Vaccines against extremism
The current public debate over what to do about the surge of murderous, organized racist violence in Virginia reminds me of the play “Rhinoceros” by Eugene Ionesco. The drama is set in a French village during World War II, where people, one by one, inexplicably begin turning into huge, rampaging rhinos.
From that surrealistic premise, the play catalogs the various ways people react to the danger, providing valuable insight into how Europeans failed to stop the rise of fascism.
Ionesco’s villagers start by arguing over whether it’s possible for rhinos to exist in France at all, denying the evidence of their own eyes. Intellectuals then waste time in pointless, detailed debates about whether the growing pack of animals destroying their town are African or Asian rhinos.
By the time it becomes clear that humans are, indeed, turning into dangerous beasts, the weak-willed in the village feel compelled to acknowledge the strength and beauty of the animals — a sure sign they are about to join the herd themselves.
As members of the village succumb to mass hysteria, the play’s unlikely hero — an ordinary man who stubbornly refuses to join the crowd — makes a final stand with the defiant cry, “Je ne capitule pas!” (“I’m not giving in!”)
Too many of my fellow members of the chattering classes remind me of Ionesco’s confused villagers, chasing irrelevancies as the mobs continue to arm and gather strength.
No more need be said about President Trump’s disgracefully tardy and reluctant words condemning the rise of white supremacist violence. It’s clear he will be, at best, of limited help when it comes to rallying the country against the barbarians intent on undermining our democracy.
Trump has made too many deals with the devil, offered too many sly winks to the racists — notably, with years of happily promoting the false birther conspiracy — to be a credible voice of national unity now.
As a practical matter, efforts to contain the pro-Nazi goons will likely need to be organized at the local level. Riot-trained cops, backed by heavily armed units of the National Guard, might have staved off the bands of armed hooligans who chanted anti-Semitic slogans, stormed the University of Virginia and murdered a young woman in broad daylight last weekend.
But barriers, bullets and police tactics alone won’t permanently break the back of the Nazis and Klansmen, or help us make sense of the chaos and menace in our land.
For that, we need to connect with the deep sources of Western culture. Any recipient of a decent education has been raised with stories, songs, and religious rituals that help make sense of who we are, what we believe — and what to do when our values come under attack.
Probing the history books — I highly recommend “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” by William Shirer — offers copious examples of how to spot the enemies of democracy as they engage in their dirty work.
I member getting chills while standing in Berlin’s Opernplatz, where a mob of pro-Nazi students burned 20,000 books in 1933. The plaza today contains a memorial to the violence of that fateful night that includes a line from the writer Heinrich Heine, one of the artists whose works were put to the torch.
Heine wrote a warning in 1821, long before the rise of the Nazis: “Where they burn books, they will in the end also burn people.”
Our houses of worship contain literally centuries worth of scriptural warnings about the reality of radical evil. Those same churches and synagogues offer high ground from which to fight the racists.
“We need to re-Christianize the debate,” a minister told me over the weekend, citing a statement from Bishop Charles Blake, the presiding prelate of the 6 million-member Church of God in Christ denomination.
“Just as white supremacist Dylann Roof’s assault on Mother Emanuel AME Church was an act of domestic terrorism, so, too, is the incident in Charlottesville. The political goal in both instances was the intimidation of black people and the violent denial of their rights as citizens,” Blake wrote to his followers. “In the Spirit of Jesus and of Dr. (Martin Luther) King I call upon my Protestant and Roman Catholic brothers and sisters to come together to exemplify King’s vision of the Beloved Community as a moral witness to the world.”
Taking a moment to reflect on our values will not, in itself, defeat the extremists. But it can help us find the common language and ideas needed to quell our fears and prepare us for the long battle ahead.