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Here come the facists
Jun. 8th, 2009 02:30 pm"The U.K. Independence Party, which seeks withdrawal from the EU, took second place with about 17%. For the first time, the far-right, anti-immigration British National Party picked up two seats in the European Parliament." - http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124444700376593655.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
I don't tend to think of countries as having borders, but rather humanity shifting and changing like the landscape. Trees do not abruptly turn to desert, and one nationality does not abruptly switch to another. Sure, we are an island, but we are an island with a long history of both invasion and colonism. At some point, somewhere, we were all immigrants.
We seize hold of land and proclaim it to be ours, we refuse hospitality and welcome to those who would come here after us. Any person who would claim entry will be reduced to less than a person, will become a suspect, an enemy, a draining parasite. We forget that we thrive on trade, change, exchange, barter. We forget that every person who comes here brings more than just a mouth to feed - they bring stories, ideas, skills, talents, histories.
When my now-husband was detained at Gatwick, I felt that massive, powerful, anonymous apparatus that sits in our airports and ports and tracks everything that enters. The only positive thing that you can bring is a tourists money, and the promise of making it quick.
When I entered the USA, and had my bags searched, my computer ransacked, when the gifts my friends had given to me were questioned and mocked, when I was 'given a second chance' despite having done no wrong in the first place I felt the immense power that authority has, how irrational and impervious it is to normal human empathy and care.
The hate people have right now is rooted in fear. Maybe the far-right can turn this economy around, by controlling and counting everything, by cutting all support for those at the bottom of the rung, by laying aside the costly emotions like sympathy and love and tolerance. But the price of that is not counted in money, and is a loss of everything that matters.
Fear and ignorance and a need for a them and us. Forget the silences for all those who died in the war against fascism, forget the piles of starved and gassed bodies of a right wing adminsitration that did nothing except carry its ideology to the logical end. Let anyone who is not a strong, whole, white man be used and abused for the furtherance of the strong, whole, white man. Because, in the end, all that ever seems to matter is how much power you can clutch for yourself, and how much higher you seem to rise when you grind everyone else down into the dirt.
I don't tend to think of countries as having borders, but rather humanity shifting and changing like the landscape. Trees do not abruptly turn to desert, and one nationality does not abruptly switch to another. Sure, we are an island, but we are an island with a long history of both invasion and colonism. At some point, somewhere, we were all immigrants.
We seize hold of land and proclaim it to be ours, we refuse hospitality and welcome to those who would come here after us. Any person who would claim entry will be reduced to less than a person, will become a suspect, an enemy, a draining parasite. We forget that we thrive on trade, change, exchange, barter. We forget that every person who comes here brings more than just a mouth to feed - they bring stories, ideas, skills, talents, histories.
When my now-husband was detained at Gatwick, I felt that massive, powerful, anonymous apparatus that sits in our airports and ports and tracks everything that enters. The only positive thing that you can bring is a tourists money, and the promise of making it quick.
When I entered the USA, and had my bags searched, my computer ransacked, when the gifts my friends had given to me were questioned and mocked, when I was 'given a second chance' despite having done no wrong in the first place I felt the immense power that authority has, how irrational and impervious it is to normal human empathy and care.
The hate people have right now is rooted in fear. Maybe the far-right can turn this economy around, by controlling and counting everything, by cutting all support for those at the bottom of the rung, by laying aside the costly emotions like sympathy and love and tolerance. But the price of that is not counted in money, and is a loss of everything that matters.
Fear and ignorance and a need for a them and us. Forget the silences for all those who died in the war against fascism, forget the piles of starved and gassed bodies of a right wing adminsitration that did nothing except carry its ideology to the logical end. Let anyone who is not a strong, whole, white man be used and abused for the furtherance of the strong, whole, white man. Because, in the end, all that ever seems to matter is how much power you can clutch for yourself, and how much higher you seem to rise when you grind everyone else down into the dirt.
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