Montpelier
One of the brightest spots in my life this past week has been the photographs and brief videos of Canadian Mounties, deep in fresh snow and clad in winter gear and fur hats, welcoming Somali refugees who’ve braved a trek through the woods to flee the United States into the paradoxically warm embrace of its neighbor to the north. The best shot is of an officer holding a little snowsuit-clad kid up in front of himself and flashing a great big smile. “Welcoming,” of course, involves subsequent transportation to a processing center and at least temporary detention. But amid the fear and military-style raids engendered by the ham-handed executive order concerning refugees and undocumented aliens, Canada seems like a safer bet for them.
And it is. As Prime Minister Trudeau has said, in pointed contradiction of the U.S. president’s apparent paranoia over malignant refugees, “Diversity is our strength.” He has further asserted that multiculturalism needs to be an integral part of all children’s education.
Contrast that with the widespread grumpiness in the United States that instructions enclosed with electronic devices now are printed in English, Spanish and French. The practice is probably an unwelcome reminder to many white, Christian Americans that the tide is rising around them, and it’s high time to learn a new skill or two. Personally, I enjoy the diversion afforded by learning that “papel higienico” is toilet paper, and “zusätzliche informationen” is additional information. I can also see immediately why Scrabble is impossible, or a least improbable, in German.
Ever since the issuance of the executive order in question, and its swift repudiation by some federal courts, the debate has been relatively fierce on the internet between supporters of the action and proponents of more liberal reactions and sanctuary cities. It’s been mystifying to me why so many of my fellow Americans, blessed by fate as no other citizens have ever been, are so adamant in decrying the need to support the folks so conspicuously welcomed by the poetry on the base of the Statue of Liberty.
One poster expressed disgust that his taxes were supporting “millions of deadbeats,” illegal aliens, terrorists and single mothers — as if the entire tiny slice of the federal budget designated for such purposes was a major cause of his woe. It reminded me of nothing else so much as a few lines from Charles Dickens:
“I don’t make merry myself at Christmas, and I can’t afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the prisons and the workhouses, and those who are badly off must go there.”
“Well, many can’t go there; and some would rather die.”
“If they’d rather die, then they’d better get on with it, and decrease the surplus population.” You may recall that after this exchange, “Scrooge returned to his labours with a much improved opinion of himself.”
Are Americans the world’s most self-righteous people? Do we, having been born on third base, really believe we’ve hit a triple? We often call our nation “Christian,” but in the grip of the existential anxiety stoked by our Fearful Leader, we seem to have succumbed to terminal stinginess — which, last I heard, is not one of the virtues extolled in the Sermon on the Mount. I never hear anyone argue with the passage from Luke stating that of him to whom much is given, much is demanded; yet its observance ranks in rarity right alongside hens’ teeth.
If we chose to make national policy based on statistical evidence rather than bombastic rhetoric, we’d see that any of us is more likely to be killed by a toddler playing with a loaded pistol than by terrorist activity. But there’s very little in the National Security Agency budget to deal with that threat. I honestly believe that our real fear — given that an outside existential threat to the nation doesn’t exist — is of being surprised and humiliated by people we consider lesser beings. It’s pride.
Meanwhile, the oppression and denial of the strangers at our gates and among us continues. It’s nothing new: The Irish faced it in the 1840s as they fled a famine of Biblical intensity (aggravated by English government policies); the Germans and Italians endured it during their periods of immigration. The corpse-robbers who stripped the dead after the great Johnstown Flood of 1889 were referred to in contemporary accounts as “Hungarian ghouls.”
This in spite of the teachings of all three major Western religions. On Sunday in church we heard from Leviticus: “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest. You shall not strip your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien.” That covers both Judaism and Christianity. The Quran is equally full of directions for the treatment of the poor and homeless.
Whatever judgment we may anticipate — of God, karma or of history — it seems to me we should do all we can to avoid miserliness, not only of property, but of spirit. We’ve been given, without deserving it, an incredibly fruitful and beautiful land and a creation of nearly pure genius in our Constitution. We can afford to leave that strip of grain unmowed at the edges of our fields. This great gift, if unshared, will in time putrefy in our hands.
Willem Lange’s column appears here on Wednesday. He can be reached at willem.lange@comcast.net.
