Tell All The Truth

I have previously discussed my Eastern European family (which is most of it) but one does not get a name like Bennington without some Anglo-American ancestors. It does not do to generalize, but I will say that my Anglo-American family valued manners and had a somewhat relaxed attitude toward the truth. I was never taught to lie, but I learned about honesty in the context of some other life lessons: I was raised not to talk about problems if that could be avoided, because manners are more important than any one interpersonal conflict. I was taught to be polite when asked for my opinion, and that if I didn’t have anything nice to say, not to say anything at all. I was raised to believe that emotions are best kept private.

Pictured: an alternative to discussing your feelings.

I also grew up in mainstream American culture, where many people value straight talk. And there was the straightforward misery of my continental family, who would say true and horrible things about the world and then laugh like it was a joke. I decided at about 12 that I had enough prevarication and polite omission. If I had something that wasn’t nice to say, I’d say it anyway. People value honesty, but there is a limit beyond which they no longer appreciate it. I cannot say conclusively where that limit is, but I can say that it is somewhere before unsolicited opinions about their shoes.

I have so many opinions.

Anyone who has tried this communication strategy knows it is an excellent way to get labeled an asshole. After limited social success, I decided to soften my position on incomplete honesty. As it turns out, polite prevarication, obliging omission, and the occasional little white lie do a great deal to ease social relations. While people say that they want honesty, they seem perfectly satisfied with kindness even when they know it is somewhat dishonest. We know this firsthand when we answer questions like “Does size matter?” and “Do I look fat in this?” Being more careful about social niceties left a tension in me: a heart that longed to tell the whole truth, and a sense of politesse that restrained me from criticism except with my most intimate confidants. So I was the worst of both worlds: superficially polite, and vituperative behind people’s backs.

“Of course I think your weird, frog-shoes are acceptable to wear in public”

After adulthood, and much therapy, I can say I have gotten better by working toward a middle path. Honesty and kindness is much more challenging than a false face of geniality and an inner character that loves to complain. In the Sutras there is a passage about Right Speech, one of the steps on the Eightfold Path:

"Do I speak at the right time, or not? Do I speak of facts, or not? Do I speak gently or harshly? Do I speak profitable words, or not? Do I speak with a kindly heart, or inwardly malicious?” — AN V (From The Patimokkha, Ñanamoli Thera, trans.)

That is a great deal to ask of oneself before speaking, but this rigor is better than poor character. While this process eased the tension between telling the truth and being kind, it did not resolve it entirely. What does one do when one’s truth is not timely or when the truth is harsh? How can one be honest under such circumstances?

Without my intending her to, Emily Dickinson provided the answer from beyond the grave. I was thumbing through a poetry anthology someone had left on a street corner, seeing if it was worth taking home, when one of her poems struck me with insight, like a bolt from the blue:

Tell all the truth but tell it slant — (1263)

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —

Not just for easing this tension between my honesty and kindness, but for every facet of communication. It is not disingenuous to reveal the truth circuitously, it is necessary. Some of the greatest truths become bizarre and grotesque when approached head-on. Instead, one must work from detail to detail, premise to premise, until the full picture can be viewed with clarity.

Nationalism and Violence

All over Europe the extreme right parties share values and policy position. The European parliament is elected by popular vote, so while few of these parties have seats in their national parliament, many have a member of the European Parliament to represent them. This has lead to an ironic international coalition of right-wing euroskeptics in the European Parliament; working in a multinational partnership in Brussels so their countries will no longer have to work in a multinational partnership in Brussels. Who are these parties?

In France, there is Le Front National:

If you cannot read French, consider yourself lucky. This is a poster from a campaign against le Front National, the central text reads "Let's unmask le Front National" and it is surrounded by unseemly quotes. In the bottom-left corner is a quote from Jean-Marie LePen, Honorary President of Le Front National.

"I am not saying that the gas chambers didn't exist. But I believe it is a minor detail in the history of the Second World War."
-Jean-Marie LePen

This LePen's daughter,  Marine LePen, the current leader of the party, has been making an effort to normalize the image of the party, turning the rhetoric down without altering the party platform. She actually cast her own father from the party for his antisemitic remarks. This strategy is working: while the French electoral system is such that le Front National has no members of parliament, preliminary polls show Marine LePen as the frontrunner in the first round of the 2017 presedential elections.

In Hungary, there is Jobbik:

Yes they are as creepy and naziesque as that looks. Antisemitic scapegoating, a xenophobic immigration policy, euroscepticism, and extreme right-wing religious views are their party platform. In Hungary and throughout Europe, the extreme right also likes to bill itself as anticommunist. For so many Hungarians, the fear of immigration eroding Magyar cultural preeminence, and the painful and recent memory of the communist police state, mean that rather than viewed as aberrant, these young men are instead viewed as merely having "taken things a bit too far." This is the ugly truth of the extreme right, they give voice to widespread fears that others are too reserved to express publicly. They are not the cause of xenophobia, islamaphobia, homophobia, and antisemitism, but a product of it.

The United Kingdom boasts both the UK Independence Party and the British National Party:

In Britain, there is a whole class of very angry people, who feel that the last half of the 20th century left them behind. They aren't wrong; the ethnic English working class cannot expect the sort of life which their parents were guaranteed, and it easier to scapegoat minorities than to understand the structural economic changes responsible. Attitudes toward LGBT people and religious and ethnic minorities have changed fundamentally, and the British media culture reflects this. In so much of public life, right-wing ideas are now anathema. It is even illegal to use speech which might promote violence. While it doesn't do to sympathize too much with bigots, one can see how this disaffection could grow into political movement. In terms of electoral groups, the British National Party is the older and more traditional right wing party, and its previous leader's attempt to "de-demonize" the party ended in failure. He resigned in a statement that declared the party "full of racists." I think he was the only one surprised. With substantially more success there is UKIP (the United Kingdom Independence Party). While sharing many policy planks with the BNP, UKIP has tried to style itself as classier, friendlier, and more focused on breaking away from the EU. UKIP began its life as a single-issue anti-EU party, and the rest of its right-wing, nativist platform was added later. Contrary to the world I would prefer to live in, this right-wing anti-immigrant rhetoric has made them more popular; chiefly by targeting electoral districts with large populations of uneducated white people.

Even the Nordic countries have their own brand of right-wing nationalism. For example, the Dansk Folkeparti or Danish People's Party advocates an end to immigration, but not the dismantling of the welfare state. Perhaps it is this more moderate stance on social issues that makes the Folkeparti one of the most widely represented nationalist parties in Europe. The Danish Electoral system has proportional representation for all parties above a certain threshold, which means that the Folkeparti has 37 seats in the Danish parliament,

This picture is actually from Sweden, but everyone likes to see a Nazi being whacked with a handbag.

In Germany there is the Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands:

The common threads begin to weave a pattern: They condone racist and xenophobic violence, they tolerate the Neo-Nazis in their midst, and they scapegoat Muslims, immigrants, and Jews. Germany is somewhat more hesitant to allow Neo-Nazi parties than other European states, and the security services and judiciary have repeatedly attempted to shut it down. However, in the last attempt, the courts found that too many government agents had been undercover in the organization, so it was not clear that the party would have planned illegal activity otherwise.

These are not the only right wing parties in Europe. Literally every country with free elections has at least one. I bring them up because I feel like they tell a story; one that repeats in America, and perhaps throughout the world. White folks are the wealthiest and most privileged class of people in nearly every country they inhabit, however it is not generally the wealthiest white people that wind up participating in racist, nationalist political movements. Instead, these parties' ranks swell with the white working class; a group of people raised to believe that they were entitled to a certain standard of living. The forces that denied them that standard of living are difficult to identify, but these poor white folks can look around them and see loads of immigrants doing as well or better than they are.

Whether it is racism, chauvinism, or just jealousy that leads them to believe that these people are their inferiors, the results are the same: the non-white, the religious minorities, the LGBT, any who can be marked as other are blamed for their misfortune. I think we need to consider the populist and nativist tendencies in American politics; rule by a right-wing nationalist party is not as unlikely as one might imagine.

Sojod's Story

Do you know about loss? Let me tell you a story.

Sojod grew up in the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip. When she was a child, in 2005, Israel dismantled its settlements there, and hope seemed possible. However, the next year, Hamas won a majority in the government in open elections. This caused a split between the Palestinian Authority and the government in the Gaza Strip. Around the time she was in high school, the tiny, occupied territory she grew up in descended into civil war.

The border wall in Rafah City

The US, Israel, and Egypt organized a blockade, so that no goods could be imported or exported from Gaza. Telecommunications, sanitation, water, electricity, and even the airspace overhead are all tightly controlled by Israel. When Saudi-lead peace talks collapsed in the face of the blockade, her government and militant groups in Gaza began firing rockets into Israel.

Despite all of this, Sojod finished school and got married. She gave birth to a daughter, and their new family had a little home in Rafah. Things were never easy for Palestinian families in the Gaza strip. Because Rafah was right beside the border of Egypt and Israel, many homes near the wall were demolished by Israeli forces, to prevent the smuggling of weapons. Moreover, Israeli rocket attacks laid waste to many more homes, schools, hospitals, and other kinds of infrastructure throughout the Gaza Strip.

Rafah City circa 2011

Imagine what it is like, living under a blockade with constant rocket bombardments. Picture your life, if the buildings that you see, work in, and visit every day could explode without notice. Imagine the fear and trepidation of sending your child to school everyday, and not knowing whether or not she will ever come home again. Eventually, the misfortune of the Gaza Strip became the misfortune of Sojod's family, and in 2011 her home was totally destroyed. Despite having to pick through the rubble for all of her earthly possessions, Sojod is among the lucky, because her family lived.

Sojod in front of the ruins of her home

Since this photo was taken, the situation in Rafah got much worse before it got better. Israeli retaliation to Hamas' rocket strikes intensified in the summer of 2014. In Rafah, everything was shelled, and so many lost their lives that the morgues literally could not cope with the number of bodies. In spite of all of this adversity, some of Rafah is still standing, and many are beginning to rebuild, including Sojod and her family. They need a small loan, to cover the cost of rent and other expenses while their home is rebuilt. She is so close to her goal, and you have the power to give her family a new start. Please consider lending to Sojod via kiva.org: https://www.kiva.org/lend/1059994

I offer this story of loss and hope in the knowledge that the facts as I have presented them are biased. The situation in Israel-Palestine is politically and emotionally charged. Often, one can’t advocate empathy for the people involved without being labeled either an anti-semitic terrorist sympathizer, or a simpering defender of militarism and colonialism. I do not offer Sojod's story because I hate Israel or Jewish people, but because I want you to see Palestinian humanity.

On the news, the agony of loss on both sides of this conflict is reduced to statistics: how many dead, how many injured. Numbers can't tell us about loss. Numbers can't tell us about hope. Numbers reduce the horror of death into something abstract and mundane. So instead of numbers, I want you to see Sojod. I want you to know that every time you hear a statistic about the number of buildings destroyed in some conflict, behind them is a story like hers.

I'd like to close with another story, from an interview with famous American writer Alice Walker:

"It’s like 11 days after 9/11, I gave a talk to midwives in Albuquerque. And I think people were wondering about whether we should bomb Afghanistan, and what to do, and so forth. But I was saying to them, these are all women who are there at the moment of birth. They are the ones who know what it feels like when a woman is in labor, when you don’t want any kind of disturbance around you. So I was talking about how not a woman in that room, or there were a few male midwives, too — or men — would want to be in the middle of a war trying to give birth. And so I was trying to help us all see, just to see with feeling. To see with feeling, not just to gaze. But when you see something, when you think of a pregnant woman pacing the floor, wondering if the roof is going to stay over her head, or whether something is going to drop through the roof onto her and her unborn baby. When you can help people to feel what that’s like, then there’s a possibility of changing them."