Fear

While driving home from Death Valley National Park last weekend, we were close to another National Park unit.  Anyone that knows about my National Park passport cancellation obsession knows that I simply had to go.  So off we went (in the direction opposite from home!) to get my stamp.

The park unit that we visited was one that I had never even heard of.  And one that I found deeply disturbing.

We visited Manzanar National Historic Site.  Manzanar is one of 10 sites that were established during World War II.  After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan and its people were the enemies.  All steps to eradicate the threats to national security were taken.

One of those steps included rounding up citizens living in California, Oregon, or Washington that were of Japanese ancestry and hauling them off to a 'relocation center'.  This included women and children.  Many were born in the United States.  Over 100,000 people were detained.  No one from these camps was ever convicted of espionage, sabotage, or any other war crime.  This article gives a more complete history.

Manzanar was a concentration camp, even if it was not labelled as such.  The detainees could not leave.  The place was surrounded by barbed wire fence and armed guard towers.  The detainees could only bring what they could carry.  All other personal effects had to be disposed of or were confiscated (including homes and businesses!) by the government.  The detainees were kept in these 'relocation centers' for the duration of the war.  After the war, they were let go and given $25 to 'help' them re-establish their lives.

Some 40 years later, the government officially conceded that this was not a military necessity as described during war time, but was based on racial bias.  President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 that provided restitution.  And in 1989, President George H. W. Bush issued a formal apology from the United States government.

This place bothered me on so many levels.  I have been trying to formulate a post all week to describe my feelings.

First, it changed my view of history.  I have always viewed the time around World War II as a time when we were the heroes, the good guys.  A time when we were saving those in concentration camps.  How could we as a society have allowed this to happen?  Especially given the atrocities that were seen in Europe.  These people had the fabric of their lives ripped in two.  By the government!  No just cause.  No habeas corpus.  Nothing.  Just the fact that they were of Japanese ancestry.

Second, I see so many parallels to things that are happening today.  And this is the one that really bothers me.  After the attacks of 9-11-2001, Muslims became the enemy.  They wanted to kill us, cripple our country, destroy everything American.  But is it all Muslims?  No.  Surely we are smart enough to know that.  Surely we are smart enough to know that extremists exist within every religion.  But fear causes us to react without thought.  And we are a society that is being controlled by fear.

I will never forget that day in September.  The day when my world tilted on its axis.  The day when I realized that we aren't invincible.  The day when I realized that wars aren't just somewhere else.  The day when fear took over.

Do you look suspiciously at the Middle Eastern man sitting in the row in front of you on the airplane?  Fearful that he planning to hijack the plane?  Would you feel safer with all Muslims in a place like Manzanar?

And by that same token, do you assume that African American man in the baggy pants is carrying a gun?  A gang member?  Drug dealer?  How about the guy covered in tattoos?  Is every person that speaks Spanish an illegal alien?  A drug runner for the cartels?

Don't get me wrong.  I'm not saying to walk around with your head in the clouds....la, la, la, puppies and rainbows, everything is perfect, la, la, la.

But fear can send a person down some very strange paths.  Paths that you never would go down in a correct mindset.  And fear will send you much farther down those paths than you ever would have dreamed.

I don't want this post to spiral into a political discussion because both sides are guilty of using the same tactic.  But surely there is something to learn here.  And I think it is bigger than any one issue of the day.  I only hope that we learn it before it is too late.