GOP's rhetoric and the recent rise in intolerance.
This is how it begins, the rise of thanatopolitics and politics of suspicion, in random acts of violence against our supposed others. Those placed on the fringe of the norm in simplified rhetoric of our demagogue politicians, pop theologians, and hate group gurus.
An armed man enters a place of worship, in Wisconsin, targeting a group of odd-looking people for the way they look. That the victims are killed in mistake, for the real target were probably Muslims, is not important. What is of significance is that someone can find it absolutely justified in twenty-first century America to perform such an act.
In another act at another place the arsonists at least know their target. A mosque is burned down, in the holy month of Ramadan, in a town called Joplin, Missouri. Another victory for the righteous against odd-looking people from elsewhere. It does not matter that most of them have probably lived their entire lives here. Meanwhile, in the great state of Tennessee, the two Republican contenders for the office are proving their validity as leaders by proving the degree of their opposition to a new mosque outside of Nashville.
In another random act, three boys, the oldest only ten, enter the house of a handicapped Vietnamese immigrant, her name Minh Tran, to beat her, to ransack her house, and to steal twenty dollars. Thankfully, in this case, like all the others, the community–the great warm-hearted Americans–came together and it is being reported that the boy’s own mother turned him in.
Yes, these are random acts of violence performed by different people at different places. But in this randomness there is a sad and historically pertinent pattern: the targets are all those who have been assigned the position of otherness. The pogroms are never planned; they happen because the cultural rhetoric depends upon intensifying language of otherness: The GOP leadership, without a doubt, has created this atmosphere of tolerance for prejudice, for suspicion of certain groups, and, most certainly, of a strong distrust of immigrants. I blame them for some of these acts that are symptoms of what kind of ideological poison is being fed to our children.
I am not new to such scenarios: My native country, Pakistan, is being ripped apart because, besides other material causes, so many of our politicians relied on such politics of intolerance and permitted things to be said and normalized that should have not been a part of the norm. And now, having created a culture permissive of open prejudices, the nation is being ripped apart.
This is how it begins: random acts of violence against those who look different and are made into scapegoats. But it does not stop there: given the right conditions, this cancer becomes self-perpetuating and can annihilate entire cultures, entire nations, entire civilizations.
So, let us think over this, but, most of all, let us force our so-called leaders to reshape their rhetorics. Let us tell them that they need to be careful with their words, that they should not single out different groups to bolster their claims to leadership, and that if they do that, then they are destroying the very future of a diverse, tolerant, and compassionate America.
Yes, let us hold all these prophets of hate accountable and let us stand by all victims of prejudice and hate.
(Source: http://www.masoodraja.com/...)