Fear, Power, Selfishness, and "Beloved Countries"

“Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear.”
—Alan Paton

Throughout my growing up years, my mother sporadically suggested books I might want to read. Usually I think I asked for ideas, but occasionally she would just bring me a book in her pile from one of her regular forays to the library. When I was in high school, she recommended that I read Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country. I liked the book then and, as an adult, have always kept a paperback copy in my own library. Last spring, though, I saw a movie version of the book and decided I wanted to read it cover to cover again. This time I was swept away! I loved it!

A writer, educator, devout Christian, and impassioned citizen of South Africa, Alan Paton wove all these strands of his being, history, and experience into the backdrop of his novel, and his lyrical style, allusions, and themes often invoke The Bible, particularly the King James translation. Although the novel is specifically a story about South Africa (first published in 1948, the same year apartheid became the law of the land), like any good literature it transcends the specifics of setting and character, becoming one of much grander scope—a true story of the human condition.

As I read the book this most recent time, I certainly envisioned the relevance of the story for South Africa, yet I also realized that the “beloved country” of the title is not limited to South Africa. So many of the dilemmas unfolded and questioned in the novel are dilemmas and questions confronted by my own “beloved country.” For the most part, I have not been happy—or even comfortable—with the direction the politics of immigration is currently moving in the USA. I believe too much of it is shaped by both fear and selfishness cloaked in a self-righteous mantle of philosophical faux-justice. Operating in a very human mode, we tend to be afraid of what is different, unfamiliar, or threatening to jostle our comfort zone, most particularly in how a new entity might impact power and resources, personally and collectively. Maybe because immigration issues seem to stem from “threats” visualized in similar fashion to those visualized by many in the white society of twentieth century South Africa, I found my own thoughts returning repeatedly to the immigration/assimilation situations in the USA as I read and underlined and marked up the margins of my copy of the book.

Here are some of my marked quotes to ponder from Cry, the Beloved Country regarding how we live our lives and how we try to structure our “beloved countries” :


[Perspective of one in “white society”]
“Who knows how we shall fashion such a land? For we fear not only the loss of our possessions, but the loss of our superiority…. Is it not better to hold what we have, and to pay the price of it with fear?...

“We do not know, we do not know. We shall live from day to day, and put more locks on the doors, and get a fine fierce dog when the fine fierce bitch next door has pups, and hold on to our handbags more tenaciously; and the beauty of the trees by night, and the raptures of lovers under the stars, these things we shall forego…. We shall be careful, and knock this off our lives, and knock that off our lives, and hedge ourselves about with safety and precaution. And our lives will shrink, but they shall be the lives of superior beings…. And the conscience shall be thrust down; the light and life shall not be extinguished, but be put under a bushel, to be preserved for a generation that will live by it again, in some day not yet come; and how it will come, and when it will come, we shall not think about at all.”


[Msimangu, a black priest]
“Because the white man has power, we too want power. But when a black man gets power, when he gets money, he is a great man if he is not corrupted. I have seen it often. He seeks power and money to put right what is wrong, and when he gets them, why he enjoys the power and money. Now he can gratify his lusts,…. Some of us think when we have power, we shall revenge ourselves on the white man who has had the power, and because our desire is corrupt, we are corrupted, and the power has no heart in it. But most white men do not know this about power, and they are afraid lest we get it.

“…But there is only one thing that has power completely, and that is love. Because when a man loves, he seeks no power, and then he has power….

"I have one great fear in my heart, that one day when they are turned to loving; they will find that we are turned to hating."



[Arthur Jarvis—son of James Jarvis, a white land owner]
“The truth is that our Christian civilization is riddled through and through with dilemma. We believe in the brotherhood of man, but we do not want it in South Africa. We believe that God endows men with diverse gifts, and that human life depends for its fullness on their employment and enjoyment, but we are afraid to explore this belief too deeply. We believe in help for the underdog, but we want him to stay under….

"The truth is, our civilization is not Christian; it is a tragic compound of great ideal and fearful practice, of loving charity and fearful clutching of possessions.”


[These are some other quotes in the book I liked and marked.]
“You ask yourself not if this or that is expedient, but if it is right.”


"It is not permissible to add to one's possessions if these things can only be done at the cost of other men. Such development has only one true name, and that is exploitation."


“We are caught in the toils of our own selfishness.”


“There is only one way in which one can endure man's inhumanity to man and that is to try, in one's own life, to exemplify man's humanity to man.”


When I discuss immigration issues with others, often the idea of fairness arises. I do believe in justice, yet I also do not believe we fully understand how to balance justice with mercy. Hence, I shall conclude this post with another quote, this time from Archibald MacLeish’s play J.B., a retelling of the Book of Job:

“You wanted justice, didn’t you. There isn’t any. There is only love.”

Shanghai and Environs, Briefly Noted

Shanghai is a study in contrasts.  The emerging China--the one already on the entire planet's speed dial, the one engaged in final preening before assuming the number one position of its avidly pursued aspirations--stands side by side with the remnants of the mess and poverty wrought by harshly imposed communism and a tragic interval of cultural revolution, as well as with the faded, yet aesthetically moving, vignettes remaining from previous glory days in history.  When I taught English in China for six weeks in the summer of 2004, high school students asked me more than once where I'd most like to live in China.  Pleading a very real lack of knowledge and experience, I would always return the question to them and ask where they would suggest.  For preferred cities, Shanghai always ranked on top.  Based on my February visit, that opinion certainly merits my assent.


This is Shanghai:

And this is Shangai:

And this is Shanghai:

NOTE:  Over 22 million people currently live in Shanghai.

Addendum: How to Look American

This afternoon I walked home from school on a glorious day with the atmosphere sunshine-warmed—to 50+ degrees even—and sunshine-lit to a brightness validating the wearing of sunglasses. While still on post, I passed a GI waiting at a bus stop. We both nodded and smiled. Then he read from a paper a phrase in halting and poorly pronounced Korean...because, apparently he was a newcomer. Having no idea what he meant to say, I laughed and said, "Ooooh, I don't know!" Momentarily startled, he took a second look at me—a good hard look, this time—and replied, "Oops, my bad!"

Okay, I did have sunglasses concealing my eyes, but seriously...Korean?! May I add that I was also wearing running shoes and toting a backpack!

How to Look American

Apparently, I don’t look American.

Unless being mistaken for a Native American counts. One summer during my college days, a couple of Native American guys greeted me with “ya ah tee” as they passed. Now I knew that “Ya ah tee” was a Navajo greeting, one often used among many of the Native American students on campus (and a large percentage were Navajo) when they passed each other because I had a good friend and roommate who was Navajo; I had witnessed this exchange many times when I was with her. However, on this occasion I was with my sister Diane—very much a blue-eyed blonde—and I had never seen these guys before either. Granted, I sported a summer tan and my hair was pulled back in a ponytail. When I returned the greeting, though, I guess I lacked a convincing intonation/inflection because they took a second look and just smiled.

Yes, I have lived overseas for over twenty years now, but I had only lived in Germany for a little over five years when I first detected the fact that people could no longer easily place my nationality. When wandering bazaars in Turkey, vendors and hucksters—masters at individualizing any sales pitch (think language as well as what price to begin the bartering)—would call out to my friends in English whereas I usually had French directed toward me. When I didn’t respond immediately, they would often try an Italian or German version; from the menu of possible languages to employ with me, English rarely made an appearance before the third attempt.

Although I lived in Germany for eighteen years, I rarely had people in Germany come up to me and ask for directions or whatever, so perhaps I don’t look very German either. Yet, when I traveled in France, Spain, or Italy, inevitably I would have someone approach me and inquire after something in the official language of the land.

One time I went with a friend to a popular Biergarten in Kaiserslautern, Germany, to meet some other friends before going to a movie. When we entered—obviously together—the waitress spoke English to him, he responded in German (yeah, he spoke pretty good German), and then she turned to me and spoke in French! Now what’s up with that?!

For my first trip to Sri Lanka, I traveled with a tour group comprised of sixteen American school teachers all teaching in Germany. At one point we toured a facility that made batiks, and during the free time at the end—for browsing and buying—one of the guides asked me if I was American, too, like all the others on the tour. I said yes, and then she asked me if I was “mixed.” (Okay, my ancestry is totally some sort of “Euro” mix, but I don’t think that is what she meant.) Sri Lanka marked the first instance of a mixed heritage question, but since actually moving to Asia, I’ve fielded that question at least twice more, most recently one Sunday in December. For church I attend an English-speaking congregation that shares the church building with a Korean-speaking congregation. Although one has services in the morning and the other in the afternoon, there is often overlap of congregations in the common areas, of course. That Sunday I was prowling the church building a bit before heading to a Sunday School class and ran into a contingent of Koreans in the lobby. Two Korean men in conversation turned as I entered, smiled and then greeted me. I can’t remember if they greeted me in English or Korean (I have mastered the Korean greeting now), but we talked in English because I definitely can’t converse in Korean. One of those men asked me if I was Korean! I must have looked surprised because he quickly added “Korean and American?”

Whether or not I have ever looked American, I am no longer sure. At present, though, I seem to be deficient in some basic qualities and/or characteristics deemed representative of Americans. Hence, if you want to look American, the best counsel I can offer is to avoid looking like me

The Sinai (part 2)

The Sinai is Bedouin country. One account I read stated that only about ten percent of Bedouins are fully nomadic any more because, as the world changes, life changes—for Bedouins and for all of us. Still, in Sinai, we glimpsed the people and the culture rendered so intriguing, mystic, and romantic through stories spun over the centuries for purposes political, social, wayfaring, or simply for entertainment. To four western women, as in us, Bedouins are physically attractive people: Fine featured, lean-limbed, “Arabic” in coloring, . . . except for the profusion of bad teeth—rather ruinous for an otherwise dazzling smile and blatant evidence of the lack of dental care. Traditional Bedouin renown includes “remarkable kindness and hospitality” to the stranger in their midst. Although we had no interaction with any women, the Bedouin men and boys we encountered fully embodied that reputation.

A visual of Bedouins in the mind’s eye easily accommodates the addition of a camel—or camels—and it should!

Outside the walls of St. Catherine’s Monastery, at the foot of Mt. Sinai, Bedouins with camels conducted a thriving rent-a-camel business with tourists who preferred not to make the two to three hour pilgrimage to the top of Mt. Sinai totally by foot. (The final 700 “steps” to the summit had to be climbed sans camels--foot traffic only.)

Tammy and Jennell did commission camels for the ascent, and Jennell graciously allowed me a bit of time to enjoy the camel experience on the journey. Mostly I hiked, though—right along with Colleen who did the entire trek by foot.

Jennell and Tammy are safely mounted and ready to begin the ascent.

 Me commencing the trek up Mt. Sinai.

Colleen in the background, then me, then Sala (our Bedouin guide for the mountain trek), and Jennell on her camel.  (Tammy took this photo from her camel; she was in the lead.)

 Here is our "camel boy" for the ascent along with Jennell's hired camel.

My time on Jennell's hired camel.

 
 

Colleen and me at the top of Mt. Sinai. 

The Sinai (part 1)

Just before daybreak of our first morning in Eilat, a tour bus picked us up at our hotel and transported us to the Taba Border Crossing between Israel and Egypt. Our Israelis escort briefed us on border protocol and procedures, commencing his spiel with, “Any weapons? Any ammunition?” With our stunned silence as his only response, he added, “Anyone want to buy?” May I just clarify here: the attitudes and antics associated with crossing the border can be over-the-top, particularly on the Israelis side, and there are guns in evidence everywhere, carried by official-looking types and not-so-official-looking types. But no one merely crossing the border from one side to the other better be carrying a weapon of any kind!

Finally, after successfully navigating first the Israelis portion of buildings, lines, and counters pertaining to border crossing followed by the Egyptian portion of the same, we connected with our tour van, driver and guide—all Egyptian now. In our tour van there were six tourists—the four of us and a Japanese couple. At all the checkpoints in the Sinai, our driver would report that he was carrying a “muli-national” group; it saved time, money, and hassle because, apparently, American, British, and Israelis tour groups require an armed guard on the van as well. (Interesting, huh!)

Our tour began. Raphael, our Egyptian guide, would talk anything with us—history, culture, religion, politics, whatever; he was knowledgeable and respectful and not afraid to discuss controversial topics. I loved his candor and admired his grace—an enviable consummation of honesty, kindness, and humor. The four of us became his “four wives” for the day, and he took excellent care of us.

This is Raphael at St. Catherine's Monastery.

As Raphael talked, Sinai unfurled before us.

A sector of the planet stripped of feathers, fur, and pancake makeup, Sinai bares Earth’s casing: Sand dunes in wrinkled folds give way to glimpses of skeletal structure beneath an expanse of a skin now tautly stretched. Sinai is a landscape of nakedness.

Sunset at St. Catherine's Monastery as we complete our descent from Mt. Sinai.

Israel: A Second Time in a Lifetime (part 2)

Galilee is my favorite place in Israel.  It was the first time I visited and it was this time, but you should also know that Galilee was my favorite before I ever journeyed to Israel at all.  Although truly lovely, there is nothing particularly spectacular about the landscape and nothing particularly unique about the cities and sights.  Yet Galilee bends the mind, touches the heart, and moves the soul. 

Sunrise over the Sea of Galilee (Nof Ginosar Kibbutz)

View over the Sea of Galilee from the Mount of Beattitudes.

Jerusalem certainly ranks as one of the world’s amazing cities.  What a magnificent mingling of cultures, religions, histories, politics, and art have become entangled and entrenched there, especially as visible in Old Jerusalem—the portion still  encompassed by a city wall.  Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have all created and destroyed, painted and stripped, lit and shadowed, pieces and dimensions of the ever evolving masterpiece Jerusalem symbolizes.  For me this time, though, the place in Jerusalem that felt the most holy and sacred, was the Temple Mount—currently the plaza area around the Dome of the Rock.  (No longer can non-Muslims actually enter the mosque, although we could fourteen years ago.)  The crowds and clamor of the Via Dolorosa and Wailing Wall gave way to a stillness, an aura of reverence, as soon as I passed over the threshold of Moghrabi Gate.   

Bethlehem, though, became the setting for a second time in a lifetime of the most memorable people to people moments.  When I first glimpsed the wall separating Jerusalem from Bethlehem, my heart broke.  And then I could never quite end the sporadic flash back sequences to the Berlin Wall for the rest of our visit there.  No longer can tourists just drive to Bethlehem (6 km from Jerusalem) like we did last time; we had to go with a tour.  The Israelis Jew who booked our tour for us is not even allowed to go to Bethlehem at all.  And the checkpoint checked; we had to show our passports!

Before touring the churches built over the traditional site of Christ’s birth, we lunched—deliciously, may I add—in a little street café just off of manger square…owned by cousins of our tour operator, of course. At two tables near us sat a group of American Seminary students studying in Rome—priests-in-the-making—who catalyzed some interesting and thoughtful conversation. If the Catholic Church has more classy young men like those headed into the priesthood, they may be able to steer through current turmoil!

And then we talked with the restaurant’s brother owners—hopes and despair, triumphs and losses. We are all so human.

Every Palestinian we talked to on this trip had at least one relative in the USA.  [Of Palestinians who are able to immigrate, the largest percentage (22%) go to Jordan, and the second largest percentage (20%) go to the USA.]  When we asked if they had ever visited the USA, every single one of them said that these days visas were next to impossible to obtain.

Looking toward Manger Square from the street where we lunched.

Judaean Hills today

Judaean shepherd(ess)

Galilee is my favorite place in Israel.  It was the first time I visited and it was this time, too, but you should also know that Galilee was my favorite before I ever journeyed to Israel at all.  Although truly lovely, there is nothing particularly spectacular about the landscape and nothing particularly unique about the cities and sights.  Yet Galilee bends the mind, touches the heart, and moves the soul.