Colonizers organizing against colonization – ironic, right? It’s one of those many things you just can’t make up.
Where do you start with such people? How do you begin to offer them history, context and get them to see past their own privilege enough to put themselves in the moccasins and mukluks of others? What do you do when love and dialogue are not enough to get them to see more than just white humanity? Those are the questions we wrestle with as groups like the Oath Keepers host open carry protests against Muslims and other people deemed as outsiders and “other” by the current establishment, just as they are doing this Saturday in Dearborn, Michigan; Louisville, Kentucky; Phoenix, Arizona; speckled throughout the state of Florida; and other locations across the country.
As the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan is set to break records with the #JusticeOrElse 20th anniversary of the Million Man March this Saturday in Washington, D.C., these yahoos are gathering in Dearborn (where there is a large Muslim population) and more than a dozen other locations because they believe America is being threatened by Muslim colonization – hence, their anti-Muslim rallies. Even more ironically, they are calling it the “Global Rally for Humanity.”
Dig that: these humanity-denying colonizers are protesting alleged “Muslim colonization” under the guise of a global rally for “humanity,” and they are apparently entirely unaware of their own ideological paradox.
Facebook events have been set up for a majority of the misguided rallies around the U.S. Dearborn’s states the rally is due to begin at 1 p.m., Saturday, right in front of the Islamic Center of America. The event states on its page:
“As this invasion of Muslim colonization continues unchecked on American soil, we can only expect the same suffering now endured by EUROPE. Farrakhan’s hate and promotion of inter-ethnic strife is a wake up call. Now is the time to act. Now is the time to save our Republic.”
It’s too bad none of these folks have taken the time to put aside their prejudice and actually listened to what Farrakhan says. They would know all their fears, all their unnecessary defensiveness is absurd. Farrakhan frequently addresses his Eurocentric brothers and sisters, stating that those actually working on the behalf of all humanity, those working to acknowledge America’s true history and rectify the wrongs committed in the past that have led us to our current crooked and corrupt social and political system are, indeed, his brothers and sisters, too – family. They are part of the fold, Muslim or not. His criticisms they jerk their knees at are not meant for them if they could only just recognize the fact. Muslims are all too willing to embrace average Americans with love, peace and acceptance. The problem is, people like the Oath Keepers are not willing to return the same love, respect and humanity. This is evident in Farrakhan telling those gathering Saturday in a tweet to leave their weapons at home. “We will fire the cannon of our UNITY on 10.10.15.”
Don’t bring any weapons. We will fire the cannon of our UNITY on 10.10.15! http://t.co/xbweydCCFc #JusticeOrElse pic.twitter.com/C1SOV1isrO
— MINISTER FARRAKHAN (@LouisFarrakhan) October 8, 2015
And what are the Oath Keepers organizing to do that day, again?
Exactly.
And since they are hell-bent on continuing the ignorance, the prejudice, the racism and jingoism so prevalent in this country, perhaps they should feel the sharp eye of scorn cast upon them. They deserve it, because there is absolutely no “Muslim colonization” of America underway. And even if there was, what right would violent colonizers have to object to peaceful “colonizers” migrating to the U.S. after what has been done, and continues to be done, to our Indigenous brothers and sisters, whose stolen land saturated with genocidal blood we all still live, work, laugh and frolic on daily?
And don’t even try to explain to groups like the Oath Keepers that U.S. and British foreign policy is largely to blame for the violence Oath Keepers so desperately try to point out all the time to plead their pathetic case. We stomp our boots on the throats of the world to exercise our control over them for economic gain and then feign victimization when a few exceptions amongst the masses decide enough is enough and do something bloody and rash.
But such radicals speak no more for all Muslims than David Duke speaks for all white people or the Duggars speak for all Christians. Rallies like the Global Rally for Humanity are nothing more than an excuse for scared shitless, paranoid gun nuts to parade their arms around like they’re tough, when we all know if they were worth half a damn they’d be organizing right here at home against the tyranny of their own government and the corporate occupation of our own lives. There is so much to fight for and against, but friends, Muslims just aren’t our enemy. They’re not.
It’s time to rethink your oaths and point your guns in a new direction. Until you do, it’s #JusticeOrElse, as it should be.
Featured image by Reuters video screen capture, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.
