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 I have been reading Strength in What Remains by Tracy Kidder. It is about one soul that made it out of the genocide in Burundi (next to Rwanda in Africa) in which hundreds of thousands of people of all stripes engaged in the slaughter of people indistinguishable from themselves. Priests killed parishioners, students killed teachers, neighbor killed neighbor, patients killed doctors. It was a kind of low tech killing with hand tools which makes it clear that everyone was involved not just revolutionary groups and the army like so many other places.
There is no way to tell a Hutu from a Tutsi. No particular ethnic, religious, physical appearance distinctions. Kind of made me think of the difference between Republicans and Democrats. Could you tell the difference? Really? Does one group were expensive suits, have nice haircuts, fancy cars? The other scruffy, long hair, casual dress. The professorial type as opposed to the used car salesman. The stock broker compared with the manual laborer?
Once the slaughter started, even the most tenuous of distinctions disappeared in the blood bath. Is that the direction in which we are headed? No one in Burundi thought so before it started there either. It is interesting to note that even though one side was considered to be more pacific than the other, once the slaughter started, everyone got involved. Sure, you might be armed and fortified in your castle but that turned out not to differently from Ruby Ridge or Waco. Men, women, children, cats, dogs, cattle all were slaughtered once the flood gates were opened. Hacked to pieces by those with whom they lived in peace the years before.
No one asked, "Are you for health care?" "Do you believe in global warming?" "Are you prolife?" For or against gay marriage, prayer in the schools, fluoride in the water, second amendment rights, tax cutting, public education? Hot button items just don't seem that important as the machete hits your child's head just above the ear, as your wife is doused with gasoline and set afire. It wasn't only students killing teachers. Teachers killed students.
The Burundi civilization had been going on for years, as has ours. They didn't expect calamity, neither do we. Both sides denigrated the other side, as do we. One side currently is much more belligerent than the other. When the belligerent got their way, everyone died. Even with an 85% to 15% ratio, the death counts at the end were not all that different. Civilizations are very hard to build. Are you building or tearing down?
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I think you are referring to the demonizing that is going on left and right politically here in the USA now. I've wondered at times if we're heading toward a Civil War style meltdown, but a Rwandan style purge may be possible too.
During the Red Scare/Hollywood blacklist days in America the hunters scoured membership lists for the American Communist party, magazine subscription list and persecuted those they found. During WW I German Americans were persecuted. During WWII it was Japanese Americans. In Nazi Germany persecuted minorities were forced to wear badges.
Historically there have been many ways to create "sides" and many reasons dreamed up for demonizing and persecuting the "other".
We are primed for the same thing to happen again, I believe.