signup for email updates Edge Life Directory Our Archive: 2001-2004 Cover Art Archive Search What we need is love, not more fear The Last Word | by editor Tim Miejan "Black and Blue And who knows which is which and who is who Up and Down And in the end it's only round and round and round..." -- Pink Floyd on "Us and Them" I received an anxious call from a reader shortly before the election. She had read my column in the October edition and misunderstood a phrase written sarcastically about President George Bush's desire to go to war in order "to keep the peace." She thought my comment was written in support of the president's choice to go into combat, and she was more than a little bit concerned that I was a "closet Republican." Her greatest fear in that moment was that this publication's editor was one of them. That got me thinking more about us and them, about you and me and what keeps us separate from each other. As human beings, our nature is to connect and to share our common ground. Unfortunately, we teach young children to do just the opposite [be afraid of strangers] in an effort to keep them safe. We are taught to fear people we do not know. We are taught to fear people who are different than us. This widespread fear of difference has not diminished. In a time of war, people are even more insecure. We do not give the man with the brown skin the benefit of the doubt. We get on the phone and report that this would-be terrorist is looking suspicious. "Ma'am, has he said anything threatening to you?" "Well, no." "Ma'am, has he done anything that looks like he might be a terrorist?" "Well, he has a camera and he keeps taking lots of pictures." We do not hate other people innately. We are born innocent. Hate is something some of us are taught as children. Hate is passed down from adults who feel justified in their fearful ways, and they teach their children to do the same. But to what end? We all know that kids call each other names. But young bullies today are not calling their victims "stupid" or "ignorant." They call them "gay." Being called a homosexual is perhaps tops on the list of things you don't want to be called in front of your peers in this day and age. Why is that? Interestingly, the Republican party -- with Christians on its side -- used this last election campaign to advance its attack on gay marriage by pushing through amendments in 11 states that deny homosexuals the right to be wed. At play may be a very complicated clash between church doctrine and civil rights, but to the average Jack and Jill on the schoolyard playground, it sends a disturbing message that gays are not God's children and that they are to be hated. I ask: "What would Jesus do?" Jesus would not have intentionally used hate and fear to promote His cause. The Republican campaign machine scared enough people into believing that the liberal agenda was out to destroy the sanctity of their marriage, so voters turned out in droves to protect themselves. And in the process, they voted for a president who clearly does not have an agenda that is based on love and peace -- toward all human beings and the planet. For a man who was re-elected by a reported 59 million people [representing only 27 percent of all eligible voters] to believe that he was given a mandate to do what he will, come hell or high water, our president must believe he was ordained from on high. Unfortunately, in his effort to rid the world of terror, he is using our young men and women in uniform as human pawns. They are dying, and their minds, bodies and spirits are coming home in tatters. Our president's campaign has killed tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians. And it is not in the least bit clear whether such a sacrifice is reducing global terror -- or expanding it. What I do know is that Bush and his administration are masters of fear. And that leads me back to the beginning of this conversation. What keeps us separate from each other? Fear. Tim Miejan is editor of Edge Life. Contact him at (651) 578-8969, toll-free 1 (888) 776-5687 or editor@edgelife.net Copyright © 2004 Tim Miejan, all rights reserved.