HISTORY LESSON : EUROPE TRIP PART 2

Europe is confused about us over here in the U.S.  They welcomed us travelers with friendly and positive open arms.  And also asked gently how we are doing and whether anyone is paying attention.  

We had local guides give basically tutorials on the caution we must exercise to protect our democracy.  In the Netherlands and Germany particularly, words echoed what we heard a couple years ago on a previous visit there, that what is happening to our government and democracy is eerily similar to the rise of Nazism in pre-war Germany.  The slow erosion of the rule of law, of norms, of values; the divisions based on misinformation and lies; the fear and the apathy.  

We stood outside homes where citizens had been dragged from their beds and sent to work camps, the only trace of their lives left being a brass "brick"in the street in front of their homes with their name/address/and date of removal and death engraved in memorium.  We sat in a circle in a centuries old castle where our guide told tales of a history of violence, including a moving account of Nazi Germany.  We all heard the warning.

Their message was WAKE UP to a leader who frees his friends and jails his enemies (or anyone who questions him), a leader who targets certain groups as "other" and demonizes them, who limits the free press and free speech and threatens those who dare to defy those limits, who creates a military excuse to use force against our own citizens.  WAKE UP.  

Are we like frogs in boiling water? -- it's so crazy we can hardly believe it and want to laugh it all off as absurd, or the outrages becomes so common we stop paying attention, or it's so scary we hide and pray none of it will touch our lives, or our families lives.  

As I write this sentence I acknowledge my own fear of speaking out and being vulnerable to violence from opponents, or my own fear of putting these words on the internet and to be labeled an "enemy" by the current government. I'm no firebrand. I generally don't lead the charge.  I have strong values and convictions coupled with a conflict avoidance tendency.  Plus, I am just one little insignificant person with no real influence. But then I think about those brass bricks.  And then I think about my grandchildren and I know I can't do nothing.  I must stand up for them, even if I'd rather stay home and crochet.  In fact, I'd rather our country not be in this position at all.  But here we are.

So, today some citizens will take to the streets fully AWAKE to the danger we face.  It is predicted to be the largest mass protest in U.S. history where citizens will come out of their homes and gather in their communities, large and small, from coast to coast (and joined in support by those in other countries as well) to wave flags and signs and peacefully stand against an authoritarian slide that threatens our democracy.  The rallying cry is "No Kings" and I get that.  But it almost sounds quaint, doesn't it?  Yes, the U.S. was founded on the idea that we answer to no King, harkening back to the fight for independence from the English monarchy in the 1700s.

Yet, I suggest that in these early decades of the 21st century, we need to look around at the growth of violent right wing authoritarianism and rally around KEEP OUR DEMOCRACY -- NO DICTATORS.  So, I won't carry a sign today with funny, scary, or demeaning slogans and caricatures of a president wearing a crown.  I will simply carry my American flag -- an enduring symbol the world over for freedom, truth, and justice; for democracy.  Do we always live up to those aspirations?  No; absolutely not.  But without those ideals as our guiding light, we are far too vulnerable to those ideals being a mere memory of our possibility.  We become something else entirely.

At least, that's the view from here...©