A New Amnesty or Forgiveness Movement

June 28, 2007 by webmaster.

Saving Your Relationship with a General Amnesty
 Americans, it is time to focus on saving your relationship :
 ·        To Yourselves
·        To Each other
·        To your families
·        To the “other” peoples & nations of the world
·        To the environment
 

Do you see where I am going with this? Our relationships to people and living things stink and have taken a back seat to material things. In fact, we may be at one of the lowest ebbs in history regarding our focus on building rather than tearing down relationships.
For example, we know that the distrust and dislike of America and Americans around the world is at an all time high. And the reasons for that is a topic to which we can devote many articles. However closer to home is another glaring example of our breaking relationships, a topic which is on everyone’s minds and tongues: immigration and immigrants. Any anti-immigrant sentiment in this country is a glaring example of self hate and self loathing which is the underlying cause, as we have pointed out in previous articles, of all of our relationship problems. For if we don’t love our own selves how can we love anyone else. We are a nation of immigrants, including many “Native American” tribes who migrated from other continents, and every immigrant group has suffered persecution from those who were here before them, so history is surely repeating itself. However this is a day and a time when we have so much more access to the knowledge of who we all are and where we all came from than even our parents did a few decades ago—so isn’t it time to use this knowledge to grow up a bit. Both religion and science tell us that all humans are closely related cousins (not more than 55^th cousin, in fact). So any hatred or prejudice which we exhibit toward another ethnic group is really just a manifestation of self hatred, perhaps caused by some hidden guilt about past actions of ancestors manifesting itself in denial and hatred towards “others”.
As I tell my children whenever they are bullied (and bullying is what the talk show hosts and any American who is anti-immigrant is doing, no matter how it is clothed), the person doing the bullying has an identity crisis, doesn’t know who they really are, is insecure and in effect doesn’t love himself or herself; this causes a guilt complex but instead of admitting this guilt and seeking help it manifests itself in hateful actions towards others. This is the only reason anyone would be against the Latino immigrants now (whose service we are all benefiting from), or Blacks a little while ago, or Irish immigrants back then, etc. Now it is the Latinos, tomorrow it will be someone else. Hate is hate no matter how it is clothed, whether in the rule of law (remember Jim Crow, Apartheid, Slavery– all laws) or in the rule of the mob or gang mentality (hate and vigilante groups, which are on the rise partly fueled by the conservative talk shows).
 One step which I propose to help heal this great guilt complex fueling all of the hate is a “general amnesty”, not for the so called illegal immigrants, but for all of us–not just an apology for slavery, though that may be part of the healing process-but we all need a general amnesty and forgiveness from the Native Americans & Mexicans, whose land we stole, and from the Blacks & the Asians, upon whose backs and from whose toils our country’s wealth was built. We need to forgive ourselves and our ancestors for the atrocities committed against these peoples while we benefited from their forced sacrifices, then we can begin the healing process and then, and maybe only then, will we realize that history is repeating itself and that our current wealth and progress has been due in a large part to the backbreaking work, sweat and tears of our current Latino immigrants and neighbors. In fact, along these lines, I am starting a new “General Amnesty Movement” for all Americans to learn how to forgive themselves, their ancestors, and each other.  Anyone interested? Contact me at pilgrim1@mindspring.com .
Then, and only then, will we continue to move ahead saving your relationship as a nation and a people.
More relationship advice on saving your relationship can be found at www.a1-life-skill-coaching.com .
 

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