Over the summer of 2014, even a
passing glance at news outlets would reveal the particularly troubling state of
today’s world. The media portrait that has been constructed is one of
fast-growing monstrosity, whether it is based in Gaza, Iraq, Syria, or as close
to home as Ferguson, Missouri. Countless politicians and political analysts
have appeared on CNN and elsewhere, either
calling for the President to act more forcefully in navigating these complex situations,
or heralding his political strategies as brilliant and preservative of everything
we the people hold dear.
I by no means intend to spend my
words proffering yet another assertion about what is right in any of these current crises, for as with any binarized
statement, the process of heralding one faction as right while the other as
completely wrong collapses under any amount of pressure. I am also unwilling to
again assert the White House as a scapegoat for the violence unfolding in the
world today. Rather, I intend to highlight a troubling tendency I have found
not just on the news, but also among my own conversations with friends and
formidable opponents concerning the progression of these various events. There
is a part each of us can play in stopping the violence at home and abroad, awareness
and a desire to understand rather than retaliate crucial to the healing of this
broken world in which we live.
This morning on CNN, Republican congresswoman
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida appeared on News Room to discuss and analyze the
role of the President and Congress in the current conflict with ISIS. While her
interview was frustrating on numerous levels, what I found most unnerving was
her repetitive use of the word “cancer” to describe this radical organization,
asserting that excessive force must be unleashed as soon as possible in order
to eradicate this disease from the world. The image of a detrimental and
violent plague spreading to infiltrate our own country was accomplished fully
by juxtaposing her interview with a story about the San Diego native revealed
to be a sympathizer of ISIS. Thus, thousands of humans are dehumanized and
equated with a disease to be eradicated, and yet another person of color is portrayed
as a violent threat on national media. Two birds, one stone.
The repetition of her phrase was
obviously planned, as nobody repeats a phrase 6+ times unless they meant to say
it. My question is why she felt it would be so powerful to make this parallel,
and so important that people remember it that she repeat it as many times as
she did. I think the answer is rather obvious, and is similar to the reason the
host of the program referred to ISIS as savage at the beginning of the hour. These
words function as a means of dehumanizing the Other, placing blanket assertions
of inhumanity and evil over large groups of disadvantaged
people as a means of justifying more and more retaliatory violence.
I want to be clear. I am not in any
way attempting to justify brutal murder, threats of terrorist action, or
compulsory religious compliance. I do however want to be sure we all realize
what we are doing when we use the language we do, and the effect it has on the
people towards which we direct it.
I recently learned of an initiative
through the EU to deport individuals particularly of Iraqi or Afghani origin, titled
the European Return Platform for Unaccompanied Minors. This legislation, masked
in rhetoric of family reunion and reaffirming asylum programs in countries like
Norway, Sweden, the UK, and the Netherlands, has been examined by many academics who argue
that its true intentions are much more sinister. Though the programs mandates
shelter for those that are sent home, and professes to find their families when
they arrive, the implementation of these goals is much easier said than done,
and many children and young adults find themselves forced into militant groups
when they are forced to return home and their families are nowhere to be found.
Are these people evil, equitable to a
cancer we must eradicate with any force necessary? Certainly if they are, it is
a cancer of our own making. The very people we send away, who become too much
of an economic burden to help, those are the ones who later appear on our news
programs and who must be destroyed.
My point is simple, though sometimes, easier said than done. The nameless
individuals towards whom we are directing our blind hatred are humans too, and
the popular narrative of dehumanization and mass criminalization are just as
detrimental to the well-being of these people as the bombs we are dropping on
their homes. When we equate people to diseases and monsters, it makes it that
much easier for us to forget to be empathetic, to harden our hearts to the very
thing that binds us all together in the first place. It makes it easy for us to
deport children back the violent countries they fought so hard to escape, to
assume just because they share the brown skin of the extremist leaders we so
fear that they must also be evil. Yet every time we do this, we put another
life at risk.
Luckily for us, the world is changing.
Social media provides the opportunity for an alternate narrative to surface. Movements
like Humans of New York, and the countless news outlets that publish the images
and stories of the people caught in the middle of distant political power
struggles, do the hard work of illuminating the faces and the stories that
populate the stereotypes to which we cling, revealing the way their stories
contrast with the popular narrative.
It is up to each of us as members of the world community to consider the impact of the things we say about others before we voice them. It is up to us to let go of fear and anger and remember our common humanity, understanding that disadvantaged and desperate people are often driven to great and sometimes terrible acts of desperation. It is up to us to do the hard work of understanding others, of learning their stories and perhaps acknowledging our implicit part in them before we condemn them to death.
It is up to each of us as members of the world community to consider the impact of the things we say about others before we voice them. It is up to us to let go of fear and anger and remember our common humanity, understanding that disadvantaged and desperate people are often driven to great and sometimes terrible acts of desperation. It is up to us to do the hard work of understanding others, of learning their stories and perhaps acknowledging our implicit part in them before we condemn them to death.
One act of violence does not justify
another, and suppressing the anger of the world with more violence is a
temporary solution that will not lead to long-term healing.
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