Silent Fears

Image by Fairfax County Public Library via Flickr

It has become politically incorrect to voice one’s fears and anxieties publicly. Any insecurities one might have around a group of people are a social weakness and must be left unvoiced.  At least this is my take on recent events in the news.  The most glaring example is the firing of Juan Williams from NPR over expressing momentary personal anxieties he experiences when he gets on a plane with others overtly dressed as Muslims.

Keeping our fears and insecurities silent is precisely part of our problem. Where is the public forum to express openly and talk honestly about the experiences that frighten us?  When is there an opportunity to have a civil discussion about what are or are not rational fears public fears?  Dismissing and glossing over them only causes greater paranoia, I believe.

As a parent, when my children express a fear – rational or not – I want to talk with them about it. A healthy discussion with them helps me to address the difference between reality and perception.  Some fears are healthy and some are not, but telling my child they are “phobic” or dismissing them as immature will not help them.  Yet, it seems to me this is precisely the way those in government and media are attempting to treat the American people.

Anyone who expresses an anxiety or fear is labeled “phobic” – islamaphobe, homophobe, xenophobe, etc. This is intended to silence us and make us bury those fears deep within our psyche.  There is no public place to express them.  So, we do not talk about them.  We do not acknowledge our insecurities over those differences.  Instead, like the good stoic Northern Europeans we are, we are expected to get over them, move on and embrace everyone in every place regardless of how we really feel.  Don’t talk about “it.”  Don’t deal with “it.”  Hide “it.”

I do not think this is a long-term workable solution for peace and unity among humankind. Sooner or later, these unspoken fears will come out.  Precisely because they were not dealt with in a suitable manner today, their dormancy will give way to hatred towards those we fear in some tomorrow; especially in times of greater turmoil.  Consider past human actions against one another: Rwanda, European-Jewish history, American treatment of Japanese Americans during WWII, Sunnis and Muslims, Muslims and Hindus in Pakistan-India, South African Apartheid, and the Jim Crow laws of 20th century America.  The list is as endless as human history.

Our silent fears will not lie unspoken for very long. Human history has taught us that when it comes to conflict of any kind, we will bunch into “tribes” that will attack one another.  These “tribes” might not necessarily have their identity around ethnic or social affinities.  Today they are just as likely to form around ideological affinities: conservatives, liberals, socialists, capitalists, religionist, non-religionists and on the list goes into “pro-this” and “pro-that” or “anti-this” and “anti-that.”

Waterfall Above Hyas Lake, Washington State, September 2010 ©Weatherstone/Ron Almberg, Jr. (2010)

The greatest idea of founding American democracy was, I believe, the creation of a society where an open market place of ideas can be shared by everyone. This means that we must give voice to our differences and fears as well as our commonalities and passions.  Sure, we may even have to listen to people we disagree with on the most visceral level.  However, allowing their voices to be heard is much better for society overall than demanding it be silenced and relegated to the underground.

Giving air time in a public place for all ideas allows the larger public to determine the cogency and vitality of ideas and arguments. We need not censure the American public from them.  They will do so by themselves with thought and action.  If our ideas and ideals – political or religious – cannot stand on their own two feet in a public debate then perhaps it is time to reconsider our own position.

Vivian Schilling, the CEO of National Public Radio, and the other leaders of PRI (Public Radio International) should be ashamed of the way they handled the firing of Juan Williams. However, even more so, they need to reconsider how they treat sincere expressions of fear, anxieties and social concerns.  It is not enough to dismiss them as Vivian Schilling did with a suggestion that Juan Williams take his issues up with his psychiatrist.  There is a whole nation of people who know that twinge of fear, even if it is only momentary, when they get on a plane with people dressed as Muslims.  It is simply our current reality.

Would Juan Williams, who is himself of African-American descent, have received the similar discipline if he expressed the same fear about going into a poor African-American neighborhood with a history of drug and gang violence? Would he have been expected to not voice any fear if he had gone into a Ku Klux Klan meeting to do a reporting job?  The fact is that reporters, even NPR reporters, have a history of relaying personal impressions and expressions.  So, what makes this any different?  Oh, yeah.  It was on Fox News.  Well, that is another story.

Even in our current negative financial climate, the American people are chided for their fears. We are daily reminded that the problem is “the consumer confidence index.”  It indicates that we are fearful for the future and its uncertainty.  The expectation seems to be to overlook our fears and keep on buying and going into debt.  Until our own fears are conquered and we gain a positive consumer financial index, the economy is our fault.  Right.

Let us take the mute off of our fears and openly express them. We must not give in to our silent fears.  Instead, we are more apt to find solutions, overcome our fears and move confidently into our future side-by-side if we work together to address them.  Franklin D. Roosevelt expressed to the American people after the dark days of the beginning of The Great Depression that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”  By going on to acknowledging America’s fears he dis-empowered those fears.  Maybe he was only partially correct.  Maybe what we have to fear is our silent fears.

©Weatherstone/Ron Almberg, Jr. (2010)

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Linguaphobia

People in the United States are not the only ones on earth who have an anxiety about learning another language.  It is a common problem all over the world.  Some of it is due to educational attempts that do not work real well to teach foreign languages.  Some of it is due to a strong nationalism and identity with a mother-language.  Anxiety or fear of learning a foreign language is often called “linguaphobia”.

The real problem develops when linguaphobia develops into a linguacentrism; the idea that one particular language should be the only one spoken.  This is becoming more prevalent in the United States in recent years as a result of the rise in immigration and in particular the rise of Spanish-speaking illegal immigrants.  More and more, one hears the angry declaration, “They live in America now.  They should speak English!”  As if, somehow crossing a boarder grants one the magical and immediate power to learn a foreign language.

The cultural tension becomes greater when xenoglossophobia develops among the mother-language speakers – English, in the case of the United States.  This is the fear of foreign language speakers.  It can also be called xenophobia; the fear or dislike of people different than your self.  I believe this is a growing problem in the United States.  It is a problem created more from “group-think” than any actual threat.

The fact of the matter is that the United States has always been an nation of immigrants.  As such, it has always contained within its borders people who speak many different languages.  Early on, it began mainly with European languages – German, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian, Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish among many others.  This explain the complexity of the American English language.  It is a compound of many additional foreign words!

Another fact that is often overlooked today is that English language acquisition has often taken immigrants a generation or two to assimilate so that it is no longer a foreign or second language to them.  In the Midwest for example, many community churches retained their ethnic language identities in German and Scandinavian languages up until a few decades ago!  There are still a few who use the original mother-tongue language occasional in their church services.

Indian Heaven Wilderness Stream, Summer 2002 ©Weatherstone/Ron Almberg, Jr. (2010)

My Swedish grandfather came from Sweden as a child, struggled to learn English, but still retained and spoke Swedish until his death.  It was not until his children came along that English was the mother-tongue language.  As his grandchild, I know and understand no Swedish.  I suspect that for recent immigrants – legal or illegal – to the United States it will take the same amount of time.  Our own experience as immigrants should make us more tolerant and patient with new arrivals to this land of opportunity.

It is particularly shameful for those within the Church to be intolerant or xenophobic.  Since the Great Commission compels us to be witnesses to every ethnic group on earth, they should see this as a golden opportunity.  Instead of needing to go to foreign lands to the people of the world, the people of the world are coming to our communities and neighborhoods!  This saves the Church thousands of dollars in sending missionaries overseas.  Now the mission field is settling around us in small ethnic conclaves that can be easily reached by many Christians and churches.

The final picture of the Bride of Christ – the Church – we have in The Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ should also motivate us to welcome and embrace people of different cultures and languages.  The vision presented to us (7:9) is a multi-ethnic, multi-language celebration gathered around the Lamb’s throne.  They will be singing and dancing – each according to their cultural and language – to the words, “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne and to the Lamb!” (7:10).  I really do not think that at that glorious and holy moment some xenophobe American is going to yell out, “Hey, speak English!”

©Weatherstone/Ron Almberg, Jr. (2010)

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