My people
By Simon Barget
- 430 reads
My people deserve better. We have drawn the short straw. We have been shunted from pillar to post. I can think of no other nation in history to have been so profoundly mistreated. We used to have land until that was co-opted. We lived peaceably on this land. We lived secluded. We were like an undiscovered Amazonian tribe with little contact with the world. We were happy and balanced.
But our land was taken and we became nomads. We walked miles with our animals, our children, our wise men and our elders just to find water. We took everything we had. Some couldn’t face the journey and we had to leave them behind. We didn’t know where we were going, all we knew is that we had to move.
We started off on tundra, passed through thick forest, before coming down onto the flood plains. Every place we happened upon we settled. But we were always moved on.
That was tens of thousands of years ago. Little did we realise we had resigned ourselves to a fate. We became perennial movers, hardly staying in one place for more than a hundred years, constantly uprooted, never expecting to build a house or a home, hoping for certainty, but expecting change.
We convinced ourselves we weren’t quite like the others. After thousands of years of being moved on, we had good cause to think so. We wondered what it was about us that was different. Was it our history, our reputation? What made the nations treat us like vermin? Was it only that they’d seen the rest do the same? Or was there something more pointed? We started to think there must be something different about us. We couldn’t account for the treatment. We knew we were the same really, everyone was the same. But we could point to no other people so widely cast aside, so misunderstood, so vilified and above all hated.
Because people really hated us. They might have feared us, but really they hated. They would not have let fear stand in the way of making us extinct with one sweep of the arm.
And to live amongst hate, you have to adapt. The problem with us is that we’re conspicuous. Our skin precedes us. Our skin is a deep yellow unique to our group. Perhaps something in it makes people think of jaundice or illness, but the tones are not remotely alike and we have been living with the consequences of this confusion for eras. We are not remotely sickly or ill. If anything our skin colour exudes health, signalling aliveness and vigour, our cells always replicating, our organs flushed with blood, our blood pressures low and our heartbeats supremely steady.
In fact our systems were too efficient. They did more than necessary. We burnt out rather than faded. Some of us lived very short lives, at least by your standards. We preserved the community at the cost of the individual. But we lived full, wonderful lives, free of regret. We were so close to god. What we lost in years, we gained in quality, in energy, in freedom, in just being able to feel keener and better, to eye up the world and be awed by it. We understood that the world is a cycle and the wheel just goes round.
We did adapt to some degree but we couldn’t totally hide it. Our skin was what made us unique. It was our gift, our purpose.
Were it not for the others. It could be that they became jealous. Or they feared for their life span. They thought we could hurt them. They thought we were going to cut them down, cut their lives short. We were flattered by the suggestion of such influence, and from such a minority. Could they really have considered us capable of so much?
And sometimes they allowed us to be, but they always held us in debt. Just to live we had to borrow -- their land, their livestock, their plants, their machinery – we didn’t have anything we could call our own, and they never ceased to remind us, to throw it in our face, to call on us to make the debt good.
They didn’t want to be repaid though. They just wanted us beholden.
Then there was a twist, a cruel one for us. Something in our make-up. The more they expelled us the more we sought them out. We longed for inclusion. It is a very silly thing. Why not accept our situation? But we had become so used to craving the acceptance that we believed we needed it. We wanted to live within and amongst them. We couldn’t live without them. Societies became ever more heterogeneous. Nations lived amongst nations. And we wanted to too. Our uniqueness had us doubly cursed. We became drawn to the others like magnets.
Now the situation waxes and wanes. Sometimes you won’t hear about us for centuries. Other times we’re hotly debated. How much of a threat etc. I despise the attention. Just when you think it can’t get worse, it does. We’re stopped dead at the borders, turned away, lucky if we’re not shot at. If someone is remotely suspected of being from our tribe, he has no chance. And now the spotlight’s on us, others must suffer. All those people with a faint yellow cast to their skin, anyone with any sign, any resemblance. They check the arms and the legs for discoloration. They even check the tongues. They laud their special X-ray guns as totems. The people blame us. Yes, they blame the governments, but deep down they blame us. They believe that if we hadn’t existed in the first place, it wouldn’t have arisen. I can’t deny that they’re right. But are we expected to annihilate ourselves because the world’s taken against us. Can’t they see we’re not just a scourge? When will they see?
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Comments
Your stories have this
Your stories have this recurring ethereal feel to them that's unique to you. Arthur C Clarke may have it right that eventually humanity will be effectively one race with barely any distinction between nationalities etc
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