Posts tagged Bigotry

[Sorry. No pretty pictures or videos. Maybe later, when I'm less depressed.]

That term “ethnic cleansing” has always been problematic for me, especially because in recent decades the meanings of “ethnicity” and of “race” have been hopelessly confused. (Likewise “gender” and “sex,” but that’s a separate issue.)

The so-called “Ten Commandments” are recorded twice in the Hebrew Bible. Depending on version or edition, the citations vary. But in the wonderfully (if sometimes gruesomely) poetic KJV, here’s a partial quote from the Deuteronomy bit. (The other presentation is in Exodus.)

Deuteronomy 5: 13-21

Thou shalt not kill.

Thou shalt not commit adultery.

Thou shalt not steal.

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor’s.

Then, in Joshua, the Hebrews “ethnically cleanse” Jericho:

And they utterly destroyed all that [was] in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.

How can these two verses be reconciled?

Command: Don’t kill. Don’t steal. Don’t covet.

Same God, but seemingly irreconcilable command: Kill every man, woman, child, and animal in the city. Steal the precious metal, while burning all else. Covet and possess the city and surrounding land of Jericho.

As a lay person, I’ve always thought the key to reconciling these horrifyingly different phenomena lies in the concept of “neighbor.” When you’re dealing with a “neighbor,” one of “us” rather than one of “them,” then one set of rules applies. But if you’re dealing with someone who is not a “neighbor”? Then the rules are radically different. Covet, steal, kill all you want. The “other” is not just the enemy. The “other” doesn’t even qualify as human.

The way this is playing out on the world stage is easy to see. Bosnia? Darfur? Palestine?

Here in the U.S.? What do the teabaggers mean when they talk about “taking back their country”? [Yeah. They hate the term “teabagger” now that they’ve figured out what it means. But tough shit. They chose the term, so they should learn to live with it.] “Their” country? What does that mean? Who is taking back the country from whom? Does skin color have anything to do with it?

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

The pressures on our world are going to ramp up geometrically, like the pressure in one of Colonel Sanders’s pressurized chicken fryers. Why do I say geometrically rather than arithmetically? Start with global warming. Multiply that by population growth. Multiply the result by shrinking water resources. That makes for a geometric progression.

And the more the pressure increases, the more human populations will find themselves seeing those like them as “neighbors” and those the least bit unlike them as “non-neighbors.” Good neighbors will band together to do to non-neighbors what the Hebrews did to the persons living in Jericho:

And they utterly destroyed all that [was] in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.