War, compartmentalized

I had a weird dystopian nightmare two nights ago that there was a war going on. But it was happening simultaneously with ordinary life, and the people who were being attacked were within existing cities and towns. But the general population was so insulated somehow, spatially, and numbed out, not paying attention, that very few people knew there was even a war happening. I hiked very high up onto a mountain outside the town where I was living, and from that vantage point you could see individual people being attacked, shot, houses burned down, large groups of people arrested, taken away in vans. But you could also see everyone else just going about their ordinary day, side by side with all of it. 

A scenario where, for some of the population, a war is being waged on them, and for others within the same population, they are not involved and/or refuse to get involved. When I went back down to town, I could see it all from ground level. A person would be walking and right behind them would be one of the people on whom the war was being waged, shot and killed. The person in front would just keep walking, not even a flinch or backward look. Or a person would get into a car and begin to drive away, and right in front of them, the army would pull over a car, and kill everyone inside, but the first person would just keep driving, as if not even seeing what had happened. 

I tried yelling out to a few of the numb people (for some reason, sitting in a park watching a backgammon game), "Hey did you even know there was a war going on?" and they just laughed at a joke one of them had told and refused to look at me. One of them eventually did look at me and her face was utterly cold and empty. 

I suddenly knew I was in serious trouble and would have to go home, pack my stuff and try to hide out. I suddenly felt like I had crossed over into the group of victims of war. As I walked more and more briskly to my apartment, a couple army guys blocked my way on the sidewalk, one of them tapping a truncheon into his open palm. The other one pointed to a police wagon. The back doors were open and there were maybe 15 people already in there. I recognized friends and relatives. The army guy pointed again. I turned and started to run, footsteps behind me. 

That's when I woke up to the early sunrise. 

This all is somewhat how I am feeling these days, especially if the "town" is the planet itself. The unaware or numb people are Americans, basically. Or within America, a lot of white people. Because if you talk to a lot of people of color or other marginalized people, they feel like there's a war going on. But it seems like most white people are oblivious. But also, in general America is oblivious to the ways that America is waging war all over the world. It was wild how, as soon as I knew what was going on, I was the enemy also. This does seem to be the way this war works. Those waging it only ask of the general populace that they mind their own business. "This doesn't concern you." 

And it seems we are often only too happy to oblige. 

It's weird to see ugly chapters of our history play out in real time. We've had the opportunity to look into the distant past to see children torn from their families by Christian missionaries, or by slave traders, or Nazis. There's something oddly numbing and reassuring about looking into the past, and thinking to oneself that such horrifying and inhumane events can't happen now, or here. But of course, recent events at our border give the lie to that sentiment. And what sort of person would hear that children are being torn from their mothers and fathers and siblings and be okay with it? I don't know, except that I know I ran into dozens on Facebook in the past week or so. Not just okay with it, but happy about it. "Serves them right." I think, for me, sometimes the bigger horror or at least as big a horror is how heartlessly and cruelly some people are, in reaction to suffering. Regarding the suffering itself, my heart easily opens to those who are suffering, and I feel empathy, along with my outrage. But regarding the heartless and cruel reaction, the utter indifference is terrifying and traumatizes me. This is how it looks when a culture creates informers, torturers, executioners. The cold, vacant, utterly indifferent stare. 

Here and now. But compartmentalized in strange ways, where it is still possible for the vast majority of people to go about their ordinary lives and "not be bothered" by what is "not their problem." 

Here and now.