Tribes, Assimilations and Horror

   This world of man is made of tribes. We tend to hold into our little enclaves, among the people we know. We stick to the groups with which we have an affiliation through culture. It is comfort to roam among ‘your own people’.  Even criminals and killers tend to stick to their own kind… perhaps this is because they have familiarity with the actions their victims will take… what weapons they might have to defend themselves… will they fight or flee?

    An exception to this is when one tribe invades another…. when this happens we call it ‘war’. War has many faces…. and as in any other aspect of life, every action will have several choices proffered. When your tribe is invaded you can resist and risk death… or you can give up, and hope the invaders are decent enough to not kill non-combatants.

    Tribal groups have been expanding for thousands of years… as our own tribal sphere of influence expands, the assimilated tribes become fellow tribesmen… the strength of the tribe is increased.  Sometimes these assimilations happen without bloodshed, more often it is done with the conquest and total political capitulation of the conquered. You cannot ‘half-way’ conquer any people…. until assimilation occurs, you still have the potential for an uprising among the conquered people. This is the situation the Germans and French found themselves in during WWII.

   During the invasion of France by Germany, the seemingly fast French capitulation allowed the Germans easy entry into the country, without the heavy bloodshed and loss of life one would have expected.  The French assisted the German military in rounding up anyone the Germans wanted…. political people, Jews, Gypsies and more groups were rounded up by the French and handed over to the Germans. This all changed however in 1944 with the successful invasion of France from England. Once hope proffered itself, many French turned from the Germans, and tried to join the resistance… and that is the history we try to look to, for hope and encouragement on the rights of Man, the will of Man to resist tyranny and despotism…

   But when it comes to the interactions between individuals during war… everything becomes murky.   And like the thick dark liquids of a swamp…. the deeper that it is, the darker the shadows, yet there is more deeper down.  You can feel around in the dark depths… knowing there is something there you must find….

   And it is family…. invading armies always leave little children in the wake of their passage. Sometimes this is done in a deliberate attempt to destroy the social structure of the invaded people, such as we find happening constantly in some parts of Africa.  If the occupation is long…. there will be women hoping to gain food and security for their family by aligning themselves with the invaders. And people being people, sometimes it is the intrigue of the invader, the stranger, that exotic appeal, and the power of the conqueror.

    France was occupied for four years…. that is plenty of time for many thousands of relationships to develop in France among French women and German men. After the withdrawal of German forces, many thousands of ‘collaborators’ were executed by locals…. women who were associated with German men were paraded through the streets, their heads shaved publicly as a mark to display wherever they went. And the progeny of these relationships were shunned as if they themselves had been invaders.

   Now that almost all of the people who were adults in those days are deceased… people can look at the times with a bit less passion, we are the children, grandchildren and great grandchildren of the Second World War.   We know that the children born of such unions are innocent of the transgressions their parents commited. And now even France is starting to open up…. Germany has offered dual citizenship to the children of German soldiers born to French women.

   I suppose it is natural that it takes a long time for such wounds to heal.  When you have a bad cut, you must keep it covered for a long time…. and the children running through France were like a scratching at the cut Germany had made into France. They tried to cover it up…. thick padding so no one could see it. Deny, hide, obfuscate… but once the wound starts to itch, it needs to be opened to the healing power of the sun…. it needs to be aired out…. and touched tenderly…. happily, the wound is now starting to heal…. sadly, it is when all the children concerned are passed-on that the raw scar will be no more.  It is at that time that people will be able to be dispassionate about it.

   But we are people, humans…. failed, fallen….

   But remember… we are healed by the Power of the Son.