THINKING IT THROUGH

    First I would like to apologize to some people who sent items to post on the blog and they were not. I have been under the weather this past week or so after surgery and a bad allergic reaction, so apologies to all who might feel slighted.
     This posting is one that I have been working through in my head and will continue to do so as I write it. People might disagree with it but these words are coming from both heart and mind so please read accordingly. It is a bit long, but worth reading. Worth the thinking it through.
     Recently there has been a spate of slave related movies, Civil War movies, a remake of Roots, and an upcoming movie about Nat Turner's Rebellion, a slave rebellion in the South which was bloody and frightening on both sides. There has also been for some time a resurgence of vicious anti Semitism that has become PC and almost can be called the fashion of the day and what is worse is when there are Jews themselves caught up in this viciousness as they parrot those who hate them without realizing what they are doing. And soon the movie Denial will be released, a movie about the Holocaust denier David Irving and the Holocaust historian, Deborah Lipstadt. For those who read Leon Uris's novel QBVII it is as if the book has come to life.
     In any case, here are my thoughts as they have developed and are developing mixed with lots of questions. Obviously one of the first is how can people deny the facts of life, the facts on the ground - the camps, the ovens, the smokestacks, the pictures and reels of film, the testimony of those who survived, the diaries left behind by those who did not, and the words of the killers themselves. And yet, deny it they do and when that horrific series of killings and slaughters are denied, the stage is set for more, and trust me, there are people out there willing and able to do so, including right here in our own USA. It is not hard to turn people against another group of people if they are portrayed as "the other", different, lesser beings, worthy of not much at all and therefore, easier to kill and mistreat and torture, et al.
     And then we have the period of slavery here in America and even before it was America as an independent country but existed as a colony of Great Britain. The story of Roots begins before the country was established and to give it credit, the role of native Africans in the slave trade is portrayed, though they are given an excuse as being "entrapped" by the rifles and arms of the English, thus escaping full responsibility. But that is not really so is it? No matter the reason, anyone taking part in this trade, black or white, English, American colonist, Portuguese trader, or whomever, anyone - is guilty and yet there are questions to be raised.
     Slavery has been part of history since the beginning of time - just as there has been hatred of the Israelites from the beginning of time. It seems hatred has no time when it did not exist. In any case, the conqueror or victor always took the vanquished hostage into captivity and they served their masters as slaves. It was the normal situation. These slaves too lost their background, their roots, and were often lost in the mists of time, lost to their people. The African slaves, no matter where they were taken, had the same experience, losing much of their roots, though in some countries they were able to keep more of it, albeit under slave conditions.
     Slavery was an economic tool and a moral degradation of body and soul and the two could never be separated, but people are very good at hiding the truth, covering it up, making pets of some slaves, selling off troublemakers or ignoring the whole situation. Just as the Nazis took Jewish slaves into their homes at the camps to serve as slaves there, and talked in front of them as if they did not exist, did not matter, so too did the slave owners of America and elsewhere. Such was the status of life within the system of slavery. Slaves were sub-human and therefore of no account.
     However, what I noticed about this Roots version is that it has almost gone entirely the other way and there are basically no good white people other than a woman who played a spy for Pinkerton and she was quickly dispatched by hanging by a caricature of the evil Southerner. Another one was portrayed as a yelling off the wall preacher who ranted of Hell and the Devil and flames. That was it. And all slaves other than one who chased after Kunta Kinte as he tried to escape are almost all caricatures to a degree as they are presented as the "noble savage" able to overcome all and be wonderful deep hearted people despite their predicament. True, there are always people who can rise above it all, but then again, no group of people is perfect, not at a 100% rate and making it so is being unfair to their humanity as well as going the other way.
     Truth to tell, there is  no way we can portray it all as it is within the fog of history, some closer, some farther away, but we can try to be fair to all and remember history and the times. WE say to ourselves, we wonder, why did they not know better, why did they not feel deep within their souls the darkness of this slavery, of one person owning another, of this degradation of ALL who partook of it, who supped at the table of this depravity? And yet two centuries later we could have asked the same questions of the Nazi Holocaust and of their native assistants and trust me on that, the Lithuanians, the Ukrainians, many Polish, the French, yes, the French and many others amongst the Netherlands and other conquered countries enthusiastically took part in the killing , in the slaughter of the Jews and other sub-humans of the times. Should they not have known better by then?
     But the truth of the matter is that people are fallible and in many evil ways, in turns of thoughts which should long ago have been banished from our minds - but have not and so we continue with the same sins, the same evil. Look today at ISIS and Boko Haram and look at what they do - they take slaves, worker slaves, soldier slaves, sex slaves, and beat and kill and maim and should we not all have known better by now?
     History might give some excuse to people, but not really we say, and yet we continue to allow history to form around more slavery and more hate and more evil. We just saw the movie Anthropoid, about the attempt to assassinate Reinhard Heydrich, one of the worst that came out of the Nazi movement and in that attempt thousands of Czechs were killed in reprisal. Such is the thinking and the reaction of those who look upon "others" as of lesser importance, lesser matter and therefore it is easier to justify killing them. And yet we read of stories where the murderers of the Holocaust had to be relieved of duty for it seared their hearts as well, the constant slaughter, the cruelty, and yes, the inhumanity of it all.
     And one fact keeps coming to the fore. All these people who denied their own humanity just  as they denied the humanity of millions of others - these people were never happy, always unhappy, angry, always missing out on the better things in life and no, not the goods and homes and art they stole from others, not their blood and their lives, but of love and peace and serenity. These were never present in their lives and it is as if they knew what they were doing was wrong, beyond wrong, yet how to stop? That they did not know or care to know perhaps. Humans are good at fooling themselves.
     So how do we get to the truth of history? Beats me. There is a reason it is called his story. It is the story as the victor allows, the story mostly from the his side of life rather than her story and it all plays a role. One would think that perhaps, hopefully, mankind is improving but there are too many truths of life around the globe to maintain that statement with a straight face. It seems that the old hatreds never go away and if it seems so, it is simply them morphed into some other representation and for all of our sakes can we not do something? Is it not better to live in true peace, with love of family and friends surrounding one rather than the tamped down hate directed at those who would control others? Even look at the hate that is being generated in this Presidential campaign and it did not start there - it came into it with its miserable head held high. Who is right here and who is wrong? How do we distinguish between the "safe" other and the dangerous one? If I knew that - I could rule the world! But who would want to! Who would want to be the target of such hate, such anger - and yet there are those at all levels who want just that, who are seemingly immune to it as they march along in their evil paths. Perhaps we all need to face the truth within ourselves and search deep within our souls for our boundaries and once we do that only then can we perhaps put aside all the lies, all the old and eternal hatreds and become as G-d meant us to be - humans in His/Her image, doing right and justice throughout our lives, caring for family and for the strangers in our midst.
     I can use the refrain Tick, tock here again but in all seriousness, sometimes I wonder if we even have the second note alive. Perhaps we are at the Tick only. Read history, learn history and try to understand it for only that and only then can we perhaps avoid the repetition of history that seems to constantly eat at our souls.