My family had the chance a few years back to stay at an upscale hotel in San Antonio that had a water feature called a "lazy river." We put on swimsuits, plopped down in innertubes, and floated a circular "stream" of recycling water in which, with no effort or sense of attention or adventure on our parts, we never failed to return to our launch point, not even spilling a drop of our drinks.
I guess if you have never tubed the Buffalo River or even your granny's full-flowing creek, it might seem like fun. Our crowd was quickly bored.
According to novelist Zadie Smith (in a 2017 short story called "The Lazy River" in The New Yorker), the prevailing culture is like a "lazy river," often found in amusement parks or upscale resorts. She uses the lazy river as the perfect metaphor for the life both here and abroad. Smith's story itself seems to float effortlessly along, but the reader quickly understands that she has a destination. In fact, an interviewer asked her if she meant the piece as an "essay" about the state of the world. She is both British and Jamaican and clearly dismayed by the Brexit decision.
For this old English teacher, her reply is spot on. "Essays are for when you want to test an argument or try to convince yourself or somebody else of something or another. This ['The Lazy River'] was more like a flare sent up into the darkness: 'I'm feeling this way--are you?'"
Feelings, like flares, have to be ignited, but once lit, should not be ignored, lest they carelessly burn down the house. I never liked to play with matches, but this past week someone struck a match to my flare, and I am aflame. On Facebook, sandwiched in between snapshots of two playful puppies and a tintype showing a female librarian delivering books on horseback during the Great Depression, this malicious statement under the name of a person I did not know was reposted in bold script: "Kick Islam Out of America."
In 2017, according to a Pew Forum estimate, there were 3.45 million Muslims in the United States. Of these, 37 percent were born in this country.
Perhaps he'd toss all immigrants of whatever ethnic background, although I am not insinuating that because I do not know him, but is the writer seriously suggesting we forcefully remove even the 37 percent of native-born Muslims from the United States if they practice their faith? Or would he perhaps give them a pass, but have us simply strip them of their religion, pull down Islamic mosques, burn their sacred texts, forbid their calls to prayer? Is it the religion or the people that so inflame him?
And what does he mean by America? This country? Canada? Central America? South America? I am not being disingenuous here; who in the world is he speaking for? He writes as a "Republican Patriot." Using the term "Republican" as a qualifier, does that imply that he would acknowledge there are Democratic patriots as well? Could one be a patriot if she is a Republican Christian but disagreed with the idea of "kicking Islam out of America"?
I have written before in this space about the need for civility in our disheartening political climate, lifting up the thought that a dialogue that asks questions of an opponent's meaning before we launch into a monologue of righteous indignation and condemnation is needed. Especially in this age of instantaneous news cycles, Photoshopped pictures, and false information, it is critical that we speak and act based on a person's acknowledged statements and on fact, not our own projections of what they might mean.
However, having done that, frankly, when individuals--whether it is a "Republican Patriot" or great-aunt Tillie or Pastor Jones--proposes we "kick out" United States citizens because of their ethnicity or religion, it is past time we flare! In fact, as United States patriots who love this country of diversity and religious freedom, it is our patriotic duty to flare.
How can we love a country and not love the people in it?
Do we not remember our ninth-grade civics, where we were taught the confession of German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller, "First They Came ...," penned after World War II? Written in this country today, might it read: "When they kicked out Islam, I did not speak out, because I was not a Muslim. When they came for the Hispanics, I did not speak out, because I was not Hispanic. When they came for _ [feel free to fill in the blank], I did not speak out. Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak for me."
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Dana Steward is a retired writing teacher from Sherwood and editor of the nature anthology, A Rough Sort of Beauty: Reflections on the Natural Heritage of Arkansas.
Editorial on 01/17/2020