welcome to the story.

The following quote comes from the book I'm reading by Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation. Volf is a native Croatian and much of this book centers around the ethnic cleansing performed by Serbian fighters in the early 1990s. I just got finished reading one of the most intelligent, stretching, uncomfortable, thought provoking chapters that I've ever read. And it has to do with the topic of exclusion. And how in the deepest part of humanity is a desire to separate from those who are not like us. And in many different forms, exclude them by domination, assimilation, abandonment, indifference, elimination, etc. Brilliant thoughts. Brilliant ideas. And its really prophetic to us as Americans and to us as followers of God where it challenges us at many levels. The following is from this chapter and talks about how hysteria can so easily be stirred up among "decent" people and a culture of exclusion can become the norm and the practice of exclusion justified. _________________________________________________________________________________ In extraordinary situations and under extraordinary directors certain themes from the "background cacophony (discord)" are picked up, orchestrated into a bellicose musical, and played up. "Historians" - national, communal, or personal interpreters of the past - trumpet the double theme of the former glory and past victimization; "economists" join in with the accounts of the present exploitation and great economic potentials; "political scientists" add the theme of the growing imbalance of power of steadily giving ground, of losing control over what is rightfully ours; "cultural anthropologists" bring in the dangers of the loss of identity and extol the singular value of our personal or cultural gifts, capable of genuinely enriching the outside world; "politicians" pick up all four themes and weave them into a high-pitched aria about the the treats to vital interests posed by the "other" who is therefore the very incarnation of evil; finally the "priests" enter in a solemn procession and accompany all this with a soothing background chant that offers to any whose consciences may have been bothered, the assurance that God is on our side and that our enemy is the enemy of God and therefore an adversary of everything that is true, good, and beautiful. As this bellicose musical with reinforcing themes is broadcast through the media, resonances are created with the background cacophony of evil that permeates the culture of a community, and the community finds itself singing the music and marching to its tune. To refuse to sing and march, to protest the madness of the spectacle, appears irrational and irresponsible, naive and cowardly, treacherous toward one's own and dangerously sentimental toward the evil enemy. The stage for "ethnic cleansing" and similar "eruptions"* of evil - personal as well as communal - is set. The first shot only needs to be fired, and the chain reaction will start. * (Volf referring to the ethnic cleansing of his people in Croatia) In many "wars", there seems to be an insatiable appetite for brutality among ordinary people. Once the war started and the right conditions were maintained, an uncontrollable chain reaction was under way. These were mostly decent people, as decent as most of us tend to be. Many did not, strictly speaking, choose to plunder and burn, rape and torture, or secretly enjoy these. A dormant beast in them was awakened from its uneasy slumber. And not only in them. The motives of those who set to fight against the brutal aggressors were self-defense and justice. The beast in others, however, enraged the beast in them. In resisting evil, they were trapped by evil. Carl Jung on the eve of World War II wrote: �The impressive thing about the German phenomenon is that one man, who is obviously �possessed�, has infected a whole nation to such an extent that everything is set in motion and has started rolling on its course towards perdition.�