A Future without Walls

Confronting Our Divisions

T. Richard Snyder

• Publisher: Fortress Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781506466033
• eBook ISBN: 9781506466040
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

A Future without Walls offers a comprehensive and complex analysis of Othering, while unveiling the connections between our divisions and the roots, forms, and consequences of the walls that have been erected. It also offers concrete steps forward to help us dismantle these walls.

In A Future without Walls, T. Richard Snyder draws upon his half-century of activism in the struggle for justice and weaves analysis, prescription, and personal story throughout. Racism, extreme nationalism, xenophobia, gender abuse, bullying, and religious intolerance are all on the rise globally. Walls that many thought had been torn down are now being rebuilt. Those people who are different, and even those who differ, are treated as Other. A Future without Walls is a lamentation for the tragedy of Othering and a clarion call for justice. The dividing walls are more than a problem calling for a quick fix. They are embedded in both our history and our current culture and demand fundamental transformation.

Snyder analyzes the entangled fabric of Othering: its history, roots, various forms, and inevitable violent consequences. Countering this tragedy are the voices of activists, mystics, scientists, philosophers, and theologians--black and white, indigenous and cosmopolitan, Christian, Jew, and Buddhist, female and male--each of whom urges us to embrace rather than exclude. This universal moral imperative is a call to action.

A Future without Walls offers paths to healing and transformation, drawing on both individual and collective actions that have made a difference. Walls that have been erected can be dismantled. And while success is not inevitable, failure to act only guarantees disaster.

1

The Dividing Walls of Hostility

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

—George Santayana, Reason in Common Sense

The debate over a border wall between the United States and Mexico has exposed the walls that separate us from each other, and our nation from other nations. The treatment of people as Other is not a recent phenomenon. My focus in this chapter is on the walls of hostility that have been built in recent times. It is not intended to be a complete history but rather a series of examples, primarily focusing on the United States. But in order to understand the extent and depth of the problem, it is important to consider a few pre-twentieth-century examples that have influenced the shape of our nation today.

In the remarkable Code of Hammurabi, written in ancient Babylon about 1754 BCE, nobles, commoners, and slaves received different punishments for the same crime. While the Code clearly states its intent to protect the weak from the strong, there are, nonetheless, obvious distinctions based on rank that reveal Othering. The laws of the Hebrew Bible do not make such class distinctions and exhibit an egalitarianism embodied in the admonition to love your neighbor as yourself.¹ However, prophetic oracles demonstrate how often the Torah ideal of egalitarianism was undermined by practices of unequal and abusive power.²

Moreover, the notion of neighbor was often limited to the people of Israel, and there are numerous passages in which they are commanded to annihilate their enemy. The story of Joshua and the walls of Jericho includes the demand to destroy all that is inside the city except for the silver, gold, bronze, and iron, a ritual practice known as the ban.³ The narrative tells us all the people and animals were slain except Rahab the harlot and her family who had assisted the Israelite spies. The biblical accounts do not leave such episodes unquestioned. In a humbling mirror image, the Babylonians breach the walls of Jerusalem and take its inhabitants into exile, also by God’s intention, to chastise those who once considered themselves the victors.⁴

Remnants of biblical Othering remain in New Testament passages about both Canaanites and Samaritans. The Gospel of Matthew recounts how Jesus first ignored a Canaanite woman’s request to heal her daughter, then rebuffed her by saying that he was sent only to the “lost sheep of the house of Israel.”⁵ Comparing her to a dog, his response indicates a rejection rooted in the deeply ingrained cultural legacy that created a wall between Jews and Canaanites. However, her persistence and faith eventually allowed him to see her as a person in need, overcoming the barrier. A similar response on his part was toward the Samaritans, who shared almost the same scriptures as Jews but worshipped at a sanctuary north of Jerusalem. He is reported to have told his disciples to “enter no town of the Samaritans but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”⁶ But that wall was overcome when he engaged in conversation with a Samaritan woman at the well and when he used the Samaritan as an example of a good neighbor.⁷

The stories of underdog Israelites overcoming Canaanite kings and taking possession of territories have generated parallel narratives beyond the biblical model, as we shall see. One of the interesting questions this raises is, who are the underdogs and who are oppressors? Clearly, Israel later used these narratives to support their role as victims seeking justice and a right to exist. But are the victims to be victims forever? As the history of ancient and contemporary Israel attests, there are times when the oppressed becomes the oppressor. It is always a question of power.

Western cultures have held up Greeks as the originators of democracy. But Greeks drew a stark distinction between themselves and those whom they called barbarians, non-Greek-speaking foreigners. Barbarians were Other. But women were too. Classics professor Page duBois notes the Greek citizen was defined as “Not animal, not barbarian, not female.”⁸ The reference to women and barbarians in the same category as animals is telling. Clearly, despite some elements of democracy, deep divisions existed; polarity was at the heart of Greek citizenship. Not everyone was included.

In the early Christian era, the Romans accepted Jews as followers of an established religion and allowed Christians to live under the umbrella of Judaism. That changed, however, as Christianity increasingly distinguished itself from Judaism. Eventually, Christians no longer enjoyed the protection afforded them as a branch of Judaism. Christians were now Other, which led to their persecution by Rome.

A short time later, the protection afforded the Jews also eroded in response to the Jewish revolt (66–70 CE). Rome destroyed the Jerusalem temple and now viewed both Jews and Christians as threats. Over the next several hundred years, as Rome sought to maintain its place and power in the face of rising pressure from rulers around the Mediterranean and from northern tribes, a series of emperors arose with goals to bring the empire under a unified religious system. Anyone who refused to worship in the prescribed manner, which increasingly required venerating the emperor, was considered a traitor and subject to persecution. In some situations, the persecution was death. Those who did not bow to the emperor were Other.

The history of Christianity itself is filled with internal divisions, especially after the once-hostile Roman Empire came under the rule of Constantine. Constantine’s Edict of Milan in 313 reversed the persecution of Christianity, which had become the official religion of the empire by the end of the century. With state endorsement, however, came the need to define which of several theological streams was the official Christianity. Establishing orthodoxy meant deciding between competing doctrines and eliminating the losers, a process that produced both creeds and heretics. After 381, groups that did not affirm the Nicene Creed’s trinitarian doctrine were denied all recognition except as objects of persecution by imperial enforcement. Over the next centuries, thousands of heretics were treated as Other, often facing death. Those who did not identify themselves as Christians were also deemed heretical and were either marginalized or even killed. Major differences between Western and Eastern centers of church and empire continued until a formal split in 1054 resulted in what are now the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches.

R. I. Moore’s historical investigation of the later Middle Ages (950–1250) substantiates the continuing pervasiveness of the marginalization and death of those labeled heretics.⁹ While the persecution of heretics lasted for a thousand years before the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Moore emphasizes there was a sea change in the culture that led to systemic persecution, likening it to the difference between a society with slaves and a slave society (i.e., one based on slavery).¹⁰ Moore says those in power often used persecution as a means of control.

Heretics, lepers, Jews, and homosexuals, in particular, were singled out for persecution through exclusion, the loss of rights and property, and even the loss of their lives. Moore expands upon Edmund Leach’s claim that while it may be difficult for us to change the external environment, we can “play games” with our internalized environment and “carve up the external world into named categories, and then arrange the categories to suit our social convenience.”¹¹ Moore argues each of these groups was the object of stereotypical categorization.

When a person was categorized as a heretic, leper, Jew, homosexual, or enemy, they were considered dangerous and subjected to persecution. Heretics threatened the control of both the government and the church. Lepers threatened the health and life of those who were well. Jews threatened the economic and religious order. And male homosexuals threatened the purity of the church. In each case, the threat was considered sufficient for those in power to marginalize, punish, and sometimes kill those considered Other.

The period of the Crusades was another tragic occasion of Othering. For about two hundred years, beginning in 1095, eight Christian crusades attempted to wrest control of territory, wealth, and religious sites from the Muslim realms of the Middle East. At the request of the eastern Byzantine ruler for aid against Muslim Turkish threats, the Roman Pope Urban II called for western Christians to join the Byzantine efforts and reclaim the Holy Land. European Jewish communities in the path of the march were attacked despite efforts of some local authorities, resulting in the death of thousands. During the capture of Jerusalem in 1099, most Jews there were massacred, along with the Muslim defenders. Ironically, some Crusaders were inspired to imitate Joshua’s procession around Jericho, but traditional siege techniques were more successful. The tragedy of the Crusades can be attributed to several factors, among which was the attempt to restore Christian control of Jerusalem from those deemed Christ Killers (the Jews) and those who had conquered the land from Christians centuries before (Muslims). Both Jews and Muslims were viewed as infidels and hence punishable by death. Warfare of the period also had economic benefits for winners, in the form of looted material wealth and ransom of captives.

This disastrous treatment of those labeled heretics, infidels, or demons continued unabated. To name but a few, there was the Spanish Inquisition, John Calvin’s support of the burning of Servetus, Martin Luther’s letter to the German princes to kill the peasants who were clamoring for their own expression of faith, the English burning of Joan of Arc, and the Salem witch trials. Because they were perceived as a threat to the power, decency, and order of the established church, they were marginalized or eliminated. “Those people” were nonconforming; they were Other.

With the colonizing of the Americas, its indigenous people were treated as Other. With few exceptions, the Europeans viewed Indians as uncivilized savages who needed to be conquered, civilized and converted, removed, or killed. At least, that is the impression left by the disregard for hundreds of treaties with Indian nations that are still on the books, still documenting the responsibilities once pledged in exchange for native cooperation, still being presented as witnesses to unfulfilled promises. The forcible removal of Indians from their homes and territories, and their systematic extermination, are well documented. It is not an overstatement to label our nation’s policies and treatment as genocidal. That American colonists thought of themselves as Israelites entering the Promised Land and vanquishing Indians like the Canaanites is documented by Puritan sermons!¹²

In the mid-1800s, a cluster of concepts relating to the expansion of US control to the Pacific was signified by the term Manifest Destiny: an inexorable movement to settle and make productive the western lands under the special character of the American people and institutions. More a slogan than a formal policy, in practice it raised issues of the expansion of slavery and relations with Mexico.

Today, the US is still dealing with consequences of annexing more than one hundred thousand Mexican citizens and their properties by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 to end the Mexican-American War.¹³ They were not immigrants; they were there before the Americans. More Indians were also in the newly annexed lands.

The acquisition of the Pacific coast increased contact with Asians, especially those who came to work: the Chinese during the Gold Rush and construction of the transcontinental railway; then, after the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the Japanese. Beyond the West Coast, expansion of American interests continued to the Pacific islands—Hawaii, Samoa, the Philippines—and with all these territories came the nonwhite people who lived and worked there. In Hawaii, for example, missionaries carried out a systematic program of evangelization for the purpose of civilizing the native population. In time, the indigenous population was reduced, their political organizations were supplanted, and economic and political control was taken over by US corporations, especially for plantation farming.

Often called “America’s Original Sin,” slavery was the foundation of much of our nation’s wealth. Most servitude in the early colonies was indentured, which meant people could work their way out of debt over a period of time. Originally, the indentured slaves were both white and black. But as land grant programs released large tracts for cultivation of raw materials to benefit the English crown, the Southern plantation economy developed and with it the need for more laborers. Enslaved Africans arrived in Virginia as early as 1619, and a new form of slavery arose with black people, first in the Caribbean and then directly from Africa, to serve as slaves for life. This change was accompanied by the dehumanization of black people, which justified their inhumane treatment. They were “pagans” and “uncivilized.” They were not like white people.

The treatment of Africans brought to our shores via the Middle Passage was unimaginably inhumane. Ships were dangerously overloaded with human “cargo” that was treated like freight. The enslaved often were shackled together and wedged in such crowded conditions that they were unable to move during the entire journey. Sanitation was ignored. Diseases were rampant and, in some cases, nearly half the “cargo” died before reaching the shores of the colonies. Incredibly, the loss experienced by the slave traders and ship captains was considered lost revenue instead of lost lives. The enslaved were purely profit or loss.

One of the most egregious aspects of slavery was the breaking up of families. Spouses were often separated, and children were frequently separated from their parents. White slaveholders could engage in this economically advantageous but morally destructive practice because they believed there was little or no familial bonding among black people. They were considered fundamentally different from white families.

And yet, from this environment, where the religion of the master was imposed upon the enslaved, came the transformative power of spirituals. “Joshua fit the battle of Jericho, and the walls come tumblin’ down.” What sounds like conquest becomes praise and hope for the release from oppression.

This brief overview of examples sets the stage for some of the major expressions of Othering of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Black Americans

Racism has been a tenacious form of Othering in the United States. Our nation’s history of slavery, Jim Crow laws, and mass incarceration systematically enforced the Othering of black people. Following the “official” end of slavery with passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1864 and the period of Reconstruction (1865–1877), one by one Southern states enacted Jim Crow laws mandating the separation of black and white people in public schools, restrooms, transportation, restaurants, parks, swimming pools, and other public facilities. The laws set forth legal limits on the contact of the races, ostensibly to ensure “separate but equal” treatment of both white and black people. The Supreme Court decision of Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 upheld “separate but equal,” which then remained the law of the land for the first half of the twentieth century. However, in reality, the law did not guarantee equality, only separation, and it reinforced the underlying racist assumptions that had been the foundation of slavery and the treatment of black people as second class.

Despite having elected the first black president of the United States in 2008, we remain a nation divided. Michael P. Jeffries documents the ongoing disparity between black and white people in four areas: wealth and housing, education, incarceration and policing, and health and health care. In all four, he concludes, “Black Americans live under a system of race-based inequality that is nakedly unjust, thickly woven, and multi-generational.”¹⁴ The Black Lives Matter movement, an anguished and angry response to the killing of black people by white police officers, is the most recent in a history of protests by black people over their treatment as invisible, marginal, and expendable—as nonpersons. These killings are modern occurrences of a long and tragic history that has included lyn...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Foreword
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1. The Dividing Walls of Hostility
• 2. The Roots of Othering
• 3. The Forms of Othering
• 4. The Violent Consequences of Othering
• 5. Voices of the Moral Imperative
• 6. And the Walls Come Tumbling Down
• Epilogue
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index