My only ambition is to nurture healing and recovery and to become healthy compost for the future. The future beckons, the grand children of all of us are calling out.
That is it. All of it. For me.
Martin Luther King Jr. said, "Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding a deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."
He was correct. That is why they killed him. He saw through it all. Accurately. Dangerous knowledge in a public figure willing to share that knowledge.
Systems of indoctrination are one of the dynamics that run counter to this ambition.
Language - "Mixed Race Marriages" or 'Mixed Race Children' implicitly affirms Racism. It is a term the system approves of.
We are instructed to use these words, as a mark of respect. Very clever, very manipulative.
There are no races, only language groups and environment adapted groups... think the people of the Andes and the Sherpa's who's blood systems are more efficient at holding oxygen. Inuits who's faces and body fat layers are better adapted to the deep cold of their environment. And so forth... all of us human. With slight differences. No difference in intelligence, ability, desire for love and empathy, no difference in our vulnerability to abuse.
Race is a social construct.
Race, as a biologically mandated reality, is disproved by the evidence, not least that which emerged from the study of the Human Genome. Race is a cultural construct, not a biological reality.
Racist Violence and it's counter part, Anti-Racist Violence, are examples of Lateral Violence, where a population that is over powered by a potent political, religious or economic system of power, where the power disparity is immense between the powerful and everyone else, where people lash out at each other, rather than address the oppressive system, as a way to vent their anger and rage.
Topically, and typically, the violence prone within Antifa and NeoNazi's alike are fundamentally weak in their analysis, which is partly why they stoop to violence.
This feeds into the oppressive system, as a distraction that can be mobilised and publicised, and this helps to perpetuate the lateral violence. It prevents a just resolution to the problem.
People talk about the violence, and not the real issue, which is how people learn to become racists.
People who are prone to violence tend to get a high from engaging in violence - it is a self administered drug, Adrenaline...
Antifa's violence is carried out knowing that they can manipulate observers by claiming they are confronting unjustness and bigotry - and yet nothing they have ever done by violence has reduced racism.
The Racists violence is carried out in the belief that they form an erstatz family or community and are protecting it.
Here’s one man who has chosen his own direct way to confront racism.
58-year-old Blues musician Daryl Davis. An African American. Daryl goes right to the heart of the person, a humanistic process which gradually undermines indoctrination on a person to person basis. The oppressed seeks to liberate the oppressor from their dehumanised state.
Something violence can never achieve. Beautiful, robust, logical. Evidence based.
“It’s a wonderful thing when you see a light bulb pop on in their heads or they call you and tell you they are quitting. I never set out to convert anyone in the Klan. I just set out to get an answer to my question: “How can you hate me when you don’t even know me?” I simply gave them a chance to get to know me and treat them the way I want to be treated.
They come to their own conclusion that this ideology is no longer for them.
I am often the impetus for coming to that conclusion and I’m very happy that some positivity has come out of my meetings and friendships with them.“
This is true freedom of speech, with a sense of social responsibility, in action.
Here is another man,Tony McAleer. taking a different approach, because he was once a racist. What he has to say is interesting.
"what draws young people into these (Neo-Nazi) groups? Research and my personal experience show that it is a sense of identity, belonging, acceptance and purpose. The lack of these factors in a young person's life creates vulnerabilities that extremist groups exploit. The culprit undermining these critical pieces of our human experience is a deep subconscious belief that we are unlovable, powerless and invisible – we call this the feeling of "less than." I am often asked how had I lost my humanity.
How does one become a skinhead? My reply is this: I didn't lose my humanity. I traded it for acceptance and approval until there was nothing left. I am not a victim here; I was a perpetrator who victimized others.
Life After Hate, the non-profit I co-founded with other former members of the white-supremacist movement, recently received a letter from a concerned parent. Her 18-year-old son with Asperger syndrome is up to his eyeballs in the white-nationalist scene. What frightened the parent was the community had embraced and accepted her son in a way he had never experienced in his entire life.
Those are very deep psychological strings being pulled and that seduction is wrapped in racist ideology. This child could probably rationalize believing any ideology in exchange for that acceptance and belonging coming from such isolation.
To help this child and so many like him, we need to address the loneliness and isolation before the ideology. If shame and loneliness are the drivers here, how can shaming, isolation and violence be the answer? The antidote to shame is compassion."
I get where he is coming from.
I was part of a cult in the late 80s, and it is precisely this dynamic that drew me in. The technique is known as love bombing. I was part of the Catholic cult before than.
I felt very alone in my life, estranged from my family and the culture I was born into, I had very low self esteem and I was seeking to answer that loneliness, without really understanding it. I felt very alienated from family and culture. I was alienated from my true self, though I did not know it or understand it.
I was vulnerable. I was needy. I was insecure. I was charming and outgoing. I had front.
The Cult played on that. . I became a dedicated member, they loved me for that, and we saw ourselves as separate from everybody else. I felt strong for the first time in my life. And therew as genuine affection and care within the cult. It wasn't all bad.
It took me a few years to work through this and it was quite frightening at times, not because the cult was abusive, but because I was choosing to go out into the world totally alone, I was confronting myself.
Self alienation can happen without any overt abuse of a child.
And let me add this, by way of an insight, there is pattern of interaction that happens frequently in our society, where an infant's behaviour can be misunderstood or misconstrued and responded to inaccurately, and that too can be the basis of a deep seated loneliness, a sense of abandonment and alienation for that child.
Feeling misunderstood, unable to articulate what is happening, to adults who do not understand what is happening, and who resort to 'management' rather than love and knowledge as a way of dealing with the child.
No one is at fault in this, it's not another stick to beat parents with. It is a bio-social dynamic, common in traumatised and traumatising societies.
It's an understanding of what can happen when parents are stressed, and not supported to learn about child care... to learn about the natural child.
A child that underwent a shared stress in utero (in the womb). where the mother was chronically stressed, and where the flood of hormones then altered the child's neural and endocrine development, might well present 'problem behaviours' that lead the adults to exert controlling behaviours over the child. because no one told them that in utero stress can alter the childs brain development and endocrine system, and that too can lead to loneliness..
There is always a number of interacting factors in any situation. biologically or socially.
Another angle I like to look at is this.
The cultural background of a bully is less important in confronting the bullying than the actual bullying behaviour.
Many people readily fall into this trap. They assume that the bullying has it's roots in a specific culture, and that it applies to all in that culture.
The international political power system, (be it Western, Eastern, European, African, Occidental etc) is built on hierarchies of power and violence, and it is a bully system, and it serves the system to indoctrinate their populations to conform to the narratives they provide. Yet not all people born into that culture are bullies. Indeed the majority are not.
We talk about misogyny, we talk about racism, we talk about homophobia, we talk about Islamaphobia, without sensing that these separate 'categorys' are being used to avoid talking about the core behaviour, by treating them as somehow separate. A distraction.
They are not. They are the same thing.
Bullies will always seek to justify their behaviour, they will always attempt to mask or mitigate it with some almost rational justifications. We must learn to see through those mitigations.
Focus instead on the behaviour - it's bullying.
No need to glorify or mythologise it. Keep it simple.
"You are not a Nazi, you are behaving like a bully,and you are using Nazism as a cover story."
Freedom of speech in the public domain has to be set in a environment of total honesty, in a setting of taking responsibility, as a shared action.
This, for me, means that when a racist speaks, that we deal with the points raised by presenting the evidence. We tell the racist why their 'logic' is an error. Not merely that racism is 'bad'.
Snowden is an example to us all. He spoke truth.
The Survivors of clerical abuse within Institutional settings across America, Ireland, Australia and elsewhere are an example to us all.
They spoke and they speak the truth. They confront the issue with evidence, rather than violence.
Just as the Governments response to Snowden, and the Church's response to Survivors are an example we should not permit, let alone follow.
These Power Institutions have consistently lied, prevaricated, obfuscated, intimidated, bullied, denigrated Snowden and the Survivors to protect their own status, rather than come clean, put their hands up and be mature honest adults seeking to resolve and heal.
Allow the extremists to speak, and deal with the issues raised with EVIDENCE, knock the opinion based world view back with EVIDENCE, not with hatred, fear or dismissiveness.
Start with an honest history in schools.
Tell the truth, to undermine the lies.
I repeat myself : History must taught in our schools in complete honesty, especially from the perspective of all those harmed by the actions of Kings, Barons, Popes, Generals and other leaders. Then 99% or of Racism and Fascism as a grass roots phenomenon would vanish within two generations.
That is a relatively easy process to set up and establish.
For example, a class of 20 ten year old students: Ask them “What era are you interested in?”
Let them decide what era or subject issue is relevant to who they are, at that moment, and thus let their self motivation emerge. They will want to study what they want to study.
Then let them loose to do their own research individually, and in small groups, and ask them to present what they have discovered to each other and to you.
Provide support during that process.
Then host a series of discussions and explorations on what they have found, on the sources, the reliability, methods of verification, and talk about the merits of critical analysis, and objectivity, and then ask them to write a paper on the issue they have chosen, a collective paper, with all students as co-Authors.
It can include what ever they decide is pertinent. You might well learn something. They will for sure.
Teach History Honestly.
Again, I repeat myself - because it is really important for all of us to understand this. Tell the stories of people’s lived experience from the point of view of the people who have been harmed, not the point of view of kings, barons, nation states, religious power.
Do that, and all this racist bull will fade away.
Keep screaming at them, meet them with more violence, without the honesty, and they will remain, as long as our hypocrisy remains.
"The Kings were robbers, the Knights were crooks, I don't believe your history books."
This is a song I wrote some years ago, addressing this matter directly.
The US and UK and EU all have problems with acknowledging, accounting for and resolving the crimes of their Empires. Serious problems.
Talking of which…
Indoctrination.
Why is this practice still permitted?
I know that indoctrination is an abuse of the rights of the child.
Faith based schools : Saudi Madrassa's, Catholic Convent Schools, Yeshiva - Indoctrination. Why are these still permitted?
What ‘right’ does anyone have to tell a child what to think and feel and do so using a sanction/reward system of psychological dominance to ensure compliance?
To ban indoctrination, to make the indoctrination of defenceless children illegal, to define it as a breach of Human Rights, would be to undermine the entire facade and primary purpose of Compulsory State Education.
And that would undermine the status quo of power like no other single revolutionary action. Which is why it is permitted. The roots of Compulsory State Education are found in the Hindu Rote Learning System which preserved their caste system for 5 thousand years, a caste system that still exists in ‘modern India’.
If I had absorbed all I learned at school, I would be a conformist, compliant servant of the state, and I would reflexively attack any challenge to the Authority of The State and The Church.
Because that is the true function of Compulsory Education.
It's not called compulsory for nothing.
“No child left behind!”
For me, the feeling to resist came easier than the logic, and I had to examine the evidence and engage in a serious study of our shared histories of violence and oppression and in particular, I had to look at all those aspects of the institutionalised values system which I had internalised.
It was not easy.
It could be made much easier.
Parents have a role in this.
A duty of care, more fundamental and profound than any duty ascribed to Government.
If only they knew what was being done to their own beloved children, if only they understood what had been done to themselves as children.
Kindest regards
Corneilius
"Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe"
Thank you for reading this blog. All we need to do is be really honest, responsive to the evidence we find,and ready to reassess when new evidence emerges. The rest is easy.
