Ink Tea Stone Leaf

The vast majority of people living under an arbitrary and authoritarian government are never disappeared from their homes, or herded into concentration camps, or stripped of their property and due process rights. If I could grant the people of the United States an understanding of anything, it is that it is still a moral and political catastrophe to live under an authoritarian government, no matter how narrow the slice of the population that is directly subject to its persecution. I have been pleading for the better part of a decade with the people, with the world, with the hollow void that surrounds me, to understand this truth. I am not certain that anybody can be persuaded to understand anything anymore, but I pray that they can still be moved by outrage.

I do not usually watch “viral” videos of people being physically or legally brutalized by our government, because I do not need to personally scrutinize the recorded details of an incident to understand that such things are becoming more and more common, and I find it upsetting when I do watch them. I don’t enjoy being upset! I am ardent in my opposition to these injustices and I wish to be as informed about them as possible, but it is physically painful to watch over and over as people cry for mercy under a policeman’s boot. I can oppose such things absolutely without playing the video. But this morning, my social media feed put one right in my face, and within instants of its beginning, I could see the horrible fear in the eyes of Rumeysa Ozturk.

I could see the fear as this woman, a legal immigrant to the United States, a graduate student at a prestigious university, and an advocate for human rights, was surrounded by agents of the Federal Government who covered their faces, bound her hands, and shoved her into an unmarked vehicle, all for her supposed association with a terrorist organization that she has nothing to do with. I could see that she feared for her life.

This is what “disappearing” looks like. You know those things the military dictatorships in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile did in the 1970s? Those things you never thought could happen in the U.S.A. because we speak English and this isn’t the movies? This is what it looks like. This is real. I would shake you by your lapels if you had them; people, world, void, whatever the hell you are. I am tired of telling you this is real. I am tired of this being real. I am sick to my stomach and I am angry with you.

Last year, the people of the United States elected a president who made it abundantly clear that he intended to govern as a dictator if the Congress would let him get away with it. For good measure, they elected a Congress that is more than happy to let him get away with it. Now he’s governing like a dictator, and among all of the things that entails, he is empowering all the little machine men with machine minds and machine hearts under his command to enact their fantasy of defending national security by making a mockery of democracy and the First Amendment, targeting immigrants and Muslims and defenders of the humanity of Palestinian people in violation of law and decency. These are bad men working for bad men, and we let them into our house because of our absolutely ridiculous, thoroughly and insanely American belief that all of our problems can be solved by tough guys who don’t follow the rules.

Tough guys who don’t follow the rules don’t care about your rights either. If oppressing you is a low priority for them, it isn’t because they respect you. The only thing they respect is the power that gives them sanction to cover their faces like cowards and drag a woman off the street. They don’t believe in things like rights, because if they did, they’d believe in them for everybody.

This is not law and order. This is not sensible immigration policy. This is barbarism.

It doesn’t matter that this country was founded on the colonization of indigenous land, on the enslavement of Africans or manifest destiny or any other such historical grounds. We in the here in now are not obliged to condone this, or support this, or allow this. We are obligated to oppose it with everything we have because we are human beings and we are talking about human rights.

I am telling you, people or world or void, to stand up for the rights of an immigrant Muslim woman, and for all of the people being mistreated like her. I am telling you that standing up for her, and against every other abuse of our laws and constitution, means opposing the man who would be dictator at every turn. I am telling and not asking because asking does no good. This is the work, and we will do or it will be too late, assuming it isn’t already.