An ethnically diverse group of fools each pointing fingers at one another in a never-ending circle of misunderstanding. I saw a lot of this during my stint as a wholesale merchandiser; going from small grocery store to small grocery store (read: liquor store) in the Inland Empire and watching various people of color operate and repeat the intimate daily routines of buying and selling goods in small dusty shops in these here United States. These interactions intertwined their lives. I try to use my knowledge about what goes on in the area of the world where I would be had things been different in order to understand where I am now, and draw wisdom from events that have already transpired in history to create analogies. The so called "Middle East" is a perfect example of divisions being deadly. I listen to this track called something like "The Days of Sectarianism," ( يا زمان الطائفية ) where the stoney singer Ziyad Rahbani tells a dreamy creepy tale of Lebanon (which had a civil war for 15 years with hundreds of thousands of deaths); See, 'cause, even though most of my fellow Americans would look upon an Arab country and see a blob of amorphous A-Rabs, we historically have been divided and therefore weak for a long time; everyone clings to some corner or borough (or 'hood) and holds dear their own paranoia or grudges and prejudices about the other groups. Rahbani talks of Druze, Christians, Jews, Armenians, Shia or Sunni, only being united or deemed worthy when they are reduced to the currency they carry. Everyone always talks about diversity as though it is special to America, but other places in the world are actually very diverse and lessons about living together with people who are historically different can be found there. Mixed with colonization by Europe, it turned out to be a deadly formula in that tiny country (which was one of the first to ever invent boats, and to dye things purple thousands of years ago). And in the end, none of these groups are to blame on a wide scale; the roots of conflict in Lebanon stem from the fact that some colonizer picked up a map and drew fake borders to make some fake corner of the world where "Lebanese" colonial subjects should sit. The inhabitants over the years saw that division was associated with some taste of power and did the rest to each other for a slice of the pie. They continued that nasty habit, and it killed them and made them weak while waging war on one another. It's the same here. Well, except that the history here is so young (242 years) and that our different brown and immigrant groups aren't as familiar with each other. Still, in that short time we've developed such a poor relationship. It's a shame, because it's a quick path to destruction, or - on a more positive and constructive level - could be such a quick path to gaining respect, power, resources and community for each other through unity and understanding. I hate to say it, because stereotypical images of an A-Rab wielding a scimitar come to mind, but it's a double edged sword (which I believe is an idiom that originally comes from Arabic...). Anyway, I hate seeing this kind of destructive behavior. I think if we were to understand one another better we could see that we as people of color could have such a better destiny together and I just don't see enough positive discussion about it.
Commentaires