57. On Our Fear of "The Other".

Dearly Beloved,

Many years ago I lived on the island of Lundy, some 22 miles off the coast of Devon. It was quite isolated with good wildlife, especially birds and feral goats. The population was small, about fifteen people in winter, but visitors stayed during the summer months, a time when the island was accessible by boat. On one occasion I was working with a group of students on the birds and goats. Also on the island were a small number of Austrians from the mountains, seasonal labourers, who had been coming to the island for a number of years and were valued as hard workers. There was a group of divers retrieving objects from the wreck of the battleship HMS Montague which had run aground in 1906. These three groups almost immediately generated antagonisms. The divers and the Austrians owned at least one .22 rifle apiece, nominally at least, for shooting rabbits which abounded on the island. Quite soon we had an incident where a diver with a rifle pointed it at a group of students, apparently because he could not cope with the presence of other people when he wanted to shoot rabbits. Shortly afterwards I was confronted with an Austrian who fired towards me out of the sun at about ten yards with the bullet hitting the ground about four feet in front of me. He remarked “when we shoot the rabbit in the leg, it run away, but when we hit the human in the leg, he not run away”. The Austrians had been offended by myself and a colleague chatting to the girls in the Island's tiny pub.

Looking back on these incidents it strikes me that humans easily form antagonistic groups but we also live in communities where social and legal constraints normally limit the negative consequences of that tendency. Lundy was remote enough at that time to allow people to feel that the normal rules did not apply and immediately fell into potentially dangerous, atavistic behaviour. Even then the pointing of guns had consequences which resulted in neither the divers or the hard working Austrians being allowed to return in following years.

Inevitably I was reminded of this incident by the antagonisms in the USA where political divisions resulted in the use of force and the use of arms. After all, any fool carrying a gun believes himself worthy of respect, if only because he mistakes fear for respect.

I recently read the book by the Yale philosopher Jason Stanley How fascism Works; the Politics of Us and Them, 2018. The book sets out in simple terms how fascist regimes produce a new belief set amongst their people in order to take and hold power. One way that Fascists accomplish this is by making people fear others and set themselves up as saviours of the people from “the other”. One of the ways Trump has done this is through fear of immigrants, especially Mexicans; in order to do so he has accused them of terrible crimes. He has used that as a justification for the separation of refugee children from their mothers, so both are put in cages in camps near the Mexican border. He has also resurrected racial conflicts dating back to the American Civil war involving black people which has re-energised already deep divisions in US society. His other tactic has been to undermine the basis of US democracy by the big lie that the presidential election was stolen from him. The prevalence of conspiracy theories such as Q Anon, or the idea that we are ruled by alien, shape shifting reptiles, suggest that many people find it difficult to discern reality and are vulnerable to believe anything. They will certainly be tempted to believe Trump because he assures them he is on their side and is defending them from the dangers of being a victim of “the other”.

So we mistrustful humans are vulnerable to all sorts of strange beliefs and we have a tendency to fear people in other groups and generate antagonisms so we can be easily manipulated and, if we are not careful, we end up pointing guns at one another. The greatest thing about the teaching of Christ is that it points us away from our antagonisms towards compassion and love for “the other”. No doubt some reading this will reject the super natural elements of Christian belief but even if they do, they cannot deny the essential nature of love, peace and compassion which Christ preached. That compassion heals wounds and allows us human beings to work together for the common good. Meanwhile we need to act to reduce our antagonisms and believers in the Christian reality must be pleased that they can pray that the Holy Spirit comes to their assistance in this project.

Peace,

Paul.

Completed 19 January 2021.

Photo: Paul Munton.

Adonis blue (Polyommatus bellargus) feeding on a marjoram flower




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