Swami has watched the immigration events of this month in our fair county, and now has a definite view on what is right and what is wrong with the whole mess. Do you think you know where Swami stands on this business? He bets you are wrong. Read on ….
Swami knows all and sees even more (he owns those X-Ray spectacles), but even a sage, wise mystic such as us is mystified by some events.
We are mystified that pro-immigration protesters so clearly do not understand the traditions and ground rules of American political protest.
Here’s one of those rules.
American civil disobedience icon Henry David Thoreau was locked in his hometown jail one day. He was often locked up that way. It’s the method he used to show how devoted he was to his causes.
Friend and customary ally Ralph Waldo Emerson was walking by, and he spied his friend behind bars.
“Why are you in there?” he is quoted as asking his friend.
Said Thoreau: “And why are YOU out THERE?”
The implications are obvious in what might be an apocryphal anecdote. The only true measure of social activists fighting against what they believe to be oppression is to stand against the law and face its consequence. Civil disobedience not only requires spurning an unjust law; it requires suffering that law’s consequences as testimony to your righteousness.
If supporters of undocumented immigrants learned what history teaches, they must suffer. Not merely talk the issue to death.
The civil rights activist who marched in Montgomery and Selma not only wanted to speak to power, they expected to be punished by it. They expected jail. They demanded it. They wanted the world to see what injustice looked like.
Swami thinks the current crop of activists is protesting mostly with its mouths. And sometimes not even doing that very well.
If now-deported protester Elvira Arellano had really wanted to show America how justice had failed her, she would have been able to speak with us in English. Americans who speak Spanish probably heard her just fine.
Those who speak English-only are the ones she must persuade. Hard to be Rosa Parks when you don’t habla.
If illegal immigrants wanted to make their case, 10 million folks should show up for deportation and demand immediate jail time. Neither our government nor Mexico’s could tolerate that. The continent would seize up. Then there would have to be a solution.
There is no easy way to American citizenship these days. Should it be if you're here illegally?
The march in Selma was not for the fuzzy and faint. It took resolute souls. We’re not sure immigrant partisans have the nerve.
Protesting that 58 gang-banging punks are being thrown out of the country (as happened last week here) makes your cause look thin and unworthy. And worst of all, silly.
Simsalabim.
Thank you for covering this topic the way you did. Indeed, the lessons of Thoreau and King have a lot to teach this generation of activists. Marches, like we have seen so far, are great for showing solidarity, fighting back against the stigma of xenophobia and epithets like "illegal," (when did it become a noun?), but do not help change hearts and minds. More sacrifice is required. It is my prayer that this generation of pioneers will learn the lessons of those who pioneered desegregation and abolition. Only then, do I believe, that freedom can be advanced and government by the people, of the people, and for the people may be again realized.