WE COUNT FOR SOMETHING

Friday, February 08, 2019

BORDER WALLS - WASTE OF RESOURCES - FRUITS OF HATRED



The other day I received one note that made the argument that we need a wall on the southern border for the same reason that we lock our car and our house door.  The statement about the locking of the car and the house door made me smile and I wanted to check the mental and spiritual environment that brought the smile on.  Turns out that the smile is still there.  It comes from the long dissertation about theft and personal property in chapter 22 of Exodus.  It is there that the first-born male donkey does not have to be sacrificed, but can be redeemed with another animal.  I smiled because our cars might be our donkeys!  Hmmm?  I had an interesting presentation about this chapter when I took the parishioners through a study of the Pentateuch. 
There are a couple of thoughts that I have about keys and walls and human migration.
a.We never really know if the habit of locking our car is really bringing us the result that we intend.  Our car can be a large part of our life, but it is rarely, if ever the greatest portion of our life.  For most of us, we never get to know if there was an attempt to steal it.  So, we really cannot boast that our habit is effective, protective behavior.  Of course, donkeys don’t come with keys, and that’s what made me smile.  The same could be said of our house.
b.The social teachings of the Law of Moses concerning theft are quite strict, especially when it comes to livestock.  Since I do not have livestock, no worries there.
c.I have a son who, in 20+ years, has never locked his car, anywhere, any time.  Right here in the heart of one of the most diverse sections of San Diego … Ethnic and Religious, Legal and Illegal.  Is it luck or is it human respect for someone else’s property?
Border walls

I was in Jordan for three days at the beginning of December.  There are no border fences in Jordan. King Abdullah II doesn’t believe in them. Jordan is a small country.  The ratio of refugees to citizens  is unusually high.  Jordan is clean, free of military on the streets, free education and good health care.
Israel, just across the river, has a wall.  It doesn’t bring peace to Israel.  The streets of Israel are heavily patrolled by armed forces.  They are prisoners of their own wall.  I was in Bethlehem for three nights, including one night in the city square where there were some 5,000 people and not a metal detector in sight. There was armed security on patrol but the surrounding coffee and shawarma shops were doing a booming business.  Catholics, Orthodox, Muslims and Atheists enjoying a Christian ceremony, lighting of the Christmas Tree.
Border walls are useless artifacts.  The guy on the link you sent who said that the existing wall works had to say that because he was in front of Power.  Plus, it seems to be that no matter what percentage of deterrence is achieved, it never gets to 100% success.   Walls work a bit for a while…until both sides get used to having them.  The longer they stand, the less deterrence they provide.  Those on this side are lulled into over-confidence.  Those on that side invent ways to circumvent the inconvenience.  Those on this side and on that side grow in the hatred and distrust of the enemy on the other side.  Never has there been a wall that was never breeched.  The burning of Rome (64 AD) and the destruction of Jerusalem (70 AD) are only two examples that come to mind as reminders of wall failures.
Finally, walls are the result of demagoguery.  They are erected as a result of hatred, not of love.  The law of God does not call for walls.  The law of God calls for mutual support and hospitality.  The law of God provides for stiff penalties to the criminals.  The penalties are part of the law because the criminal insults God Himself, not just the offended human.  The law of God does not call for punishing the foreigner who comes to your land.  God tells His people to treat the foreigner with loving mercy in remembrance of their captivity in Egypt.  Nowhere in God’s Law will you read that a country without borders is not a country.  We lock our cars and our homes because they are human artifacts.  We make laws to control entry into our space and the behavior that we expect in order to keep ourselves safe and mutually supportive, we and those who come to us. 
A short reading of the Bible will make it clear about where the legal disputations were held … at the gates of the of the wall.  Both, the foreigner and the citizen had equal access to the process.  Without that equal access, the walls came down over time.  Through the centuries walls have come and gone.  They have proven to be monumental wastes of resources because those who hide behind them always fall to those with the freedom to roam and to learn and to develop.

It is interesting that after 235 years of being a constitutional republic we should have arrived at such a level of hatred.  Or maybe, it is simply a continuing moment of the cruel hatred that Christians visited on the indigenous people of this land, the imported slaves from Africa, the Chinese and the Japanese.  Let it be a warning that the average life expectancy of republics is but 300 years.  Yes, republics that count on walls for security do not insure themselves of greater longevity.  Believe me, a wall is not a life sustaining ingredient of Making America Great Again.

Post Script

I have lived, studied and worked in four countries: Italy, France, Philippines and Mexico.  I lived through the Ferdinand Marcos coup in the Philippines.  Donald Trump is following the Marcos Play book.  But that is not what I want to expose.  I want to talk about the soul of the United States of America.
I arrived in Rome, Italy in very early October of 1961.  I was to be there for four years in order to earn a Master’s Degree in Theology.  This was three years after the universally acclaimed book, “The Ugly American.”  (15 years after WW II) I was blessed by the fact that I was a multi-lingual, multi-cultural American.  So, I escaped the snide characterizations of some of my classmates.  Some of whom were indeed “Ugly Americans.”  

After some four months, when I was getting a little proficient in the Italian language, an Italian classmate told me, “I wondered why some of the older people say that it’s a good thing to be conquered by the Americans because then they will help you to reconstruct.  You are perhaps one of those.”

Ever since then, I think of that a lot.  I think of the Marshall Plan, I think of NATO, I think of Japan…  I think of the reconstruction assistance, both structural and social, and I wonder where the acrimony in our present situation comes from.  I wonder what has happened to the reverence that we had for Ghandi, for Mandela, for Churchill, for Nasser, for Gorbachev, for Ben-Gurion?        
Thanks to the respect that we as a nation showed these people the world has been relatively, mutually respectful across the board. 
The United States of America used to have the most unguarded, friendly borders, north and south, of all nations in the world.  Who’s the demagogue who will take the prize for putting us in second place?   Who’s the demagogue who will wear the dictatorial crown on the northern side of the wall?

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