CRY THE BELOVED COUNTRIES

 Alan Paton wrote his famous novel Cry the Beloved Country re South Africa many years ago. Today, many Patons could write similar books about their own countries. Cry All Our Beloved Countries might be, at present and for the foreseeable future, a more apt title. Run through the world's nations and for the most, one can see only violence, rampant, violent hate, with no optimism visible. Those struggling to bring peace to their lands are fighting a Sisyphean war, discouraging, disheartening, almost hopeless. Yet if we give up, cede control to the forces inimical to a just and fair society, then what remains for us, for the kids? Truly? Nothing good at all. Oh, there might be a kind of 'peace' achieved, but one gained at the cost of human rights, of justice, of equality and actual true peace of mind, heart, and country. 

It is a fake peace as the society, the nation, the nations, war within themselves, going on to engulf other countries until the poison spreads to more and more nations of the world, even those far away in physical distances. Causes and cures are forgotten in the haze of warfare. Answers are no longer possible if we forget the questions at the root of it all, drowned in the violent rhetoric which precludes any hope of reconciliation. 

We have that situation already in so many nations; it is ugly, even terrifying, so why do we seemingly only ask for more? It is a question with no sensible answer. All we get is vitriolic speech, encouragement for the young to fight, to fill the depleted ranks of those already dead in forgotten wars, in overlooked 'spats', and kidnappings of the young, particularly in African nations torn apart by decades of internal warfare, receive a tsk, tsk and are then buried under new repetitive swings to cover fresher incidents of bloody hell. More violence, more outbreaks, more helplessness, hopelessness. No end in sight as agreements, fragile in inception and concept collapse in the face of remaining hate and incentives to fight, fight, fight, apparently easier to do than the hard work necessary to build a viable peace.

For sure cry our beloved countries.

Our tears rival those of Niobe, of those crying on the shores of Babylon. Of those crying, starving. dying in the name of what? Fragile agreements to halt the violence collapse, wither away, are as dust driven by gale force winds of evil intent. As the worst of humanity prevails.

As for me, personally, I cry indeed for many countries. I cry for the dead in Ukraine, the war that should never have been. I cry for those in embattled nations, torn from within, with groups targeted, hunted, ugly echoes of the past - accusations of witchery, of devils, of dehumanization, of pure lies invented only to support, to invoke more violence and deflect the understanding of the truth behind and beneath it all. I cry for nations caught in an ugly, murderous eddy of gang violence and economies unable to support life, as the world ignores their plights. I cry for those under the heels of murderous dictators, be it in China proper, in Hong Kong, in North Korea, in Hungary or Belarus or Russia, or in sects curtaining their 'believers' behind curtains of ignorance and driven hate. 

But most of all, I cry for my two countries, equally besieged, equally torn and threatened by deep, almost bridgeless chasms within society and I wonder where is the future? What do we foretell, foresee, allow for our young? What world of hopelessness are we bequeathing them? And most important, why!!?? What the hell are we doing? Those questions, and the answers forthcoming- or not- are the instigators of my tears.

I read, watch videos, hear the shriek of rending fabric. I know this is not the America of my childhood, even much of my adulthood. Yes, I am not an idiot unrecognizing the faults and vices of the America that was and is. However, I also recognize the progress and the hope it extends to all-yes, all, even as the level of hate rises, the prejudice grows in intensity. 

As a Jew, I am genetically attuned to the trauma and constant presence of prejudice and hatred that never dies. My people have been subjected to quotas and denials, limited in university acceptance and job employment. But I also know the opportunities it presented for my grandparents and great grandparents who came here, fleeing a murderous Europe who only desired their death, ready to resoak the already swollen soil of Europe with their blood, the blood of their children, their unborn slain before having a chance to live. I am here because they found refuge, a haven, here in America. The rest, who never made it here, denied entry by the McCarren Act of 1924 died, brutally. 

Now, I am almost hopeless, drained, by the internecine fighting within our nation, the mass forgetting that we are all immigrants, even those termed indigenous, all part and parcel of the exciting, wonderful experiment of America.  And so I cry as I watch the unraveling of the fabric of the nation, the threads holding it together fraying at both ends and in between. A welcome sign I saw yesterday welcoming the class of 2027 sparked a cynical thought -will there even be a class of 2027?

And tomorrow, I will write re my other country, my ancestral, genetic, G-d given, Biblical, ancient land. A historical imperative, a modern version and the gifts it has bequeathed to the world, its victories, its defeats, the positives and the negatives. Why my tears and fears as I watch the people turn on each other. Tomorrow.

For now, I simply end with my daily plea.

Together and together to rebuild America.

Together. Together. Together.

Together we can

HEAL THE WORLD.

HEAL YITZY!

Yitzchak Elimelech ben Chana Sarah

May he be granted refuah shelaymah bimheyrah beyameinu.