Well, the tip of that spear may be coming to punctuate a community near you.
I’ve been watching US society; my country, my home, our home, can I call it our home?; hammering away at a bronze monster for decades. A monster called, ‘Division.’
Right vs. left. Man vs. woman. Black vs. white. Young vs. old. Gay vs. straight. Whatever vs. whatever-else. And we are starting to see its effects. A recent survey revealed that the United States’ population is more divided on fundamental issues than it has been in over a hundred years. That’s closer to the United States’ Civil War than it is to today.
Where are we going?
Modern, I use the word loosely, civil wars don’t work like in the old times. There won’t be men in uniforms of grey and blue standing off against each other firing cannonballs into each other’s ranks. No skirmishes in swamps and meadows followed by long trudges back to a blistering wasteland that once held their homes, their farms, and their lives. No executions of terrified soldiers or civilians at the gallows. No lonely buglers playing Taps at sunset.
Today’s civil wars, and there have been several, consist of divided people who come together at last, but the coming together of them is not one of reconciliation, it is one of retribution.
Knots and tangles of men and women decide that they’ve had enough, and they are not going to take it anymore. And then the bronze on their brows begins to shine.
That’s when the bronze monster awakens in them. That’s when they lose control of their senses, their minds, and their humanity.
In 2014 the government of Ukraine was overthrown in a coup. There had been peaceful protests going on for months, as is the right of a peaceful society. We have the right to speak our minds in a compelling manner and to express ourselves and be heard. And for once the government was listening to them and agreeing to some of their demands. There seemed to be the possibility of compromise.
Imagine that? What a concept!
But other factions seized control, stormed the capital, and took over the government. The people who took control and ultimately were declared ‘legitimate’ leaders, were scraped from amongst the worst dregs of Ukrainian society. People whose grandparents had welcomed the invading army of Europe’s worst times with parades and mugs of kvas and whose men, fathers, brothers, uncles, and sons, flooded to the battle.
“Me! Me!” they shouted. “I want to join!”
“To do what?” you might ask.
“To kill people we hate!” they replied.
That’s what they did. Field Marshall General Zhukov famously said later, “We delivered Europe from fascism, and they never forgave us for it.”
Understandably, the general population of Ukraine was horrified and began protesting across the country. Russia, who could have invaded then and there and restored order, held back, just supplying clandestine support to the Russians living in the Ukraine who were protesting and refusing to submit. And being massacred as a consequence. They didn’t understand. They weren’t prepared for it. Who could be?
Civil wars are like that today, don’t you know?
You are prepared for massacres, right? If we are talking about another civil war, massacring people at an industrial scale is essential.
In Odessa a group of protesters were set upon and fired upon by armed militants. They fled into an adjoining government building, a trade union building, for shelter and protection. The hostile group chained the doors shut and set the building on fire. People leapt from windows to their death or were shot trying to escape. The rest were burned alive.
And the militants? The murderers? The bronze monsters? Who were they? What happened to them?
They were just people. Ukrainians. Who had been citizens the day before. Ukrainian citizens. The guy and girl next door. Just like the people they killed. Just like that.
In the United States’ Civil War it was brother against brother. So it is in every civil war.
This is the face of civil war today.
That is what the bronze monster looks like.
This is the face in the mirror.
Are you ready for that?
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