Slavery, Racism, Nationalism - war and peace - a history lesson insanely relevant in our context of Ukraine - Russia today

March 12, 2022

Mar 13, 2022

Today we’re taking the blinders off. We’re going to have some hard conversations.

Today may be tough in the beginning, but hopefully, healing & eye-opening by end.

Of course, I encourage you to bear with me through this topic as we walk this path together.

Let us go in peace, shall we?

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Slavery has existed for millennia +++ It is not but a mere a modern occurrence.

It is not of a western creation (designed by western civilization, i.e. America).

As the West turned the corner to abolish modern more racial slavery – most namely black vs white narratives most known in the West, they soon turned to the rest of the world and project those ideals on others, calling for freedom and justice and liberty.

In contrast to the standard script of the time, Abraham Lincoln, widely accepted as an American Hero and oddly enough, as late as his presidency was, is also usually pulled into the “founding fathers” bracket.

“If slavery is not wrong, then nothing is wrong.” – Abraham Lincoln

Now, hang on here for a moment if you will…read that at least one more time. What you’re witnessing is the push from past President Abraham Lincoln to suggest slavery is wrong. He was actively speaking on a controversial topic, pushing against the boulder of inertia that had existed for many a civilization beyond and wayyyy before there was even an inkling of an idea of a United States.

Slavery, as you know it may have looked very different in very different places around the world. More commonly would nations enslave other nation states after war, plunder, land grabbing, battles, and refugees, usually peoples who’s nation states had most recently collapsed.

Thus, the rising nation state would take these peoples as their lowest class people, maybe not even call them citizens, because they were of a different nation most recently. Only in time would they begin to mix and mingle between classes and historical nation state divides would become less important as nationality became shared among families.

Romeo and Juliet…. or Gnomeo & Juliet (if you so prefer)

So, in our more closely aligned reality in modern day America where we do kinda tend to be egotistical maniacs solely focused on ourselves, it’s no wonder we think slavery is our fault, and as such worth our fair weight in punishment and obviously we deserve loads of guilt and shame…

right?

We’re some pretty screwed up creatures, wouldn’t you say?

Well, maybe we need to rethink a few things here… let’s pause and reflect before we jump to conclusions and make any flighty reactions and flighty actions that effect lots of other ppl.

“We are the god’s most awful people because of ______” Fill in the blank.

It’s easy to complain. It’s easy to blame. It’s much more difficult to love in spite of all the shortcomings. Think about marriage - to love unconditionally, forever and ever, through thick and thin, through sickness and in health. And yes, for many reasons today, the rates of divorce and marriage hesitancy are also on the rise. Are humans growing increasingly defined by self-isolation, fickle feelings, taking the world on our shoulders and assuming we can all go at this alone?

“God help us if we think we can do this alone….” It’s very clear that it is easier to survive and thrive in this life when one joins a union, a partnership or group to help them trek the trail, wherever the road may lead, and the hardships we may see.

Yes, I get how crazy and disgusting slavery is as we reflect on it today. Trust me, I’m definitely not the bloke who’s going to make the case for slavery. I’m merely trying to help us open up our eyes and mind on a bigger picture. Stay with me here…

Even the thought of it makes me queasy, and is part of the reason why I grew so fond of MLK Jr. so very early on in my life. Now, let’s remain calm and make sure we get our history in context of global history – something we tend to grossly neglect in our education systems today.

Slavery has been a common practice for many civilizations for many time periods in history. Look back and you will find different forms and flavors of slavery for different reasons. That doesn’t mean it is or has ever been “okay,” but it is critically important to note that it did in fact exist before the westward expansion into the Americas.

And yes, I agree that what we did to build this country was atrocious, shocking, and unthinkable from a heart-to-heart human perspective. I cannot condone what history we have, but I can acknowledge the fact that the world does not in fact revolve around us – the US. It is in fact the west, largely based on foundations of faith (maybe Christianity), which drives our precedent for freedom, liberation, and abolishing slavery – by way of God given love available to all men and women. Unalienable rights given to all… granted, it took us a freaking long time to make any real headway in this issue, but I do have to hope we’re still progressing, aren’t we?

Slave – the word slave comes from the Slavic lands and Slavic people, a people group enslaved in Europe which bare the English name.

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History from the Dictionary:

(the Slavonic peoples had been reduced to a servile state by conquest in the 9th century)
Slavic - Relating to or denoting the branch of the Indo-European language family that includes Russian, Ukrainian, and Belorussian (East Slavic),
Polish, Czech, Slovak, and Sorbian (West Slavic),
Bulgarian, Serbian, Croatian, Macedonian, and Slovene (South Slavic).

PLEASE NOTICE THE PEOPLE GROUPS INVOLVED IN THE ORIGINS OF THE WORD - “slave“ - “slavic” language from Russian, Ukrainian, and Belorussian

Slaves have in fact existed throughout most of human civilizations across the world, internally within their own people groups and enslaving other people groups too. It’s incredibly important to know history, lest we forget it and forget it’s greater context and cause too.

Today… you might call me crazy, you might think I’m crazy to even speak on this topic… but I think it’s important to see and understand in our current times still.

You see, slavery becomes “acceptable” when human hate, neglect, and open ridicule are burning like a wildfire, while simultaneously principles of foundational love, grace, forgiveness given unconditionally is usurped as primary principles to build our civilization upon.

What I mean is this – let us ask.. what is the cause of the cause of slavery?
What is the cause of the cause of the cause of the cause…?
Where’s the root that bares the fruit of slavery?

Could the actions of disgusting, hateful slavery exist without first the seeds of hate and disgust being seeded in the very hearts of the people first?

Seeds of slavery are planted by the hearts & hands of hate.

Modern-American racism and our history of slavery are nothing particularly special in the grand scheme of history, in fact you might say it was pretty ordinary and not noteworthy at all. Much of human civilization has been planted by the hands of hate.

Personally, I don’t believe in hate, bigotry, ridicule, or racism of any kind. I firmly believe in love. Many harmful things have happened throughout our time on this planet so let us remember to consider the cause of causes continuously. And as they say, history may not explicitly repeat itself but it certainly can rhyme.

People in any era of history may attempt to justify and rationalize their selfish, greedy, diabolic deeds for the exploitation of others for many reasons, racism leading to slavery is one example.

Fear and frustration are other fuels to different fires that continue to burn bright.

In the US American’s history, slavery built on racism did happen. In other eras, in other countries, similar situations occurred as well, by way of nationalism, separatism, racism, classism, ethnocentrism, religiosity, and other ideological perspectives in action.

Today’s America, and much of the western world, including Europe and other westernized countries is a growing divide by way of tribalism.

Your tribe vs. my tribe.

Mask vs. no mask.

Vax vs. no vax.

this Privilege vs. that privilege.

Rich vs. poor.

Red vs. blue.

Tall vs. short.

Big vs. small.

Control vs. liberation.

Elephant vs. donkey.

White vs. black.

Black vs. brown.

Streets vs. suburbs.

My corner vs. your corner.

This tribe vs. that tribe.

My family vs. your family.

This color vs. that color.

You hopefully get the freaking point by now…. It heats me up just typing this along.

The impacts of tribalism are longstanding and ever present.

It’s incredibly important to recognize it for what it is, to call it out and name it fairly, look it squarely in the face…. and shoo it out of the way.

But no, seriously… we must recognize the early sprouts of what could easily lead to more. The smoke alarm is only necessary if we aren’t observant enough to see the signs and save ourselves. I don’t know the answers to get rid of all forms of hate on this planet, or any of all its various fragments.

If the danger is invisible to the naked eye, like carbon monoxide for example, the alarm detection system is even more important to have in place.

If you can spot any form of tribalism in the world around you, it is very important to recognize its presence and what it means. I’ve written on this theme so many times in my brief life of writing online after watching the changing times, that often rhymes, with subtle sounds of hate, bigotry, xenophobia, tribalism.

And so now I return a question in your direction…

“how might we devise a device to help us sound a similar alarm for something that can exist invisibly at times, such as destructive tribalism and hate?”

– well, for one thing, I think an alarm for this scenario would probably have to come to some sort of communally accepted moral platitude with which we can stand together.

In our current times wherein all arguments of morality have become polluted, colluded, and fragmented within sound bites of 140-280 characters in some online spaces like Twitter while simultaneously embossed with algorithmically argumentative and confrontational debates in places like Facebook.

But as you know… how I feel about coming together as a people… face to face, mono-y-mono, breaking bread with one another… breaking down assumptions and limiting beliefs, growing better together by living mostly closely together in-person experiencing life together – able to recognize difference, but being surprisingly delighted by the great multitude of similarities we would come to observe and appreciate overtime…

Recrafting this lifestyle… is this what we must do in order to actually grow better together and closer to unconditional, unending love, grace, and fortitude forever forward…?

the end

And here’s the real crux of this newsletter, and why it took me so much longer to write and develop… in light of Ukraine-Russia crisis of today, and the history we have as humans between power, control, tribalism, racism, slavery, classism, xenophobia and others issues with core components built by hate and fear, and certainly not by unconditional love and grace, peace and forgiveness.

Please, please, please recognize the gifts you have to give to the world, to offer up hope and love, joy and peace in light of a perpetual push and societal acceptance of us vs. them, grouping people into tribes of distrust and discontent as the only connecting links between two camps.

In reality, Russians and Ukrainians have much in common. They share family, food, art and culture, music, religion and obvious regions throughout their histories together. In fact, if you remember the examples I provided earlier about slavery itself, and the origins of the word we use of that word - “slave” and “slavic” - derived from the slavic language of Russian, Ukrainian, and Belorussian.

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