We Are Pointing at Ourselves

Every single moving mouth and face I see in the media seems to be obligated to stress the barbarity and illegitimacy of the Maduro government to establish some acceptable moral clarity, even before they can carry on with any analysis of the current political situation or the current political conditions in the world. Likewise, each personality seems obligated to make similar statements as a prerequisite to speaking on the Iranian regime and the religious leaders controlling the country. Each is evil, they must claim, and they expressively disagree and denounce them in all shapes and forms. Each is beyond the pale of acceptable civilization, they must state. Each has no inkling of morality but is simply obsessed with power and control. This was the same in any discussion of Hamas in Gaza. Every political critic was required to denounce the various regimes and point out their flaws without spelling out the historical influences that helped create them and set them in motion. Anyone who has ever spoken up for peace and credible reflection knows what it’s like to be baited or accused of being an apologist for the bad guy. But this is not necessary and distracts from a full and meaningful analysis.

I am not going to seek acceptability by engaging in some litmus test of morality, regurgitating a litany of flaws, and explaining how I don’t agree. I believe there is a collective of people so tired of moral denunciations that they can look past my refusal to criticize and denounce and hear what I am trying to say. I am reminded of my experiences with my work in the drug and alcohol recovery community in Roxbury, Massachusetts, and the very poignant but grassroots logic and moral challenge that often flowed from that recovery community. People would remind us that when we were so busy pointing fingers at others, there were four fingers pointing back at us. This means that when we point out the deficiencies, the cruelty, the lying, the racism, and the hatred of others, it is not all in them, but it also resides in us. We are not exempt and we are not free from all the dismissive political distances that we try to create. There is some Nicolas Maduro in us. There is some Ali Hosseini Khamenei in us. Putin is in us. We find that Hamas is in us and has always been part of who we are. We find that Palestinian dismissal resides in so many of us as it does in Netanyahu and Donald Trump. We need to quell our objections and realize that, in so many instances, there is a mirror that projects a reflection onto ourselves, and we discover that it is in us.

I am astounded that, given all of the vigorous and vehement denunciations and dismissals of Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, Colombia, and the denunciation of Hamas, there are still four fingers pointing back at us. If we look closely enough, we find all the criticisms and flaws we recognize in the other, and our strong objections are mirrored in this government and in this historical moment in this country. Murders do not just happen with the brutality of other governments, but happen in Minneapolis with the killing of Renee Good. That murder happened not too far from where George Floyd was also killed. As we point out the roundup of people in other countries, we must remind ourselves of the undocumented immigrants and US citizens that the Trump administration has arrested. More than 328,000 people have been disappeared in the illegal and unconstitutional sweeps carried out by the administration. 327,000 have been deported. At least 22 have died in ICE custody. Most facilities are operated by private corporations that have raked in huge profits, such as the GEO Group. Just as this administration is obsessed with crushing Tren de Aragua, a notorious gang that reaches from Venezuela into the US, yet the parallels are frightening with the US reaching into Venezuela, creating a vassal state, stealing oil and other resources, claiming that they have a right to do so, and arrogantly stating that they are running the government. There are four fingers pointing back at us. The sheer arrogance of demanding that Greenland be controlled by the US, the hard way or the easy way, points to the US’s rogue status. There are many other examples of racism, hatred, cruelty, brutality, the looting of other countries, the demanding of rare earths, and, in general, street racketeering, but on a broader scale. The expression of this moment with the US government is theft, fear, bullying, and simple old street protection and racketeering. There are four fingers pointing at this government and this country.

The Fellowship of Reconciliation-USA, the oldest peace and justice nonviolent organization in the country, embraces this hard truth. They are us, and we urge that we move away from the paradigm of the other and, almost in confession, that what the country claims as the other is us, and four fingers are pointing back upon us. Our humanity demands that we cease claiming the evil in others without recognizing it in ourselves.

The hypocrisy is when people go through all the denunciations of the other over legitimacy and brutality, over legalities and dictatorship, and fail to acknowledge the mirror that reflects back on this country, first and foremost, and our claims of deep immorality, where objections are strongly expressed, belong to us. If we are going to denounce any place to gain credibility in our analysis or criticisms, then the talking heads and the experts need to state that this is us in all of the shapes and forms of political repression and immorality. They are us, and our denunciations begin at home – stating that we are strongly opposed to what is happening in the US, and that we do not agree with the images and political agenda in the US, just like we do not agree with what is happening abroad. The reflections of the flaws of other places and countries are, namely, a reflection of us, and on us, and four fingers are pointing back at us.

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