Everywhere we turn, it feels like someone is screaming about racism. Discriminating, hate crime, systemic oppression, exclusion, all things that increase tension and help people discover a new version of racism.
Racism is used as an excuse for bad behavior. Claims that rude and intrusive behavior is a reaction to some form of racism. Racism is the excuse for riots, looting, assaults and murder.
Racism is no longer simply based on discrimination or hate directed at a certain group of people based solely on race. Now it includes that racism can only be from a majority group to a minority group. If you want to prove racism against a specific group, add “phobia” to the group.
If we stop using it for a while, maybe racism will go back to a few idiots who hate people for the way they look.
Twenty years ago this week, the Bosnian war began with the siege of Sarajevo, the capital. In this photo, smoke billows from a building in downtown Sarajevo, April 22, 1992, after a Serbian mortar attack.
After the war that divided the former Yugoslavia into Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia, Sarajevo was a wasteland. It has had a city on that plot of land since before the Romans showed up and started building, in a beautiful valley. A sniper’s paradise. The residents marked the sniper’s success by painting red marks where each victim fell. When I was walking down the street, I was confronted by a young lady who was angry at me carrying a gun, reminding her of those terrible days. The French peacekeepers who had invested the city were afraid of collateral damage if they tried to relieve the siege. I haven’t been there for more than 20 years, the buildings were mostly intact, there was running water and electricity in most of the city and food was available.
I was stationed in Brcko, in northern Bosnia, where Serbia and Croatia meet, not far from the infamous Arizonia Market. I made friends with a former Serbian Captain Miko Stanovich to help collect weapons and identify mine fields to be cleared. I remember standing on a hill overlooking a small fertile valley. He was pointing out an old battlefield and explaining where the lines were. He showed me his mother-in-law’s house, explaining that they were separated by the battle lines. Also, that during the war, he couldn’t visit because his wife’s family was Bosnian, ethnically Muslim. His mother-in law died during the war.
The war destroyed a nation, cities, and families. It doesn’t matter how Yugoslavia came into existence; the borders are irrelevant. The people who lived there had been living in peace for centuries. When Russia collapsed and the Warsaw Pact disbanded, Milosevich decided to purify the nation. It was war that stopped him.
War is the ultimate exercise of force, naked and raw. War stopped Hitler, Kaiser Wilhelm, Hirohito, the Crusades, even slavery. It is a way for us to stop the atrocities and protect civilization. I’ve seen the same footage as you, bombed out buildings and bodies scattered around. Cities and towns devastated and depopulated by the passing of an army. On a smaller scale, a warlord and his men hacking and raping across their small plot of land, dragging children away to refill the ranks of their army. As horrible as it is, it is the only cure for worse.
We stand on the walls of civilization and look out at the barbarians outside the wall and wonder why they have come. Do they want our riches? Do they come to destroy and devastate us or carry away our women and children into bondage? Are they jealous of our success? They are strong and hungry. We are soft and sated.
Maybe they are the barometer to our worthiness to exist. Are we too weak to stand on our own? Have we, as a society moved so far into indolence and complacency that we are no longer worthy of our position of safety? I believe so. When we denigrate our own barbarians, our protectors and are no longer strong enough to defend our own society, the barbarians come to prove it. It happens in every underfunded Fire Department, every chant to defund the police, every disrespected or ignored serviceman or woman.
More weakness comes from assuming that everyone else, all other societies, agree with us, that they have progressed to a point where force is no longer needed to achieve goals. Somehow, the enlightenment we assume is universal, is in fact a hope. We also think everyone needs to recognize and accept our views. If we ignore the facts of the difficult lives of others, who have not reached our own level of comfort and security, we call the barbarians to the gate.
It’s the barbarians who remind us that not everyone agrees and our own barbarians who protect us. The barbarians at the gates force us to change or defeat us and take what they want.
Hail the barbarians!
Edited notes
I was told that my point is a little obscure, please let me try to clarify. We still have and need barbarians, those men and women who are still willing to do rude and violent things on our behalf. They become our protectors. The barbarians inside the walls are our home-grown antibodies against invaders. Our police, soldiers, and fire fighters protect us. Yet, they are attacked and degraded for doing exactly that. If our police use force to protect us, there are protests against them. The riots that rocked us are an extreme example. The example made worse by people and politicians chanting to defund them. Those protests black out the fact that a police officer is nearly 20 times more likely than a black male to be shot during an encounter. I wonder how much longer they will tolerate the abuse before they abandon us. I quit nearly 3 years ago.
The barbarians outside are the ones trying to destroy us. There are terrorists who attack us personally or through proxies. We are surrendering to them, bringing them inside and financing their invasion. Yeah, us! We can now feel morally superior.
I seriously wonder if we deserve to continue as a Republic.
Yes, folks that miraculous and elusive skill that so many men over forty seek and fail to find. We sell it for the low price of a few bottles of snake oil and Professor Feelgood’s tonic. Installments of finger and toes or a lump sum payment of an arm and a leg.
Instead of stopping by my shop, go visit Prof Philo’s shop selling puff pastries and Common Sense pills. I hear he’s thinking about adding potpourri and perfume. If he succeeds, maybe he can come up with a spray like Fabreeze. The possibilities are endless.
Daily writing prompt
If you were going to open up a shop, what would you sell?
I don’t want to make big changes in the world, just do a little good now and then. Maybe make someone chuckle with my obscure view. Like a cat video, watching a kitten do something stupid just to see if they can.
I don’t expect to make an impact. I just want to get a laugh now and then.
Daily writing prompt
What change, big or small, would you like your blog to make in the world?
If I had to guess, I would say pointing out pointless, indefinable things. What yard stick do we really use to say we are happy? Is it just a giddy feeling from a small accomplishment, that flees as soon as it is over? Can it be more complex and lasting? WTF is happy?
If you actually follow my writing, you may recall that I was shocked to find myself happy for no reason a year or so ago. I was just driving down the road and it happened. If I had been driving with a jealous girlfriend, it would probably have gone badly.
“What are you smiling about?”
“I don’t know. I’m just happy for some reason.”
“OH? And I’m supposed to believe that? What’s her name?” It may help to insert some fantasy name or coworker here. “You have a smile on your face like a fat man eating BBQ.”
The smile slips off my face as fast it appeared, but I know why this time.
Fortunately, I have a significant other who wants to know what kind of trouble I’m dreaming up and if we need an alibi. That makes me happy.
I’ve been trying to learn to play golf for over 35 years and still haven’t figured it out. I mean, how hard can it be to hit a ball that isn’t moving? Even worse, every now and then, I actually do hit it right and it goes where I want it to. I make a few pars and bogeys, then it’s right back to normal.
I stands to reason than it was invented in a country that invented bagpipes and haggis. Such cruel and intentional self-abuse can only come from the Scots. They probably invented snowball fights. I don’t even want to think about where kilts came from. Who in their right minds would wear a skirt on an island in the North Sea?
If you are a Doctor Who fan, you recognize the quote. I confess to stealing it. When I think about traveling to the future, I always think about the slow way around. Day by day.
Personally, it is the small moments that I remember. The clips of time that would fall on the cutting room floor if you were editing my life. There are some major events that always stand out, for good or bad. Weddings, children born, deaths of friends and family. But the small points around them are more profound. I can’t remember my vows, but I remember sitting at the head table and kissing my wife and feeling the weight of her being my wife. Seeing my daughter and falling in love after she was born, not the hustle of the birth.
My travel plans for the future are simple. I’m going to take the slow way around and savor the moments that get passed over but mean so much. Maybe we can meet up during a round of golf and laugh about our faults and terrible swing.
Well, maybe that’s too blunt. More like, recognize that there are things that aren’t your business. Our desire for intrusion into the personal lives of others and forcing their personal lives on others. There is a point to having private things in our lives. It’s even simple: It’s none of your business!
It’s nice to care about others and be aware of their special needs, but there is no reason for their needs to supersede privacy and personal conduct. If rude speech can be considered harassment, why isn’t it harassment to dictate speech? If I dislike a person because the way they act, why can’t I express it? Is it because I’m insensitive? Of course I am. Because I don’t care about people unless I actually care about them. If I try to be cordial and polite, and someone finds fault with it, should I feel bad? No, and I don’t.
I learned to close off my emotions at a very young age. I perfected it over forty years of seeing more pain and suffering than most people. I couldn’t afford to feel anything. I lack the emotional bandwidth. If I don’t care about others, they don’t need to care about me.
So, butt out. How I think, feel and act is none of your business.
It would make you laugh, and cry and bang your head or slam-dance. My love life would be a laugh track from a cheesy 1980’s sitcom. Most of my hobbies would do well with a slapstick reel. Don’t even think about family reunions, banjos would be the least of it. Dancing? I don’t. You’ll thank me later.
Now work, that’s another subject. Heavy metal and thrash or speed metal. Angry music. Metalica and Disturbed hammering out a beat and scream singing, with explosions and sirens blaring in the background. Motorcycles roaring and salsa with pretty girls dancing on the bar. I had a lot of fun at work. Throw in some rowdy country music and me yelling, “Hey guys, watch this.” and a few yee-haws to make it feel authentic.
The New Word Wars 