Facing Genocides We Have Committed

Dear All,

If American fascism (Trumpism)* has been generated as an egotistical self-defense of “Americanism” against the pain of acknowledging America’s wrongdoings, and seeking marginal and largely symbolic “improvements” as advocated by the “woke,” how do we address this development while metabolizing the grief that the sufferings of the peoples who have experienced genocide at American hands must call forth, especially if we are to open our hearts and minds to a new way of being in the world that would enable us to pursue right relations with all life? To put this question in a different language: how do we help the American people to learn from the Earth rather than about the Earth in a way that they would welcome so as to enable them to live with the Earth rather than abusively upon her?

Any ideas?

Part of the answer, I think, is to offer a critique—at its premises—of the nationalism, and the reliance on the system of domination known as the state—of the fascists, of the “woke,” and of the “centrists” who seek to criticize and compromise with both while reinforcing state power.

That humanity is divided by nature into nations, that nations are known by certain characteristics that can be ascertained, and that the only legitimate form of government is national self-determination in the sense of having “a state of one’s own,” is the doctrine at the heart of the sickness of modernity and postmodernity alike. As Elie Kedourie noted more than sixty years ago, such claims are all false.

All states are systems of domination that are oppressive and illegitimate—a violation of natural law (properly understood)—and because foreign systems of domination are particularly horrific, especially when informed by nationalism, it is essential to maintain that every people has a right not to be dominated by a foreign state. But it is also essential that nations identify with their peoples within the context of their loyalty to the beloved community formed by all life rather than identify with any state.

The heart of nationalist doctrine was succinctly expressed by the Abbé Sieyès on the eve of the French Revolution: “The nation is prior to everything; it is the source of everything. It’s will is always legal. It is the law itself.” This twisted conception of “the law” is foreign to my thinking as a Jew, as a Christian, as something of a Confucian and a Buddhist, and, above all, as a person “of creation”—a unique entity that i think of as an expression of everything else in the universe just like every other entity in the cosmos we share. Genuine natural law is rooted in maintaining alignment with the harmony and balance and abundance of the Earth and her cosmic society through respectful, reciprocal, trustworthy, and consensual conduct towards all life. This is radically different from and opposed to what nationalists consider “the law.”

Nations are, as I see them, the collective self-consciousnesses of peoples. As long as they think in accordance with the Earth and her natural laws, there is no reason why there should not be many of them. Indeed, a peaceful world would be full of a great many genuinely self-governing peoples. Such genuine self-government, I understand mostly by reference to the understandings of natural law of the elders of the peoples of the Native Nations of Turtle Island (this continent) before the eurochristian invaders arrived and even today. These are understandings, I think, rooted in learning from the Earth in particular places and communities and they are embedded in the traditions and ceremonies and social self-understandings of hundreds of distinct peoples.

Whether the American people can learn from the Earth across such vast terrains seems to me an echo of the founding generation’s discussions about whether a large republic could be established and maintained by their endeavors. Their highest aspirations were to establish a “democracy” based on a legitimate authority sustained by the virtue of the citizenry—the sovereignty of the people. Although we are far from that now, and, to be fair, they were far from that then, we should not seek to restore what has never fully been, but rather seek to emulate the more genuine self-government of the peoples of the Native Nations before the genocides we have repeatedly committed against them by metabolizing, even as they are still suffering, the grief of our misconduct and learning from the Earth how to live with all.

Steven J. Schwartzberg

https://www.schwartzbergforcongress.com

*That “fascism” is an accurate term for the intentions of the Trump administration is clear from many developments, not least Stephen Miller’s attempt to claim a “plenary power” in the president in this video:

lulac

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PS. Here are links to three powerful Jewish voices seeking to address the deeply related question of the meaning for Jews of the genocide Israel has committed:

https://www.lifeisasacredtext.com/gazarepentance/

https://www.hinenubaltimore.org/blog/rham5786sermon