God, AIDS, Africa & HOPE

Reflections / Gedanken

A fool as distraction?

Four years of tweets, lies and impossible behaviour are still not coming to an end – defeat is not one of the words used by Donald Trump and as it has been for the last four years; the press indulges in commenting and reporting on all the new lies, false facts, sexist remarks, insults and other neurotic patterns, this man brings on a daily basis to the table of news outlets.

Almost in the background it is currently noted that others are too afraid to speak out, especially after the lost election – and emphasis is put onto the fact, that Trump has such a standing in the Republican Party which hinders the righteous elite to reign in and stop the latest charade.

Maybe there is another story line to tell – the story of Mitch McConnell, Graham Lindsey, Rupert Murdoch and others who let the political fool dance in the front to the amusement or embarrassment of the political audience and electorate while those gentlemen pulling the strings, trying to keep an old world order in place: a world order which is white, male and racist.

For those having this world order in mind, Trump was a gift from heaven, easily to be manipulated via Fox News and lots of praise, slowly installing a reign of an egomaniac puppet delivering the right judges on so many levels. Governments coming and going, but to maintain a system, other levels of society have to be looked after and the right people positioned. And as Obama has used social media to garner the support – the political white racist right in the USA has quickly learned to adapt to the new tools available as well. For people like McConnell and Lindsey, Obama was a mistake not to be repeated and now Harris the next in line of those kinds of errors.

Democracy as the rule of the people for the people is an ongoing process of trial and error for most Americans – and even if it is an internal affair for this country, the consequences for the rest of the world have been felt the last years. Our global village is meanwhile so connected, that the faith of a major player is not an affair not noted by the rest of the world. Human mankind’s challenges are piling up, and they need new answers not forthcoming from those now pulling the strings in Washington.

Human mankind and the world order is in the process of changing – we live in times of an interesting and challenging battle of minds, which is even sped up by a small little virus called Covid-19.

Donald Trump should not be allowed to be a distraction in this process – too much is at stake for this world we call home.

Filed under: General, Politics and Society, Reflection, Society and living environment, Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , ,

Black lives matter

BLMYes, they matter – but I hesitated to write about it because it seems almost everybody on this planet is at the moment is on this topic. But that is not all:

My hesitation is not about that I would not agree with the slogan – my hesitation also does not deny the continuous human rights violation by a race theory, which is complete artificial, but has brought so much pain and hurt and destruction on people of colour.

My hesitation – as a human being- to say something is rather about the inside, that I am born into a system I am not able to escape – I enjoyed the fruits of racism, colonialism without being guilty of anything and even all my activism cannot overwrite this birth right.

As I theologian I would say: If there is any meaning in the term “original sin” – then the question of race, the question of white domination is an example par excellence for this theological concept.

As a German I grew up with the sense, that “we Germans” are guilty of Jewish genocide, of Auschwitz and the gas chambers – and I still recall the comments of elderly people in France verbally spitting at us young Germans touring the country.

So I am not sure where my place is in all of this;

while I am observing the hopefully last white right wing macho-stand off symbolized by the egomaniac in the White House and his cronies trying to keep an old world order alive which can’t be resuscitated;

while I am almost unable to watch the over 8-minute agony of Georg Floyd;

while I am aware of so many video clips of unnecessary violence and brutality;

I try to find a way to remain myself:

Observing, acknowledging, standing in solidarity but also knowing that the mark of Cain will always remain with me – innocently guilty

I also know that the yearning for a society without the term “race” can only be given birth if we overcome the prisons of language and perception on all sides but for that to happen there must be a longer period of silence and acknowledgement, of listening and enduring the voices of pain and despair of our wounded brothers and sisters.

There is no cheap solution,
no cheap escape –
protests,
kneeling,
standing together against unjust systems
can only be the starting point for a long journey ahead.

Filed under: General, Politics and Society, Reflection, Society and living environment, South Africa, Uncategorized, , , , , ,

Race & future

Twitter and social media thriving on it; people can get very emotional discussing it: the question of race and how to deal with it. “Whites” should do this – “Blacks” are like this – South Africa could fill tons of Gigabyte with assessments, insults and threats when it comes to the race question. Let alone politics where racist remarks and the use of race as a tool of political manoeuvring seems to dominate many debates and heated exchanges.

And only once in a while one hears the almost silent voice of reason, acknowledging the damage this devilish invention of some humans has done in the past here in South Africa and still doing also around the world, but at the same time knowing that the future can’t hold using this word.
We have to overcome this poisoned word if the only race, the human race want to have a future for all. Knowing, how hard this can be I suggest that South Africa again could be leading the world out of this “race”-trap by showing that even the darkest past cannot hinder a brighter future.

And the world needs this brighter future – seeing the last stand of “white” macho dominance impersonated in Trump and those supporting “the good old times”. The world need to see the brighter future when looking at Great Britain where it seems that the sentiment of old colonial powers have been resurrected somehow in the Brexit debate. The world needs to see the brighter future when looking to China, which tries on the opposite to eliminate all natural diversity within the human race in designing one standard for all.

South Africa has the diversity needed to see the beauty of the human race in all shapes and colours. It could be on the forefront living the diversity while acknowledging that we are all – if the scientists are right – African origin. That we are all coming from one background, share most genetic material and colour only matters in ways of making a unique race of this world colourful and beautiful.

And yes, I hear now many saying that the past and the categorisation of race is part of a person, defines a person, needs compensation – and yes, : they have a point. Looking back is allowed, compensation is often needed, but it must end there – the future cannot be taken prisoner in using a concept which we all know holds no water under the bridge nor is fair to all concerned. Using this word or concept in current affairs or future developments will only guarantee pain and injustices for those living after us.

Filed under: Africa, Reflection, Society and living environment, South Africa, Uncategorized, , , , , ,

Beyond understanding

Beyond understanding and inhumane – certainly not wise nor in the tradition of the great religions of this world: the way certain countries deal with the refugee crisis. Instead of realizing the magnitude and desperation of the situation, but also the historical challenge, politicians in the USA and Europe trying to hold on a world which has long gone and hold no water anymore for the dire human tragedy in the times of a digital revolution bringing the pictures of good or cruel deeds onto the surface of social media – and consequently into the homes of everybody. And the reaction can be so different:

There are those who grasp somehow the magnitude of the challenge, who see the tectonic shift in how the world moves combined with the plight of human creatures yearning for a decent life without war and unrest or economical hardship giving their kids no chance in life. And there are those who – by all means – try to keep a world view up which is long gone – but in desperation they support a white, male, European and North American dominance ruling the world with an economic system which pays lip service to real development while cementing superiority of a white macho- first-world mentality with a degree of variations.

Added to this is a “trump-ish”style of “me and my country first”attitude making landfall also in Europe – really believing that the structures of country boundaries and societies are set in stone and have to be protected by all means necessary. Amazingly even studied people like academics and journalists seem to fall for a static world view. Ad a fascist tendency in some countries or the call for a strong man – believing that a political messiah like Orban in Ungarn, Trump in the USA or Kurz in Austria can rescue the little world view a loud minority holds against a silent majority and the mess beyond understanding is ready to rule lives. Not to mention the resurrection of the brown mud represented by the AfD in Germany or there-likes in Europe.

No, as long as only the next election is eyed for and populism replaces real politics – as long as a world order favors those who have and disadvantages those having nothing anyhow – as long as we don’t tackle the problems jointly and understand that we are meanwhile a global village having to learn to understand each other and live with each other – the circle of violence and war, of unrest and power play, the circle of winners and losers and the rule of a Western white macho male society will continue to dominate daily lives. And this costs lives every day.

It is time to understand that the way the systems work will not hold water under the bridge any longer – and that the attempt to keep an old world order in place at any cost will not only cost lives, but it will simply not work at the end. The longer we wait to understand this, the longer the suffering of those who remain at the bottom of the old order.

Steps into a new world order are needed:
A new world order which recognizes the failures and mistakes of the past, which recognizes history,  which understand the inter-connectivity of all people of the one and only human race and which puts the environment as a top priority on the political to-do-list. A new world order balancing the need for stability with the acknowledgment that nothing is forever and development means always also movement to new shores.
For that we need politicians and leaders with a vision – not “Kurz-sichtigkeit” or a view limited to the next election date or – like in the case of Donald Trump, decisions only made looking to please those who have elected him – without any appreciation whether this hurts the rest of the world or not.

Filed under: Politics and Society, Reflection, Society and living environment, Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Racism – the original sin one cannot escape?

Visiting the Duke University with its vast history of racial divide and coming together there can’t be any evening meal with lecturers of history without at some point touching on the question of racism in the USA. Stories told about black movements on Duke campus – and those experiencing equality and black conscience movements in Montgomery and in other parts of the South States of the USA – for a German living in South Africa an intense evening of sharing the pain and questions arising from history and the challenges future will hold.

While it seems that my US American friends have made peace with the fact that as a white man, one cannot escape the original sin of racism purely by being born from a white mother and father -I still grapple with the fact whether it is fair to be again and again put in the structural and personal white privilege and somehow racist corner – no matter how engaged or involved one has been in healing the racial divide.

Recognizing the past, acknowledging structural privilege is one thing – making it the Cain’s mark of every white person for the foreseeable future is another. My question was on this eve and still remains whether talking in the same “termini” our forefathers have done will assist in overcoming a racist past and leading into a non-racist future. While under Obama and Trump here in the USA seemingly the topic is discussed much more prominent and controversial – so different from the usual US American way of being nice , shallow on this subject and avoiding conflict – we also going in South Africa and I guess in many parts of the world through a renewed debate on this topic. Yes, maybe it is true that we on all sides have to speak out and speaking out might even hurt – not only the listener, but also the speaker acknowledging truth we can’t allow for this seemingly original sin to linger and therefore darken the future of future generations.

Maybe the debate, the pain ,the accusations are a necessary redemption to be in the future saved from the evil of racism – maybe the revolution of social media taken note of all the racist acts and laying in bare in the public to see, to judge, to mourn, to decry – maybe all this is necessary in the development of a human civilization, which at the end only knows one race, the human race – later looking back on today’s debate and yesterdays history in sheer non-believe that racism was even a possibility to entertain for so long in history.

For me, this question remains after this eve as painful as ever – and the question-marks keep nagging how to approach a seemingly original sin which keeps on poising societies in our times. My experience at Duke University was a reminder how much had been done, and how much still has to be done – and how many circles we have already run without really moving in-depth forward on this question.

Filed under: Africa, General, HOPE Cape Town USA, Politics and Society, Reflection, Society and living environment, South Africa, Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , ,

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© Rev Fr Stefan Hippler and HIV, AIDS and HOPE.
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