THE DEMISE OF CIVILITY AND THE NEED FOR A UNIFYING PURPOSE

I AM RE-POSTING THIS FROM ABOUT 15 MONTHS AGO. THE CHALLENGE AND NEED I EXPRESSED HERE HAVE OBVIOUSLY ASSUMED EVEN GREATER URGENCY.

The Demise of Civility and the Need for a Common, Unifying Purpose

I’ve lived long enough and read enough history books to know that the vilification of political opponents and those who disagree with us is not new.  We have seen it before and we’ll see it again.

Especially with our two-party system, we are always going to have disagreements on policy and on philosophy and values, too.  That is healthy.  It is human, and it makes for progress.

However, recent events, marked by the broadside pronouncements of Donald Trump and the prosecutorial-like questioning of Hillary Clinton in the House Sub-Committee’s hearing on Benghazi last month, has brought the issue front and center for me in a more dramatic way.

The polarization of discussion has moved beyond what can be considered healthy.  It has moved to vilifying groups of people (e.g., immigrants and Muslims) and to character assassination (e.g., disloyalty to the country and accusations of outright lying).

I wouldn’t take the time to write this if the only thing that worried me about it was the distaste for uncivil and disrespectful discourse.  It is something much more important than that which concerns me.

I am concerned that this kind of attitude creates adversarial relationships that prevent us from working together to resolve the most important issues facing our nation, such as how do we help all young people grow up to be productive adults, stimulate greater growth in our economy, and advance policies and actions that make for a safer world.

It is also turning people off.  This back-biting discourse is one of the reasons voter turnout is at depressingly low levels.

What, I have asked myself, is driving this polarization, and increasing level of uncivil, disrespectful discourse?  I suspect one driver is what has always been with us:  the desire to show “we are right”—the desire to lift ourselves up versus “others” to prove our self-worth.

But there is something else, I believe.  There is the lack of a common, unifying purpose – a robust vision of what we can be as a country and what we can be as a world, for all people.  To be sure, there has never been a point in history when the people of our nation or perhaps any nation were in unanimous agreement on what such a vision would be.  But there have been times where there has been the leadership and vision that has brought the majority of people together.

When those times have been will vary in the eye of the beholder and as interpreted by historians, it will have varied over time.  I will not weigh in on that here.  What I will weigh in on is the conviction that there have been many times when our national leaders, in the Presidential Administration and our Houses of Congress, have worked together without the personal venom we see today and with the conviction that compromise is not equivalent to selling out one’s soul--that, indeed, compromise is essential to achieving outcomes to advance the most important needs and opportunities in our nation. 

There is a substantive reason for the change I’m describing, and that is the genuine widening in what a majority of the Republican Party and of the Democratic Party view as the proper role of government in people’s lives.  It goes beyond the scope of this short paper to trace the magnitude of that gap over time.  It would be interesting in this regard to compare the party platforms in different presidential cycles over the past 150 years or so to note the differences that exist, large or small.  Whatever, perhaps exacerbated by gerrymandering and the role of money in elections, the gap in the judged proper role of government held by the majorities of our two parties has widened a great deal over the last 50 years.  As one illustration and drawing from Tim Wise’s excellent book, “Under the Affluence,” I cite this section of the 1956 Republican Party platform:  

“We are proud of and shall continue our far-reaching and sound advances in matters of basic human needs:

            --expansion of social security

            --broadened coverage in unemployment insurance

            --improved housing

            --better health protection for all our people 

We are determined that our government remain morally responsive to the urgent social and economic problems of our people.”

Later, in the same platform, the GOP bragged about the fact that, under the leadership of President Eisenhower, “The federal minimum wage has been raised for more than 2 million workers.  Social security has been extended to an additional 10 million workers, and the benefits raised for 6-1/2 million.”  Going even further, Republicans trumpeted the fact that union membership was up 2 million since 1952 and, later, the platform called for “equal pay for equal work, regardless of sex.”

How does one explain the tremendous difference in position between that platform and mainstream GOP ideology today?  Reading Wise’s book leads me to believe a key reason was that the social benefits, coming after World War II, were seen and in fact were benefiting the broad middle class, the great majority of the population, whereas today, quite incorrectly as it turns out, government support is portrayed by the majority of the members of the Republican Party as going to people who are “less deserving,” who perhaps just haven’t worked hard enough or have gotten themselves into trouble.  In too many ways, government support plans (unlike, say, the GI Bill and housing support which drove the improvement of life and the overall economy so strongly following World War II) are seen to be going to a small minority.  In fact, most of the government-provided benefits today, e.g., social security, Medicare, student loans, expanded health coverage and home mortgage interest deductions are going to the broad public.

I wouldn’t want my earlier example of how Hillary Clinton was quizzed in the Sub-Committee hearing to suggest that denigrating the “opposition” is confined to the right or to the Republican Party.  We see it on the left as well.  We are not going to bring this country together or solve the challenges in front of us by pilloring CEOs and their salaries or characterizing Wall Street and banks as the “source of all evil,” as some critics tend to do.

Yes, in general, CEO salaries have gone past the point of reasonableness.  It’s hard to deny that, when you read that the average salary of the CEOs of S&P 500 companies grew from 42 times the average American worker in 1980 to 372 times the average worker in 2014.  And, whatever it is, pay should be calibrated to performance!  But remember:  these CEOs have worked hard to get where they are.  Their jobs are on the line every day.  The average tenure in CEO jobs is less than it has ever been. 

So, too, proper regulation of banks and industry are important matters.  But let’s remember two things; our economy would not begin to be what it is today nor where we need it to be in the future if we do not have thriving, innovating corporations, large and small, providing jobs and quality products and good careers for employees.  

Moreover, and perhaps most importantly, like it or not, we are not going to reduce our increasing income inequality by depicting business leaders as corrupt and mean-spirited.  First of all, it’s not generally true; second, we can be sure it will trigger a defensive reaction that will throttle the advance of social policies which are vital to give people of lesser means equal opportunity.

The bottom line is that we need to recognize that we are all in this together.  Not just in some rhetorical kumbaya sense but because if we are not together, we are not going to accomplish what we need to.

In this regard, we need to recognize that we are the common beneficiaries of many government programs.  The idea that government should be “stamped out,” that less is always better, is a glittering generality that defies knowledge of the realities of life.  Where would we be if we didn’t have government-sponsored research into disease, government-supported infrastructure, social security, or our nation’s defense?  Where would we be if we didn’t have the government underpinning of a law-abiding court system and laws?

Yes, government is sometimes too invasive.  We can ask it to do things that are best done by the private sector.  But this is not an “either/or” issue.  It is a question of choice and balanced judgment based on experience and the particular situation.  

We’ve got to turn away from having government versus non-government become an ideological wedge as opposed to a practical question of how to best provide the benefits that people and society need.

I believe that it will be as we recognize the common benefits being provided by government and by business, while providing constraints where we should, that we will come together as a nation.  That is what characterized the period during my lifetime where we came together more than any other.  That was the period following World War II, when our middle class was growing, benefiting from such government programs as the GI Bill and home loans and while corporate America was booming.

We are not going to go back to that time.  But there are principles of how we came together and what our common mindset was as evidenced by the Republican platform I cited earlier.  While a reading of the two party platforms in 1956 reveals party conflict, there was far greater agreement on the role government should play in advancing the welfare of the public than there is today.

There are many needs and opportunities in front of us which should draw us together across party lines; -- for example, the development of our children from the very earliest of age, the war against drugs, the growth of our economy, the rationalization of our penal codes and prison system, and the improvement of our infrastructure.

We have to stop pitting one group against another. 

Whether you agree with my historical analysis or not, we would all agree in hoping, desperately, that we will achieve a more uniting vision and commitment to work together in the next administration.  Our country and the world need it and the people demand it.

We have great challenges ahead of us.  We will be not meet them unless/until we can work together with a far more mutual respect and trust than we have today.

THE OVERHANGING RISK OF NUCLEAR WAR

I wrote this piece almost 6 months ago. I thought I would repost it. 

A lot has changed and the most important things have not. 

The fundamental dangers (failed states, refugees, terrorism, nuclear proliferation) and tensions remain the same. 

We now have a major concern (the specific facts of which remain unclear) about Russia's involvement in and influence on the outcome of our Presidential election. We need to investigate and determine the nature of the communications between the Trump administration and Russian authorities before the election.

Putin continues to be demonized; President Trump is assaulted for wanting to find grounds of cooperation with Russia. People question the motives for his avowed respect for Putin's leadership. 

As we unravel these legitimate questions, let us not forget this reality:  we cannot achieve the interests of our Nation and the World nor can Russia achieve its own interests, unless we work together on the key issues of nuclear proliferation, failed states and terrorism even as we disagree on others. 

And this cannot be done by demonizing each other. We did not do that during the Cold War. 

AUGUST 23, 2016

THE U.S. AND RUSSIA AND THE OVERHANGING RISK OF NUCLEAR WAR

 It is difficult for an individual or indeed a Nation to view a particular situation through the eyes of another person or nation.

I have never seen this more true or more dangerous than what is transpiring now in the relationships between the United States and Russia.

As a former CEO of Procter & Gamble and a student  of history, I have followed the relationship between the U.S and Russia (and before that the former Soviet Union) for half a century. From a peak of hope in the early 1990's in the possibility of our joining together in the vision of a Greater Europe, 

I have become increasingly and alarmingly concerned by the deeply polarized perceptions  of the intentions of  our two nations. 

Fueled by Russia's annexation of Crimea and its (as well as our own) involvement in Syria, this fever has boiled and become intensely personal  as  the President of  Russia, Vladimir Putin has become demonized. 

The situation has become further politicized as Donald Trump, whose views I disagree with on most counts, advocates , rightly I believe,  cooperation with Russia in fighting ISIS, even as he outlandishly (facetiously or not ) calls on Russia to hack the DNC's and Secretary Clinton's e-mail accounts. For me, Trump is the apposite of someone you want to be advocating your point of view because he encourages his opponents to reflexively adopt or double down on contrary views. 

Why am I so concerned about this situation?  Because  I believe the failure of Russia and the U.S. and West to work together threatens the  security and indeed the very existence of the world because of the overhanging and  related risks of nuclear annihilation and terrorism. 

There is a great and common danger in the affairs of humans and of nations in self-fulfilling expectations.  These self-fulfilling expectations can be for the better or they can be for the worse.  The expectations held by Russia toward the United States and those the United States holds toward Russia today are all “for the worse.”

Contrary to what was promised as Germany was reunited and became part of  NATO as we entered the 1990's, NATO  continued to expand to Russia's doorsteps. The belief that Ukraine might be next, was a precipitating cause of the  Ukrainian crisis. As a colleague of mine has said, whether NATO is a benign or a malign force is irrelevant from a geopolitical perspective if one of Europe's great powers (Russia, a country which has been subject to multiple invasions over the course of history) considers it a threat. The dismissal of these concerns  has deeply exacerbated Russia's mistrust. 

And that mistrust has been matched on our end by the impact of Russia's annexation of Crimea and presence in Eastern Ukraine,  entry into Syria supporting Assad and the alleged (though unproven) involvement in our electoral process.  

We hear veiled and sometimes bald assertions that Russia intends to enter countries previously part of the Soviet empire--the Baltics, Poland and all of Ukraine.  Putin describes such a notion as “insane.”   He is right.  

Can you imagine the suicidal idiocy of Russia's undertaking to move into those countries?  Why would they do this?  They don't need land. They would find very few friends there.  They would become the pariah of the world. There is no driving ideology as there was in the days  of Soviet Communism.  

Of course, there are legitimate concerns about President Putin. Some of them are serious. In terms of encouraging a positive relationship with the United States, he is in some ways his own worst enemy. His distrust of our motives now borders on paranoia. 

 However, we should not forget that he was the very first President to call President Bush to offer his nation's unbounded support following "9-11". 

Whatever, my concerns are existential. 

I worry deeply that most people are so far removed from the reality of war today that we have forgotten its horror. We should all go back and look at the film showing the instantaneous annihilating devastation resulting from the atomic bomb  at Hiroshima. It won't be pleasant but we should watch movies  like “Platoon” or “Saving Private Ryan”. We should read Michael Herr's devastating front line reports on the war in Vietnam. We dare not forget the horrific cost of war on human life and civilization.  

We cannot address this overhanging threat unless we are working with Russia. That is the plain and simple truth. 

We are at a historical precipice.  I am extremely worried by the unfettered “propaganda,” and that’s what it is, on both sides of the issue.  This has had the insidious effect of bringing the people of Russia and of the United States to view the “other” as “evil.”  And in fact they are not.  They are committed to their own national interests.  The concerns of the Russian and American people are fundamentally the same. . They yearn for a peaceful, economically stable life for their children and themselves

Every nation, every person, wants to be treated with respect.  There is no way that will happen if we are not able to view the current situation through each other’s eyes.  That doesn’t mean we will compromise and tolerate people taking away the freedom of another nation or people.  We need to draw a bright line on the support we will provide to countries to which we pledge support--and mean it. 

 However  we should not make the mistake of attributing motivations and nefarious intent to other nations which, in fact, they disclaim and which, as we examine the reality of the situation,  we see no persuasive  reason to assume.  

We need to stop carrying out diplomacy and negotiations through the media and "anonymous" third parties, seeking sharp headlines that show we “mean business” and are "tough".  We need to establish what the bright lines and  bases for cooperation  are.  We need to rebuild trust-based relationships. This will be very hard; many will say there is no point in trying.  It will require courage and stamina, but it is what we must do. We should do so privately through credible leaders, starting with our Presidents and foreign service secretaries, just  as we did in the later years of the Reagan Administration and that of George H.W. Bush.  

I pray for the wisdom and courage of these leaders. 

I  believe the future of our Nation and the world depends on it. 

------------------------------

SOME PERSONAL REFLECTION ON "HILLBILLY ELEGY" BY J.D. VANCE

HILLBILLY ELEGY:  A MEMOIR OF A FAMILY IN CULTURE AND CRISIS BY J.D. VANCE

I just finished reading this book.  I found it spellbinding for many reasons but above all, because of the ringing affirmation of how lucky I’ve been in my life because of the experiences and individuals who have helped me “overcome” (and that is the word) the challenges of my own youth.

Before turning to the poignant personal reflections this book brought me, first a comment on the challenge Vance described in transitioning from the environment he had experienced as a “hillbilly” (per his description) in Middletown, OH and moving to the environment of Ohio State University and Yale Law School. 

What he described, I believe, reflects the challenge that many African-Americans and other minorities face as they enter corporate America and other environments like it.  It is the challenge of being comfortable socially, of being secure and comfortable in one's own view of who he or she is. 

Vance writes, “We do know the working class Americans aren’t just less likely to climb the economic ladder, they are also more likely to fall off even after they have reached the top.  I imagine that the discomfort they feel leaving behind much of their identity plays at least a small role in this problem.  One way our upper class can promote upward mobility, is not only by pushing wise public policies but by opening (our) hearts and minds to the newcomers who don’t quite belong.”

“Though we sing the praises of social mobility, it has it downsides.  The term necessarily implies a sort of movement—to a theoretically better life, yes, but also away from something.  And you can’t always control the parts of your own life from which you drift.”

Vance describes himself as a “cultural alien.”  He points to this even if implicitly as a reason why so few people from his high school in Middletown made it to the Ivy League and why so few people like him are represented in America’s leading institutions. 

We need to help everyone feel respected and accepted for who they are--to feel "in the house".

It is on the more personal side, as it relates to my own life, that the story this book tells becomes truly trenchant.  Like J.D. Vance, when I look back, I am humbled, grateful and, indeed, dumbfounded at how many contingent events and individual people had to fall in place for me to have the life that I have had. 

In every chapter of my life, and in virtually every environment I’ve been in, I have found family and mentors and friends who supported, believed in and enabled me.

The love and ever-present confident expectations of my mother.  The nuns who instilled the discipline of learning and ultimately the love of a good deal of it, too.  The commitment of my family to the Catholic Church, with the burdens it brought but, far more important, the belief in God and Jesus, the conviction that there was a “right thing” to do.  My parents’ decision to send me to Portsmouth Priory, having the experience there of the intellect and faith of men like Father Dom Andrew Jenks and his high expectations of me.  

Passing the eye test in Boston which gave me the Naval scholarship I needed to go to Yale.  My meeting my first history teacher, Howard Roberts Lamar.  My time in the Navy.  The decision to apply to Procter & Gamble because of of the glint in the eye as the Yale recruiter who had explained what a job in Brand Management was all about five years earlier.  The people who believed in me—Jack Clagett, Ed Artzt, John Smale and so many others at Procter & Gamble; my assistants who took care of me; friends like Chuck Hain, Tom Shoop, Dick Adams, and John Simpkinson and his wife Janet, who cared for me, who helped me believe in myself, often more than I did.  The chance meeting on May 2, 1964 with Francie who changed and made my life what it became.   

Years ago, I took no more than two hours to write down on a piece of paper the people who changed my life, without whom I wouldn’t have been there writing that paper.  I titled it, “If It Weren’t For Them.”  I won’t go through the list; I don’t think I have to.  The title says it all.  The difference we make to one another by how we act, by how we make them feel, by the confidence and trust we express in them, and the affection we show for them as well.  That’s what life at its best is all about.  It’s the greatest gift we can give to another, starting with those closest to us, our family.

*****

There is one other very poignant comment Vance makes which I am compelled to recognize.  Vance acknowledges that he didn’t lose contact with his parents because he didn’t care; he lost contact with them in order to survive.  “We never stop loving, and we never lose hope that our loved ones will change.  Rather, we were forced, either by wisdom or by the law, to take the path of self-preservation.”  

I wouldn’t say it exactly that way.  The “law” had nothing to do with my pursuit of "self-preservation". And I never lost contact with my family.  But the commitment to "survive"did limit the amount of contact I had with my parents.  Not only my “personal survival", but the "survival" of my family.

Of course, and this is a tribute to them, I knew my parents would have it no other way.  There was no greater expression of their love for me, no act so unselfish, than their desire for whatever was best for my and my family’s life.

NEVER BETRAYING THE VALUES WE HOLD MOST DEAR

EDWARD R. MURROW ON THE HEROIC  EXAMPLE OF BRITAIN IN WORLD WAR II: THEY NEVER BETRAYED THEIR VALUES 

 

 

The inspiring book, “This I Believe: The Living Philosophies of 100 Thoughtful Men and Women in All Walks of Life" includes a Forward by the renowned newsman, Edward R. Murrow, who reported from London during World War II. 

 

 Murrow takes us back to the autumn of 1940, “when Britain stood alone”, and yet, as Murrow said:

 

“At a time when most men save Englishmen despaired of England’s life, there was a steadiness, confidence, and determination that must have been based on something other than a lack of imagination.  As the months wore on, and the nights lengthened, and the casualty list mounted, I became more concerned to try to understand what sustained these people: what belief or what methodology caused them to stand so steady in their shoes.  In part, it was ignorance of their own weakness; in part, it was a reluctance to appear obvious by expressing doubt as to the ultimate outcome.  But at bottom, this calm confidence stemmed from the belief that what they were defending was good; that Englishmen had devised a system of regulating the relationship between the individual and the state which was superior to all others, and which would survive even though cold military calculations concluded that the state was doomed.

 

There was little logic in this British belief.  Unconsciously, they dug deep into the history and felt that Drake, Raleigh, Hawkins and Cromwell and all the rest were looking down at them, and they were obliged to appear worthy in the eyes of their ancestors.  But above everything else, they believed.  They believed in not only themselves, but that they were fighting against evil things and the fight was worthwhile.

 

No democracy has been nearer the fire and survived than was Britain in that long winter and one reason for survival was that the nation did not betray the things in which it believed.

 

At a time when German bombers were coming through in the daylight over London, when the Germans were expected on the beaches the first foggy morning, the House of Commons, which might have been destroyed with all its members by one well-placed enemy bomb, devoted two days to discussing the conditions under which enemy aliens were being held on the Isle of Man.  For the House of Commons was determined that, though the island fell, there would be nothing resembling concentration camps in Britain, and the rights under law of enemy aliens could not be abused.  That is what the British collectively believed."

 

 

No man can measure or transmit the degree of detail of another man’s belief.  But it is possible on occasion to report it.  Murrow continued: "The night after the Munich Agreement was signed, I (Murrow) sat with Jan Masaryk, the Czechoslovak Ambassador in his London Embassy.  It was the anniversary of his father’s death.  We finished a broadcast to America at 4:00 am; we both thought that the Munich Agreement meant that war was inevitable.  But Jan believed, someway, that the forces of evil would be defeated.  Speaking of Hitler and Mussolini, he said: ‘I assure you, God will not let two such heathens control Europe.’  His belief, at that time, was greater than my own.”

 

 

* * * * * * * * * * *

 

 

I recall this story in order to display the ideals which kept Britain alive during the dark days in the early years of World War II and which are needed to keep all of us going at times of challenge. The scene Murrow describes in 1940 bears a striking resemblance to the risk and the challenge, that was faced by the young United States of America, in 1776, when having lost virtually every battle in the Revolutionary War, Washington pulled a group of ragged men together to cross the Delaware River on a blustery, sleeting Christmas night, to go on to win battles in Wilmington and Princeton, that would turn the tides of the War.  No one at that moment would have bet on the success of Washington and his Army, but they were committed to noble ideas, just as England was in 1940.

 

We face our own challenges today, here in the United States and around the world. We must face them in the same way Murrow describes: holding fast to our deepest values. 

 

It timely to recall Murrow’s words: “No democracy has been nearer the fire and survived than was Britain in that long winter (of 1940) and one reason for survival was that the nation did not betray the things in which it believed. “

 

 

 

 

 

THE REFUGEE CRISIS--WHAT DOES CHRISTIANITY DEMAND- REPOSTING FROM 11/17/2015

THE REFUGEE CRISIS--WHAT DOES CHRISTIANITY DEMAND

NOVEMBER 17, 2015

 The Refugee Crisis--What Does Christianity Demand? 

I am wrestling with this question, challenge, dilemma--call it what you will. It is a classic dilemma: trying to reconcile two "goods". Here are my thoughts. I am praying that our world leaders will reach the right conclusions. 

We know what the bible says. We know if the mantra, "Everyone Counts", means anything we in the United States need to play a leading role helping those women and men fleeing to save their lives and their children's lives from persecution. 

At the same time, governments owe their citizens and their families a safe environment. Governments should not take action which they believe introduce risk of murder of their citizens of the kind that took place in Paris last week. That means as we accept people into our country or any country we should be as sure as humanly possible through our vetting process that they will not do harm. In fact, the vetting process already in place, is extremely rigorous, especially for refugees from Syria. The average clearance time is 18-24 months. As many as 10 U.S Agencies are involved before the refugee is cleared to come to the U.S.

So what concretely do I believe is required of the U.S. and other nations:

1. All nations (West, Arab, Russia, Iran, Turkey, Syria, etc.) under the auspices of the United Nations or other broad based coalition must work together to achieve: a) a cease fire and then political settlement in Syria which will bring a halt to the Civil War and b) marshal the forces to eliminate the ISIS plague and the threat it represents to the civilized world. This is also essential to stop the outward flow of refugees  and enable those who have already left to safely return. We must set aside past grievances, real or manufactured, to do these two things. Specifically, we must work with Russia and, yes, Iran to that end. The discussions in Vienna are encouraging. We must use our leverage to demand participation by Saudi and other Arab nations. 

2. These same nations under the auspices of the United Nations or other broad coalition should create a plan to: 

a) support (and I mean really support) the refugees who have already left their home to locate in a safe location as close as possible to Syria until they can return to their home. This will probably require establishment of "safe zones" protected by joint forces including NATO, Russia, Turkey, Iran and others nations. It will be necessary to give much more financial support to the countries neighboring Syria (e.g. Jordan) to make this possible.  Following the achievement of a political settlement we will need a Marshall Plan like effort to rebuild the infrastructure of Syria to permit a return to viable life. Doing this has to be predicated on a political settlement and the elimination of the ISIS plague. It will require a massive investment far beyond what has been done to date; 

b) continue to draw on the best intelligence and security experts in the world to ensure that the Syrians who have already sought or are seeking asylum in other countries can be "vetted"  to assure they do not pose a threat to the local populations. As I wrote above, my reading indicates that the vetting process for our country is already extremely rigorous and steps will continue to be taken to make it stronger. We will never achieve "zero risk" on this anymore than we can achieve that with our own indigenous population but we have to provide convincing assurance that the risk is minimal. We have to recognize that this will delay and probably limit the number of immigrants who can be accepted. But we should not lead this to turn our back on playing the role we should in aiding those most threatened. We turned our backs before as sadly described in the article below. Let's not have it happen again on our  watch. 

Stepping back we should recognize and ACT on this as the greatest global crisis since WWII other than perhaps the threat of nuclear annihilation . If there ever was a reason for the United Nations or the G-20 to exist this is it. If there ever was a reason for the nations of the world to unite this is it. 

No one should be using this crisis to try to gain political advantage, for example in the U.S. Presidential campaign or anywhere else.

People should get the facts on the refugee clearance process before shooting from the hip and calling for a ban on immigration.

Let us act on the best evidence of what we know to be true in protecting lives--all lives. 

ope’s fear of Muslim refugees echoes rhetoric of 1930s anti-Semitism

Resize Text

    

Print Article

    

Comments 143

   

By Ishaan Tharoor September 2  

A migrant shouts next to Macedonian policemen as she waits to cross the borders from northern Greece to southern Macedonia, Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2015. (AP Photo/Giannis Papanikos)

A humanitarian crisis of historic proportions has been growing in Europe, as hundreds of thousands of refugees and economic migrants from the Middle East, Africa and parts of Asia have crossed the continent's borders this year alone.

The scale of the influx is now well-documented. According to the European Union's border agency, some 340,000 migrants crossed its borders in first seven months of 2015; in July, the figure was on its own an astonishing 107,500 people. The majority of those making the hazardous crossing across the eastern Mediterranean are Syrian refugees, displaced by a horrifying, grinding civil war that has forced roughly half of the country's population out of their homes.

According to U.N. figures, the current global levels of displacement have not been matched since World War II. In 2014, the number of refugees, asylum-seekers and people forced to flee within their country surged to nearly 60 million people.

[Britain takes in so few refugees they could fit on a subway train.]

It's hard to grasp the scope of this in real terms -- a nation of the displaced -- but it's been hideously dramatized in recent news. Desperate refugees and migrants, at the mercy of smugglers and human traffickers, have been confronted by walls and soldiers, have drowned in the Mediterranean, and suffocated in the back of trucks.

Over the past year, many in Europe have bristled at the influx -- from far-right political movements and fear-mongering tabloids to established politicians and leaders. The resentment has to do, in part, with the burden of coping with the refugees. But it's also activated a good amount of latent xenophobia--leading to anti-Islam protests, attacks on asylum centers and a good deal of bigoted bluster.

Some governments in Eastern Europe have even specifically indicated they don't want to accommodate non-Christian refugees, out of supposed fear over the ability of Muslims to integrate into Western society.

"Refugees are fleeing fear," urged a spokesman for the U.N. refugee agency last week. "Refugees are not to be feared."

It's important to recognize that this is hardly the first time the West has warily eyed masses of refugees. And while some characterize Muslim arrivals as a supposedly unique threat, the xenophobia of the present carries direct echoes of a very different moment: The years before World War II, when tens of thousands of German Jews were compelled to flee Nazi Germany.

Consider this 1938 article in the Daily Mail, a British tabloid still known for its bouts of right-wing populism. Its headline warned of "German Jews Pouring Into This Country." And it began as follows:

"The way stateless Jews and Germans are pouring in from every port of this country is becoming an outrage. I intend to enforce the law to the fullest."

In these words, Mr Herbert Metcalde, the Old Street Magistrate yesterday referred to the number of aliens entering this country through the 'back door' -- a problem to which The Daily Mail has repeatedly pointed.

The number of aliens entering this country can be seen by the number of prosecutions in recent months. It is very difficult for the alien to escape the increasing vigilance of the police and port authorities.

Even if aliens manage to break through the defences, it is not long before they are caught and deported.

No matter the alarming rhetoric of Hitler's fascist state -- and the growing acts of violence against Jews and others -- popular sentiment in Western Europe and the United States was largely indifferent to the plight of German Jews.

"Of all the groups in the 20th century," write the authors of the 1999 book, "Refugees in the Age of Genocide," "refugees from Nazism are now widely and popularly perceived as 'genuine', but at the time German, Austrian and Czechoslovakian Jews were treated with ambivalence and outright hostility as well as sympathy."

Part of that hostility was fueled, as some of the European grievances are now, by stereotypes of the refugees as harbingers of a dangerous ideology, in this instance communism and anarchist violence.

There were also economic concerns. The world was coming off the Great Depression. In France alone, there were a million people unemployed. Resentment against French and foreign Jews (large numbers from Germany and Romania had arrived by the early 1930s) led to "a new wave of antisemitism," detailed by a report put out by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

The Chamber of Commerce of the city of Metz, for example, grumbled in 1933 that "highly undesirable" Jews "have become a veritable plague for honest French merchants." By 1935, the then French government enacted a series of quotas on certain professions -- effectively blocking Jews out. This was a precursor for the more pernicious and deadly forms of antisemitism to come.

In Britain, as a 2002 article in the Guardian recounts, perhaps as many as half a million German Jewish asylum seekers were turned away by authorities ahead of the outbreak of World War II. Many who were admitted in were given asylum less out of altruism than a need to fill low-paying domestic work "spurned by the native British." The situation was no better elsewhere:

Canada accommodated only 5,000 European Jews between 1933 and 1945, Australia 10,000, South Africa some 6,000. And the US's unyielding quota system meant that, between 1933 and 1937, only 33,000 German Jews were admitted (and only 124,000 between 1938 and 1941).

Meanwhile, those trapped within Nazi-controlled Europe faced the horrors of the Holocaust. Millions were systematically killed. Yet it was only in 1944, when the extent of the genocide had become better known, that the United States made a real effort to rescue European Jews. Even during World War II, let alone before it started, antisemitism was rife in American political and public life.

Unwanted foreigners have always caused consternation among a section of any society. Thankfully, there's an equally vociferous chorus in Europe currently championing the plight of Syrian refugees, and urging others to help make a new home for those displaced by conflict and other hardships.

Everyone deserves the chance to live a better life, activists argue.