A
FAMILIAR STORY
The papers were filled with the reports of border
families being attacked by their neighboring nation. Until not
long ago, and for centuries before , the two populations had dwelled
cooperatively in relative peace, forming a number of strategic alliances against
common foes. But those times were drifting farther and farther into
yesterday. The politics of living side by side had become unsettling, and
bitter racial polarization was taking its toll as the larger nation, with its
venerable technology, set on a course of ethnic cleansing of the smaller.
Treaties were signed, then broken, by the government
of the larger neighbor. The smaller nation screamed out in anguish as the
tyrannical leader of their enemy nation commanded more troop involvement on
their sovereign lands, but no one listened. For many years, the massacre
continued against the lesser nation with none coming to their rescue. Unabated,
the bully-aggressor poured more men and armaments against the struggling
civilian and military populations of their sworn enemy. It was clear that it was
only a matter of time until the armed aggression of the bigger nation would
completely overwhelm its former ally, driving them into the sea. Then, just as
it appeared as though the end was near for the underdogs, a compassionate
nation, even larger than the invader, leaped
into the picture. Its leaders presented the world with a powerful case
for helping their unlikely new protectorate. They brought
global attention to the
atrocities that had nearly decimated the tiny, ethnic tribe. Other nations took
notice, pledging their aid in a military operation designed to render the
aggressor nation impotent against its neighbor. In time, the aggressor nation
was beaten back into peace, and the violence between the two countries stopped.
If this story is recognizable to you, it is because
it is a dispassionate outline of the history being played out today in the
former Yugoslavia between the larger Serbia, and the smaller, Kosovo.
How noble it
makes us feel to be told that we are a
part of a nation whose moral compass never modulates from what is good
and true, who steps in to protect the underdog in its pursuit of liberty,
peaceful co-existence, and freedom of religion. I have a good friend who can
relate uncommonly well to the goings on in Kosovo right now.
His name is Howard, and he is a Native American. Howard is less impressed
with the way in which the United States is responding to the Yougoslav tragedy,
because Howard remembers. His people have never forgotten a time when the United
States of America was the aggressor-bully nation and no one intervened to keep
it from overwhelming and ethnically
cleansing its indigenous “savages” one peaceful village at a time. Howard
wonders what it is that has America feeling so righteous lately. I wish I could
give him an explanation, but it's tough to persuade a child raised in a dirty
cabin on a government reservation, that
America is really the good guy now. Really.