Now, why? Because Scotland and the Scots had been subjected in the previous hundred years to horrific treatment by invading English forces. So they exploded with rage and anger, and the violence was outrageous, unbelievable.
“Today, we look at that and are just shocked. How could you make a man your national hero that skins people alive and makes belts out of their hides?” (courtesy you tube video here)
So I’ve learned that when one group of people has power and oppresses another group of people through torture, killing, and restricting access to water, electricity, and the like, the oppressed people will become traumatized, depressed, and outraged and eventually, if they get the chance, revolt against their oppressors.
Shouldn’t we try understanding and coming in peace when encountering other people on the planet?
There are things people do in remote parts of the world that are not the “norm” and what we Westerners would consider “uncivilized”, like tribes people eating their grandfathers. I learned about in my Cultural Anthropology class when I was in college a few years back. Reading the magnificent book, Things Fall Apart, shows how some people in areas of Africa live and how their beliefs and customs mold them. I had a hard time completely understanding. However, even if I don’t understand completely the reasons why they do certain things that upset or appall me, I must recognize that their lives are different from mine and my traditions and customs and accept that, as well as the fact that they, too, are human beings.
Therefore, the overall lesson I’ve learned the past several years is to show courtesy, care, and tact for people you learn about in person, via books, or media that live in different parts of the world.
So many “enemies” we have now were due to our actions in their part of the world. Read our and world history and you’ll see this. Rarely do some people in one group hate another group of people in another country for no reason.
Although we live in a fallen and broken world, I wish my country’s leaders would learn to do just as I said above.
Matthew 5:9 (NIV) “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”
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Modest Musings 