I am this; you are that
WE have a problem
I am a non-Jew. I don't like referring to myself this way as I'm sure Black people don't want to be referred to as non-White. However, it seems to be that we are in a storm of labels that need to be addressed.
I understand why Aaron Mate and Katie Halper declare that they are Jewish, as Climate Adam has done here, to emphasise that the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza is absolutely not in their name.
Wars account for about 5% of emissions and there are no agreements anywhere to reduce the use of fossil fuels- sustainable green weapons anyone?!
But I want to understand, as it seems very important right now, why identities are so significant. Some people like to declare that they can trace their ancestors to the Mayflower, but really, so what? Jewish people claim they are descendants (though thoroughly genetically mixed like everyone else; even with social pressure not to 'marry out') of people from Judea. Really, what's the big deal? Many do not practice nor believe all the Jewish customs or religious practices, some purposefully designed, I believe, to make Jews stand out in Gentile society, so it is not entirely religious nor cultural.
It feels from the outside a bit like the Masons, only you have to be born into it or are sometimes allowed to 'convert' to Judaism if you want to marry in, as Isla Fisher did to marry Zionist Sacha Baron Cohen.
If someone says ‘I am Jewish’ are they saying that regardless of their skin, eyes and hair colouring and regardless of their religious beliefs and practices, that they are inherently different to other people who don't identify as Jewish?
If identity can cross boundaries of physical appearance, genitalia and chromosomes and women are being forced by law to accept men into their changing areas and sports, should anyone be allowed to say ‘i am Jewish’ and have to be accepted into groups of other people who identify as Jewish; where there are no physical nor genetic boundaries?
Of course people should be able to 'identify' however they wish. But that should not give a man the right, for example, to enter a women only space on the basis of his 'identity'. Nor the right to a genocide because of what happened to one's ancestors. Identifying with a group history as victims, as we have seen, has led to devastating consequences.
Of course we all have the right to be proud of our heritage, though the more we identify with a religion or a national past as winners or losses, oppressor or suppressed and internalise these personalities, the more work we have to do in therapy and meditation to dis-identify with them and learn to live new in each moment!
Of course we all have a right to our beliefs and cultures. But if that belief is that we are chosen by God ahead of others or that it's our culture to massacre families of whales, then in the words of Richard Dawkins- it's time to get a better belief and a better culture. People should be respected, it's open season on their religions, ideas and cultures.
Children live in the moment, in their bodies, in self-sufficiency and innate compassion. They have to be taught through years of education and conditioning that they are better than others, or lesser than others, that war and killing to get their own way is OK, that factory farming sentient beings and environmental destruction to have nice things is OK.
The way forward is less stereotyping. Less identifying. Less social constructs telling us how we should behave. Less I am this; you are that.
More we are all earthlings hurtling towards climate meltdown so let's at least come together for the finale!!
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I do not accept any of the superficial labels people try to slap on me and I have no interest in the more popular and socially encouraged labels either (such as being "patriotic" to some corporate vassal state or another, or having some specific genetic lineage that defines me, or being some certain type of "spiritual" etc).
So many here in Canada get really excited about waving flags and talking about our great nation. Not me, each "Canada Day" I contemplate the 150 years plus of Colonialism... Pillaging... Eugenics... Assimilation... Polluting... Disenfranchisement... Criminal Dispossession... Forced Labor (aka slavery), Lying... Mass Murder and Involuntary Governance which defines this nation state.
This is a country in which government funded operations were created with the express intent of assaulting, lying, stealing land, kidnapping, torturing, psychologically abusing, assimilating and/or the mass murder of children.
Some think that the residential schools are some kind of isolated incident. They have not done their homework. Indigenous women had been forcibly sterilized in Saskatchewan up until the 2000-s. Another example (less extreme though also appalling) is when the government of Canada seized the property of thousands of Japanese Canadian Citizens, forced them into camps to be used as slave labor, sold their possessions and then either forced them to leave Canada or move east. Here in Ontario I live in a town where David Suzuki and his family were forced to move to from their home out west in BC (where they had been detained and held in concentration type government camps simply because of the fact that they are Japanese).
Right now the colonial imperialistic conquest (that began with a greed an arrogance driven pillaging of the First Nation people's and their lands) continues in northwestern British Columbia where Canadian authorities are invading Wet’suwet’en indigenous lands for the construction of a gas pipeline, violating both Canadian and international law. Protests have erupted across Canada in support of the Wet'suwet'en people who are fighting for their rights.
As if the colonialism (past and present) and pillaging of the land (and the people who called this place home before the Europeans came) was not enough, over the past 3 decades the Canadian government has worked closely with corporations that are attempting to colonize the very genetic fabric of our food sources with the creation and proliferation of GMO crops (transgenic organisms created via rDNA gene splicing tech). These nutritionally deficient highly toxic food crops have resulted in the devastation of our soils, waters, diverse ecosystems and the degradation of human health.
Northward the imperialistic conquest and colonialism continues with the pillaging of the Boreal Forest to rip lithium and cobalt from the bones of our Mother Earth. (for more info: https://gavinmounsey.substack.com/p/an-introduction-to-a-new-series-befriending )
Now the final step of colonialism is underway... it involves the colonization of your mind and body. Our government officials and government officials all over the world in other involuntary governance structures (now nothing more than feeble puppets for a plutocracy of CEOs of corporations and central banks that see the majority of humanity as lower than them) launched a blitzkrieg of fear propaganda and psychological warfare operations disseminated through infiltrated institutions we have been raised to trust and respect. The architects of this new (and final) type of colonialism arrive wearing a smiling face, speaking of equality, "keeping the citizens safe from danger" and make promises of a high tech 'utopia' offering a long list of quick fix 'solutions' that are 'easier' than those 'old natural methods' to seduce the weak minded while it slips a dagger between the ribs (or more specifically, a syringe).
Many have allowed themselves to be internally colonized (in many cases literally as their DNA is being artificially altered) and mentally assimilated. When I say mentally colonized or assimilated, what I mean is they have allowed themselves to be coerced, intimidated, 'carrot and stick-ed' and brainwashed into a state one could only describe as a psychotic break. This is a mind state in which they have moved so far into a sort of stockholm syndrome that they no longer summon up thoughts of their own (rather just regurgitating what ever the 'public health officials', politicians or "philanthropist" billionaires say on tv). These mentally colonized masses of people will even actively defend the government's and plutocrat's insane, irrational, criminal behavior and mandates (which violate the Nuremburg Code) and blindly carry out their orders (like members of a cult).
This is a nation in which our government is currently pushing to get your children experimented on with gene altering drugs (that pose them a higher risk of being hospitalized than the virus these experimental drugs are supposedly going to protect them against). We are now moving beyond Malfeasance, Medical malpractice and anything resembling science and into the realm of something closer to a religion or cult. If we continue on this trajectory the genocide that we will have allowed to take place will be far greater in number than the deaths in the residential schools.
I love this land (that was once called part of Turtle Island by it's inhabitants) however, this entity that some are celebrating today (called Canada) is hardly something worthy of saluting... it's history is stained with the blood of those who stood in the way of the profits and genocidal delusions of government authorities (and their corporate puppet masters). It is a nation state that is not on a path guided by compassion, nor humility, nor valor, nor courage, nor freedom. It is a country where the majority have allowed themselves to become mentally enslaved, subservient to an unelected plutocratic constellation of criminal corporations (and their puppets in government) and that is nothing to be proud of.
Whew! That was quite a tangent, well thanks for reading and thanks for the thought provoking post.
I've been noticing this in some of my IRL contacts in the recent past, a suddenly intensified need to have AN IDENTITY in the "I am THIS" way. I wonder if it may result, at least in part, from a decrease in real genuine and deep IRL connections, and as a coping or compensating mechanism it becomes desperately necessary for people to create a substitute 'connection' by identifying very strongly with some group/label. I try to think back to when I was a child/teen/young adult, I don't recall there being such a massive amount of Identity-ing back then. Maybe there was and I just wasn't aware of it, but if if there wasn't and it's new, then what caused it? Or something imposed top-down, because nudging people towards this need to Identify serves some purpose..? I don't know... but I do know that when I interact with people who are embracing this very loud and insistent "I am THIS" cry it makes me recoil. A little while ago I needed to create a LinkedIn account in order to access something, I listed myself as Human working at Planet Earth.
Interesting post, thank you for sharing thoughts on this topic.