From the moment I remember "being," I remember the stories of how our families, on both sides, must pay for our heritage homelands’ roles in WWII. My father’s family is Prussian which was absorbed into Germany. He was raised, mostly, by his grandmother, with the help of some beloved nannies. She lost all three of her sons within three years of one another, and she said it was God’s punishment. He would punish those who should have done something about Hitler, especially the Germans. That sense of debt, of owing humanity goes deep into you. On the maternal side my grandmother’s maiden name is Canaris. None of her brothers were allowed to fight against the Germans because they were related to Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of "the" SS, until he was caught as a double agent trying to kill Hitler. My great-uncles were sent to fight against the Japanese in WWII. Yet, right this moment my brother sits in a family room in Japan with his wife, Takako, and their daughters, Ruriko and Suyeri. My great-uncles were ashamed that their cousin was unable to kill Hitler, and the family owed a debt to society for that failure.
In recognizing that failing these people raised up a generation of children who now are relatives to all those who were once thought people to be conquered or subdued. My cousins are Carribean Indians from the Dominican Republic. I have stood next to them as they were called nigger. I have cousins who are the Indians who are being shot at as they try to exercise their right to fish. I have cousins who are the Japanese who wonder how we just stood there and let the government take other Americans land just because their eyes looked different. I have children who are Hispanic and wonder why we allowed their grandparents to be kidnapped and railroaded into a native country. I have cousins who are not only Jewish but every single one of God’s religions.
To understand the feelings that each minority race, tradition or religion has gone through is beyond our ability to empathize. What we can do is acknowledge the pain that has been suffered is pain suffered on behalf of all of humanity, on behalf of each us, in the painful process of rebirth into a global civilization.
When we become we, is when we well have truly progressed. When the Japanese internment camps become our collective acknowledged shame; when the Holocaust becomes our collective acknowledged horror, when the annihilation of the Indians becomes our colective anger, when the acknowledgement of the economic sacrifice of the African slaves becomes our dearest wish for reparation then we will recognize we are one humanity, with lots of differences, incredible and wonderful and intense, differences.
But, for now, we are nowhere near sharing the suffering and the pain. Some of the people who are suffering right now for their cultures/religions that have been the subject of severe discriminatory practices are the Bahá'ís in Iran, where a program of extermination has been ordered by the government. Bahá'ís are not allowed to marry, own property, go to school or have jobs in most sectors. The reason for this is that the Iranian Government regards the Bahá'í Faith as a misguided or wayward Islamic sect with a political orientation that is antagonistic to the Iranian revolution. However, Bahá'ís view themselves as an independent religion with origins in the Shi'ite Islamic tradition. Apostasy, specifically conversion from Islam, can be punishable by death. Bahá'ís are considered apostates because of their claim to a valid religious revelation subsequent to that of Mohammed, despite the fact that Bahá'ís do not consider themselves to be Muslim. The Bahá'í Faith is defined by the Iranian government as a political "sect," linked to the Shah’s regime and, therefore, counterrevolutionary. All of this is according to a report compiled by our own government. In 1993 the UNSR reported the existence of an Iranian government policy directive pertaining to the Bahá'ís. The directive lays out the design for the Supreme Revolutionary Council, who instructed government agencies to block the progress and development of the Baha'i community; expel Baha'i students from universities; cut Bahá'í links with groups outside the country; restrict employment of Bahá'ís, and deny Bahá'ís "positions of influence," including in education. The report also stated that Bahá'ís must be expelled from universities, either in the admission process or during the course of their studies, once it becomes known that they are Bahá'ís. They may not teach or practice their faith or maintain links with co-religionists abroad. The fact that the Bahá'í world headquarters (established by the founder of the Baha'i Faith in the 19th century, in what was then Ottoman-controlled Palestine) is situated in what is now the state of Israel, exposes Bahá'ís to government charges of "espionage on behalf of Zionism," in particular when caught communicating with or sending monetary contributions to the Baha'i headquarters. The Iranian government is persistent that until the Bahá'ís have been annihilated and all traces of the Faith obliterated from the land they will not stop with their ongoing harassment of the religion.
The Human Rights Watch have reported that in China the government has persuaded the Bush administration that a little known Uighur exile group, the East Turkistan Islamic Movement, was responsible for terrorist acts and belonged on America's list of leading terrorist threats. The isolated terrorist acts have been used to justify a wholesale crackdown on its Uighur Muslim population, including intensive political vetting of imams, surveillance inside mosques and screening of literature and poetry for even vague hints of dissent.
The Somali Bantu are descended from six African tribes and in the 1700's and 1800's Arab slave traders armed with muskets and whips plundered these regions. These slave traders captured untold numbers of men, women, and children to be sold on the Zanzibar slave market and shipped to the Persian Gulf and the Middle East. The few Somali Bantu now left have been driven away from Africa entirely because of the persecution and violence. Returning to Somalia with any reasonable expectation of a life of freedom and security is not possible.
There are countless others throughout the world. On every continent, almost every country has a group of people that they have chosen to arbitrarily persecute, giving everyone someone on whom to blame the problems of society.
While we are progressing to some degrees, in that we are able to watch ourselves and acknowledge these follies, until we are able to accept the fact that we are all one race, the human race and the people that we are harassing and harming, is us we will make little steps forward only to be dragged back, over and over, like an elastic band snagged on the nail of prejudice.
