Demonizing
has become a popular habit in American political chatter. Just try to count the
Nazi references to candidates of every stripe over the past eight years.
Remember “The
Boy Who Cried Wolf,” the Aesop’s fable that our parents read to us, as
children?
With the
24/7 news cycle this year, it seems we have entered the landscape of that story
and forgotten its moral. Otherwise, why do we run like sheep before the Wolf’s
specter every time the Boy yells?
The Wolf wears
many disguises. He’s the terrorist in a bomb vest or the unhinged loner with a
grudge, firing guns randomly, mowing down pedestrians in a truck. He’s a black
president to people who harbor racist fears, or a woman president to men who find
that alarming. He’s a gay married couple, or a transgender uncle become aunt. He’s
the idea that our guns, the last bit of power we can hold in our hands, will be
taken away.
He’s the
people who call America weak and powerless or who call on us to welcome
refugees from the wars we’ve been fighting since 2001.
All of a
sudden everything around us is complicated. Everything around us needs work to
understand. Nothing feels familiar.
Would we
like some simplicity? Would we like someone to show us a clear path toward the
decisions we have to make?
Oh, my, yes.
And the Boy
will be happy to comply. Or you could think of him as the Master of Wolves. The
wolfmeister.
He takes
good care of his wolves. Feeds them just enough fresh meat, but not too much. He
wants ’em hungry when he points them at us. He doesn’t even have to think about
it. In some ways the wolves tell him where they’d like to go.
And it seems
to work because we are so afraid of people who look different. Whose culture
feels different, particularly as ours seems to spin out of control.
Fear of differences
is hard-wired in us. The German word is Überfremdung.
The more
familiar word to me is xenophobia, fear of the foreigner.
We think of
Muslims, in particular, as different, and threatening. We have one image,
encountered in the news, in our films and television shows, and that image for
Muslims is “terrorist.”
It can’t
possibly be accurate. Islam has more sects than Protestant Christianity. It
marries those sects, over centuries, with tribal and even familial differences.
Layered on top of that is the legacy of European colonialism.
But now we have
an alternate image to consider.
The appearance
of Khizir Khan at the Democratic Convention and on a host of follow-up news
programs showed why.
Here is a bereaved
American father, a Muslim whose son, an Army officer, died a decorated (Bronze
Star, Purple Heart) hero in Iraq. Here is a dignified gentleman whose stirring
words of love for our country provide American Muslims, at last, with a recognizable
face and voice. He pulled our Constitution out of his jacket pocket. He seems
to know its contents by heart. Do we? I haven’t even read it since college.
His wife and he
sit across from a network anchor and remind us that there are many good, innocent
Muslims who long to come here because of what we stand for—freedom and
opportunity. They say this although it was people of their own faith who blew
up their son. Their handsome son who joined the Army to pay for law school.
It is easy to
disparage, dismiss and fear abstractions. Harder when they are people who look
you in the eye and show you their hearts. Even with a camera in between.
That, like so
many of the differences between us—race, class, religion, city-born or
country-raised—melt away on the personal level. Do you know any Muslims? I’ve
known a couple, slightly. Do you have African-American or Latino friends—who
are not your employees?
My grandparents
were late 19th century immigrants, from Germany and France, respectively.
The moment America went to war with Kaiser Wilhelm in WW I, my grandfather Diehl
became The Other, although he was a citizen and a veteran. He was called names.
His business shriveled and closed. Occasional bricks were thrown by stupid
people. My grandmother gave French lessons to support the family.
Xenophobia is
not new. Neither is scapegoating a group when one’s own world begins to look
shaky. Ask a Jew. Ask any of the Japanese-Americans you happen to know. At
least my grandfather wasn’t incarcerated or deported.
The Boy in
this story, the wolfmeister, is a good salesman. Like other good salesmen he
knows how to push our buttons.
The
advertising business prefers the buttons of sex appeal and dreams for a better life.
The wolfmeister prefers fear. This post appeared as my August column in the Fayette County Record.
