Due to cultural issues and crime, many European countries have begun a process of deporting migrants and asylum seekers. Sweden announced that it would be relocating migrants to places where they were not free to mingle with society at large and evaluations would begin to determine whether or not the “immigrants” meet the criteria for staying in Sweden. Many other countries are implementing similar programs, some a little broader. For example, Germany is cracking down hard on Muslims who are alleged to be involved in international activities involving religious fanaticism and wars.
My mother was Swedish. She talked a lot about Viking mythology and customs, and read sagas that were in Icelandic. I was sent away from home at age nine and had at that time my first exposure both to socialism and to the beginning of what might be called a revival of Baltic trade relations, many of which had been disrupted by wars on the European Continent and communism to the east. This trend became very noticeable by the 1960s when there was a revival of interest in pre-Christian customs and considerable emphasis on everything Nordic. With the advent of immigrants came crime and destruction of schools and churches, and it would seem that the once sympathetic hosts have lost their tolerance and are about to rip up the welcome mat.
I am an anthropologist at heart and am fascinated by different cultures, beliefs, cuisines, and customs, but I have zero tolerance for violence and behavior unbefitting guests in a foreign country. So, I find myself wrestling with issues of where the line is between cordial hospitality and rejection of behaviors that are unacceptable in civil society. This includes that of tourists and troops in foreign countries.
Freedom
We were indoctrinated from an early age to believe that Pilgrims came to the New World in search of religious freedom. I do not recall a single reference to the Inquisition at the time these lessons were imparted. From what I learned as a child, the issue was Protestantism vs. Catholicism. That conflict was supposedly associated with whether or not the Bible could be translated into the vernacular. Over the decades that the bigger picture came into focus, it became clear that conversion in Latin America was mainly at the end of a barrel. Further to the north, it would seem the Protestants were more prominent, but proselytizing and destruction of indigenous culture were equally rampant and insufficiently questioned.
It is tempting to speculate that the Inquisition is alive and well in a new incarnate form, probably the World Health Organization. Moreover, the countless schisms still exist . . . and the destruction of what is natural is proceeding at an accelerated pace. Those of us who studied a little more history than was taught in school realize that the underlying forces behind covetousness and the lust for control over others has not abated so even if there is no visible Grand Inquisitor today — or dare we add the Gestapo — intolerance is rampant and continues to be dangerous.
Rewinding to my childhood, I was thoroughly acculturated to the homogeneity of Nordic cultures. According to my DNA report, 99% is far Northern European with the remaining 1% coming from the area around Lake Baikal. However, that is this life, and in other lifetimes, I have been Incan, Egyptian, and many different kinds of Asians so all these threads are woven into the tapestry of the subconscious, and I see my present physicality as a useful masquerade to speak to a civilization that is completely off the rails . . . and it is much more dangerous now than even during the Holocaust; and it is therefore all the more important to preserve the little bit of freedom we still have.
I favor strict enforcement of laws that protect people from the risks of theft and violence. Deportation is a light sentence for arson, rape, and arms trafficking. This said, we might ask about karma because many of the countries that are currently completely overrun with migrants are also countries with a history of colonialism and exploitation. While this does not justify the actions of those committing crimes, it does beg us to study our shadows and to recognize the patterns that are at work in our psyches.
Politics
Though it may seem like an abrupt change of subject, several subscribers have asked me to be more outspoken about the current state of American electioneering. I have been mostly mute, but the first concern that feels “safe” to mention is that the selection of a running mate should take into account the possibility that the running mate is not just pulling votes from a state that might otherwise be lost, but that the running mate could possibly become president. If we take the assassination of John F. Kennedy as an example, if he had chosen a running mate fit for high office, we never would have had a Lyndon Johnson in the White House . . . and perhaps, there never would have been a war in Vietnam.
So, while this example does not necessarily speak to schism, there was a schism. The assassination took place during a time when Martin Luther King was in the limelight; and integration, which should have been completed after the Civil War, was rocking parts of the Nation. A tolerant nation would have created a level playing field a century earlier.
Now, what I see is vicious campaigning by divisive individuals in the two main parties. There is also censorship on a grand scale, carried out mainly by the propagandistic press that for all intents and purposes controls most forms of information dissemination. In short, we do not really hear two sides of a story. We hear ranting and raving by people who cannot speak in a normal tone of voice and whose rhetoric exhibits the emotional maturity of small children. Everything is slanted in favor of one extreme or the other, but only the third party candidates seem to be rational and able to visualize a sustainable future.
Where intolerance is so evident, there will be a loss of freedom IF power is passed to such rabid individuals. Living in the U.S. as I do, this is very obvious here, but I see mirrors all over the world, and the polarization is just a form of intolerance. Yes, it is an expression of a point of view, but is the viewpoint worthy of expression?
Wrapping Up
Sometimes my writing style is not clear. I developed this style a long time ago and have occasionally tried to change it, but I think by leaving “gaps” in presentations, people have “ah ha” experiences and develop more intuition. The stakes are very high and we need experts leading, not cronies. We cannot ignore the advances of science nor the implications of peppering people with nanobots. If we do not turn on our headlights, we are risking more than civilization can afford to risk.
One person wrote to me that my vote counts. It may or may not, but millions of votes will make a difference. We gave up our belief in Santa Claus a long time ago, but why do we still believe that relatively small issues should be the basis of political affiliations when there are really huge issues facing civilization.
Copyright by Dr. Ingrid Naiman 2024 || All Rights Reserved
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