BY SHARON MARTIN
Kokopelli, according to some researchers, may have been a traveling salesman, a Toltec with a backpack and a flute who plied his trade across what is now the Mexico/U.S. border. Kokopelli is a Hopi word for wooden back.
Protestors shouting at a bus full of immigrant women and children, refugees from poverty and violence, make it clear that border is no longer open. Last week in California, a bus had to be rerouted to another holding facility.
A jackass holding a flag shouted at a camera, “This is a victory for America.”
From where did his family immigrate? He wasn’t a Toltec or a Hopi. He was just some white dude, a symbol of the political war brewing in this country.
Pundits and politicians feed us lies about how the president is stealing our guns and making up his own laws and the immigrants are stealing our jobs and tax dollars.
On the other side, people are disillusioned by the way money has purchased our politicians, by the dismantling of the walls that separate church and state, by the war on civil rights.
It’s a war of ideology, with dueling attack ads, press conferences, and Facebook memes. But a real war is brewing.
What did the last Civil War accomplish? Thousands died. Slaves were freed, but that lasted just until Jim Crow came along to “put them back in their place.” It has taken decades of fighting for civil rights just to get to this uneasy peace.
Greed and a thirst for power are the real enemies of the state. This need for a privileged class, dominant race, ruling religion is fascism in America.
Fascists always have an enemy, a scapegoat, to blame. In Europe, it was the Jews, the gypsies, and anyone who didn’t buy into the plans for a master race. American fascists blame black people, Mexicans, Muslims. They blame women and children seeking refuge from poverty and violence.
Before and during World War II, until 1944, we refused to “relax quotas” for Jews immigrating into the United States. We see how that worked out.
In the current crisis at our border let us learn from our mistakes and do the right thing.
When the refugees are secure, both sides need to sit at the table and work out a plan for peace between the warring ideologies.
Diversity makes us stronger. So does peace.
– Sharon Martin lives in Oilton, OK and is a regular contributor to The Oklahoma Observer
