HomeGENOCIDE Veteran’s Day (11)
Today is the seventieth anniversary of Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass. This is seen by some as the beginning of the Holocaust in Nazi Germany. Today genocide still occurs around our globe and among many peoples. What is it about us that lets this happen?
READING:
From a prayer, by Howard Thurman from 1951:
I Need Thy Sense of the Future
Teach me to know that life is ever
On the side of the future.
Keep alive in me the forward look, the high hope,
The onward surge. Let me not be frozen
Either by the past or the present.
Grant me, O patient Father, Thy sense of the future
Without which all life would sicken and die.
SERMON
Good morning!
As I view the human condition, the human heart, the human soul, I am filled with justified despair over our past and present; valid fears for what may come; and yet, a cautious but realistic hope for what could be.
Today is the seventieth anniversary of Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass. This is seen by some as the beginning of the Holocaust in Nazi Germany, a holocaust which resulted in the slaughter of 6 million Jews; perhaps half a million “gypsies”, who call themselves Roma; and thousands of homosexuals.
Kistallnacht may have been the beginning of the holocaust, but it was not the beginning of discrimination against Jews, Roma or homosexuals. Jews had for years lived in Ghettos throughout Europe, some of them walled. Roma were often kept outside the walls of towns and cities. And homosexuals built protective walls around themselves, around their lives so that they could survive n a hostile world.
Unfortunately, this was neither the first nor the last instance of genocide. The world is full of examples of one people exterminating another. In the Bible, the extermination of the Canaanites is seen as a command from God. In American history, the elimination of indigenous tribal peoples was seen as part of “Manifest Destiny”. From in our Declaration of Independence is the following charge against King George:
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
This sense of Indians as savages fills our history and was part of the attitude that “the only good Indian is a dead Indian”.
I note the following from a speech by Theodore Roosevelt in 1886:
"I suppose I should be ashamed to say that I take the Western view of the Indian. I don't go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of every ten are, and I shouldn't like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth."
And of course, there have been much more modern cases of genocide, from the slaughter of Armenians in the early 1900’s through the ongoing killings in Darfur.
And so, as I view the human condition, the human heart, the human soul, I am filled with justified despair over our past and present, valid fears for what may come.
My despair arises from the recognition of the hatred that seems to either lurk in or be easily imported into the human heart. How ready we are to hate, to despise, to oppress, to kill.
This past Tuesday, four states passed anti-gay initiatives, one which would bar gays and lesbians from adopting children. And, of course, what for some was the saddest event, the state of California which had granted marriage rights to same sex couples just months ago has cruelly taken that right away.
This is a parallel to the end of Reconstruction in the South. After the civil War, under the oversight of the Federal government, some elements of genuine equality came to the south. African Americans were elected to office at all levels, including some members of the US House and Senate. But when Reconstruction ended, so called Jim Crow laws were passed mandating segregation and binding people into second class citizenship. So many hopes were dashed, and for such a long time.
This adds an incomprehensible element to the sad irony that African American voters, turning out in such huge numbers to break down a racial barrier and elect an African American President, voted overwhelmingly (70%) in favor of destroying other people's civil rights. What a sad comment on human failing and narrow thinking.
And so I have despair for the past and the present. I also fear the future. The vote in California shows quite starkly that the achievement of rights is not enough, that rights once recognized can be taken away. But we have known that, we in this country; we who have allowed our government to engage in secret arrests, to establish secret prisons, to have secret trials and to engage in the torture of suspects. We have known that human rights can be denied and that good people will justify that fact. And so I have justified fears about the future and about our human capacity to behave in horrific ways.
But I also have hope; cautious but realistic hope.
Today, November 9, is not only the seventieth anniversary of Kristallnacht, it is also nineteenth anniversary of the day the Berlin Wall fell. While it is true that bigotry and prejudice and evil can triumph, it is also true that progress can be made, that love and justice can triumph, that trumpets of hope can sound and walls can be brought crumbling down.
There were people who cast ballots in the election on Tuesday for whom, during their entire life, there never was a Berlin Wall. There were people who voted in that election for whom, during their entire life, there never was an East and West Germany, there was only Germany. For them, no cold war, no conflict between East and West. That is part of the marvel of the ongoing march of time.
Something happened this past Tuesday that can be teased out into three separate events, and I want to speak to each one.
The first is that we Americans held an election. That sounds like very little, doesn’t it; but it isn’t. We should celebrate and take pride in the fact that we have elections. People around the world are sitting in prison right now, people around the world are dying right now to achieve that right, that right which we so take for granted that huge numbers of our population do not even bother to exercise it.
The second thing that happened as part of that election is that one candidate for President defeated another. That happens in every election, and the supporters of the winner have happiness and the supporters of the loser have disappointment. That is part of the democratic process.
The third thing that happened is the truly remarkable one. This nation, this country which has lived with the stain of racism and discrimination from its very beginning, this nation elected an African American as its President. Now, Barack Obama is of mixed ancestry; but so are most people in this country who are called African American; and so are many people in this country who are called white.
The election of a black President--and the tears of surprise, joy, relief and pride in the eyes of so many—is something for all of us to take pride in, regardless of our political party or who we voted for. Part of the astonishing thing about this event is that the overwhelming number of people who voted for or against Barack Obama on Tuesday did so on the basis of policies and “on the content of his character, not on the color of his skin”.
Our nation has come a long way from the days of slavery, from the days of segregation, from the days of Selma and Birmingham and Montgomery. It is that which brought tears to the eyes of so many. We are not done, the journey to wholeness and to equal justice in not over, but what an achievement this was.
In 1965, two Unitarian Universalists died in Alabama helping the civil rights marchers from Selma to Montgomery. Rev James Reeb was attacked and beaten to death and Viola Liuzzo was shot and killed. On Tuesday, Election Day, the Unitarian Universalist Association sent bouquets of yellow roses to the widow and children of James Reeb and to the children of Viola Liuzzo.
Since eleven o’clock on Tuesday night, I have spent hours weeping tears of joy and relief, for a variety of reasons. Not the least of those is that I now have renewed pride in our nation, new hope for our future, and new hope and faith in humanity.
Again, one of the wonderful things about time and progress is that so many young people today do not know why this event brought so many tears in its wake; they cannot truly know why Jesse Jackson stood mute with tears flowing down his face; they cannot relate to the long trail of tears, tears of sorrow and pain, that led to this time of tears of relief, joy and pride. And that is a measure of our progress.
There are times when walls do come tumbling down: physical walls, social walls, walls without and walls within--walls within us against others, walls within us against ourselves. What are the walls that others have erected to keep you out? What are the walls that you have erected which keep you penned in? One of the messages of Tuesday is that work and persistent effort, those walls, too, can come down.
And sometimes the walls are already gone but we have not yet realized it. Tuesday was such a day, a day when a wall fell because walls had already fallen.
The walls are coming down. In 2000 a Jewish American was the vice-presidential candidate of a major political party. This year saw major accomplishments for women; even Ralph Reed, former head of the Christian Coalition, spoke this year of breaking the glass ceiling that has limited the role of women in our nation. Feminism is on the march.
And so I say to my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, and to my transgender siblings: your day, too, will come. I know that it gives little comfort to think that it might be years or even decades before equality is achieved, but you know that in the minds of younger people your struggle is already won. Your day will come, love and justice will prevail; do not allow despair for temporary setbacks either keep you from doing the work of gaining equality or lead you into the path of anger and hate.
And I say to all of us, there is justice yet to achieve. Our work as a nation, as a people, as a world, is not yet finished. There is much to do. But we should bask in the moment and celebrate whenever a great step forward occurs.
May it someday be, and be soon, that the whole human race recognizes itself as one; that every child of humanity has the same opportunity to live, to learn, to achieve dreams and goals. May our hearts be open to one another, may love and justice be both our end and our means.
So let it be.
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