Sunday, October 28, 2018

Armo Virumque Canto

This post's title is the first line of Vergil's Aeneid, which translates from the Latin as, "I sing of arms and the man". Vergil is referring to the titular hero and his role in the Trojan War, but I couldn't help but think of it this morning in church as we sat and prayed for the 11 victims murdered in their synagogue the day before.

Every mass shooting will prompt a reflection in the U.S. on the 'right' way to bear arms in accordance with the 2nd Amendment to their Constitution, which seems an appropriate response, honestly, at least prior to its devolving into fractiousness, partisan finger-pointing and a collective shrug heralding a return to the status quo.


I had thought there was very little that the 45th President of the U.S. could do to surprise and/or disappoint me, but sure enough, he accomplished both yesterday when the Washington Post reported him as saying the following:
Earlier in the day, when asked whether he should revisit gun laws, Trump said, “this has little to do with it if you take a look. If they had protection inside, the results would have been far better.”
...When asked if he thinks that all churches and synagogues should have armed guards, Trump said it is “certainly an option.”
I have so many problems with this statement that I barely know where to begin, but my fear is that we are becoming so numb to nonsense uttered by the Dingbat-in-Chief that we no longer engage with it, rolling our eyes and murmuring, "well, what can you do?" So much fear, in fact, that I am setting aside my "no Trump in my blog" rule to address them.

First of all, what the actual hell? Is this the world we're looking for, where we are setting armed guards outside places of worship?  A balkanized, tribalized world, fearful of everything different? I suppose so, if your idea of a tidy organized workspace is in fact a corrupt police state.

Trump has already given us several indications that he would enjoy this a great deal, especially if he was in charge and no longer had to worry about pesky things like re-elections and could just do his thing Sinatra-style, like Rodrigo Duterte in the Phillippines (who today put the Bureau of Customs under Military Control) or Xi Jinping of China (back in March Trump said "maybe we'll have to give [President-for-life] a shot someday").

Worse still, given how Trump undermines confidence in governmental institutions and oversight, is how much comments like this will embolden fringe elements like American paramilitaries (militia movement, Freemen on the Land, Three Percenters, preppers) who already feel their country is on the verge of social collapse.

I would hate to think that Trump's reckless commentary was anything more than the deluded ramblings of a guileless narcissist, but what if he actually does have a larger goal? What if all the attacks, the hyper-partisanship and demagoguery and divisiveness is in service of a large narrative?

"Divide and conquer" is a strategy hearkening back to Philip of Macedonia, the father of Alexander the Great. Part of the reason we still talk about him (and his infamous offspring) is because this maneuver has proven successful time and time again. I sometimes wonder if the current mood south of the 49th is due in part to the Occupy Wall Street movement from  2011.

These protests drew together many disparate elements of American society; I remember Aaron Sorkin's program The Newsroom describing it as a potential "Arab Spring for the West". Obviously this was not to be, but it would not be unreasonable to assume that is was of sufficient scale to cause apprehension amongst the ruling class that no one wants to admit still exists in liberal democracies. And so the pendulum swings from progressivism to populism, and past it to tribalism and presidentially-endorsed nationalism.

Imagine if every synagogue, mosque and church felt compelled to follow Trump's advice, setting armed guards at their doors during their services and observances, turning away lapsed believers, curious neighbours, visitors, strangers. Growing communities that were once dynamic in their outreach become insular, static, and paranoiac.

(And to be clear, this would not apply to my privileged and largely homogenous community of faith - at least, not initially. We haven't been marginalized for a millennium-and-a-half, although we did get our start that way.)

Once thus divided, untrusting, and isolated, they become easy pickings when they become disruptive. Historically black churches fear to respond as synagogues become targeted, or feminists refuse to stand with trans women.

It galls me to think about how Trump's comments play into the historical arrogance that the Holocaust could never happen here. If only Poland had had a right to bear arms! If only the Jews had the foresight to smuggle arms into the ghetto, surely they could have stood up to panzers and Stukas of the Third Reich!

And yet, we watch children are locked in cages while their parents are deported without them, and troops are mobilized to secure the southern border against 7,000 Honduran refugees looking for a better life in a country that at one time had said:
"Give me your tired, your poor,Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
And believe me when I say "we" and not "they"; if you think Canada is immune to this pernicious adversarialism while regressive, selfish, populist ideologies emerge across the globe, from the UK to Brazil.

Thankfully, there are wiser people around than myself, who point to solutions instead of inevitable despair. The mayor of Pittsburgh, addressing Trump's armed guards comment, replied that "I think the approach that we need to be looking at is how we take the guns — which is the common denominator of every mass shooting in America — out of the hands of those that are looking to express hatred through murder.”

I wish I was confident that this latest indignation, this freshest horror, would prompt a re-examination of priorities within our southern neighbour, but in all honestly, I gave up after Sandy Hook. If the gunning down of schoolchildren - which conspiracy theorists now brazenly report as 'fake news' - is an insufficient galvanic force, I can't imagine 11 middle-aged to senior minorities will merit even a pause.

The one thing Mayor Peduto said that did give me cause to hope was something I sincerely believe and agree with.
“We know that hatred will never win out — that those that try to divide us because of the way that we pray or where our families are from around the world will lose.”
Whether we are men or women; Christians, Jews, Muslims, agnostics or atheists; armed resisters or conscientious objectors, keep a wary eye out for those things that unite us rather than divide us. Keep the doors to your community open, and stand down your armed guards. I don't look for a lot of guidance in modern rock lyrics, but I believe Muse has the right of it in this instance: love is our resistance.


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