Straight and Crooked Thinking

The title above is the name of a book I had to study in literature while attending university.  I have thought about it off and on during my life since then but never more so than this past year as the world seems to be hovering on the brink of something we thought had disappeared after 1945.  The rhetoric that Donald Trump has been spouting this year is echoed around the world but particularly in Europe partly as a consequence of many years of immigration into Europe.  Immigration coupled with the loss of manufacturing jobs in both North America and Europe is resulting in lower economic standards as well as expectations for the future for a large part of the population.  One can understand this discouragement but surely we should remember that pointing fingers at any ethnic group as the cause is a lesson we should have not only learned but been deeply ingrained into us as crooked thinking.

Using words like “nationalism”, “America First”, “making (insert country name) great again” and other phrases can and will be misconstrued to mean something more which in turn can lead to something very dangerous.  The world watched and even quietly participated in the mass destruction of a people before and during the Second World War.  No country in the world would accept Jewish refugees out of Europe in the 1930’s except for a handful of people here and there.  I bow my head in shame when I admit that even Canada and Denmark said no, two of the most generous countries in the world.

Today Europe has taken in millions of refugees from not only the Middle East but from Africa, Afghanistan and other countries including Eastern European countries.  As a consequence not only their economies have suffered by their social systems have become overburdened.  I can understand why the people of those countries are tired, upset and even angry when the systems they have contributed to with their tax dollars is now diminished and putting their retirements and children’s education at risk.  It’s easy for sly politicians to work on this dissatisfaction and so create political traction by exploiting discontent.  Just so did the Nazi party set to work in Germany.

I would as my readers to question what you read and hear over the next four years and to be sure that what you understand is not a “tickling of your ears” because of your personal circumstances.  Remember, this too shall pass.  When you come out on the other side I truly hope that it will be with Straight Thinking and no regrets.

Once again I would like to recommend the book “Every Man Dies Alone” by Hans Fallada.  My father had tried to convey to me what it was like to live in Germany when everyone feared their neighbour but it never resonated with me as strongly as the reading of this book did.  A remarkable telling by a German who experienced this in Berlin before, during and after the war.  Never should such a thing happen in Canada, please God.