WS Chronicle

By Robert C. Koehler

Perhaps no question more succinctly separates the past from the future, or so it occurred to me after I read Rebecca Solnit’s stunning observation in a recent essay: that the mass murders in Christchurch, New Zealand, on March 15 occurred on the same day, and in the same general area, as the climate strike young activists were holding in Christchurch as part of a global action, with rallies in well over a hundred countries involving tens of thousands of people.

This juxtaposition was “also a perfectly coherent one, a clash of opposing ideologies,” Solnit wrote. “Behind the urgency of climate action is the understanding that everything is connected; behind white supremacy is an ideology of separation.”

Everything is connected – insects, humanity, the oceans, the planet. The meaning and spiritual pull of these words is beyond simple comprehension. The propensity of molecules to unite led to cellular life, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin points out in “The Phenomenon of Man,” then adds: “Driven by the forces of love, the fragments of the world seek each other so that the world may come into being.”

This is the core of the environmental movement that has begun simmering across the planet and has found its way into the U.S. political system, but the ideology of separation remains entrenched: the idea, Solnit writes, “that human beings are divided into races, and those in one race have nothing in common with those in others…

“To kill someone, you have to feel separate from them, and some violence – lynching, rape – ritualizes this separateness. Violence too comes out of a sort of entitlement: I have the right to hurt you, to determine your fate, to end your life. I am more important than you. It seems like, among other things a miserable mindset, one that aggrandizes your ego but withers your soul.”

And, of course, a world where most political leaders are clueless about addressing climate change, perhaps because they are funded by the fossil fuel industry and all the interests threatened by ideological change.

For instance, David Roberts, writing at Vox about the Green New Deal, notes the hypocrisy of its political opponents as they cry that we can’t afford it. “When Congress funnels trillions to the military or cuts taxes for the wealthy, no one asks how they will pay for it. Pay-for demands seem only to apply to Democrats, and only for social spending.”

When an ideology of separation rules, the killing never stops. In the past few days, two young survivors of the Parkland shootings a year ago committed suicide; so did the father of a six-year-old child who was murdered in 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Jeremy Richman, the Sandy Hook dad, tried to reach past the horror of what happened to his daughter, toward healing and prevention. He helped launch a foundation, named after his daughter, Avielle, funding “neuroscience research aimed at understanding the brain’s chemistry, structure, and circuits that lead to violence and compassion.”

This wasn’t enough to save his life. His wound was too large – but it’s part of the collective wound we all must bear. It’s part of our wounded planet.

Robert Koehler, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is a Chicago award-winning journalist and editor. His book, “Courage Grows Strong at the Wound,” is available. Contact him at koehlercw@gmail.com or visit his website at commonwonders.com.