Through the spring and summer, I’ve been watching the daily maps of Covid-19 cases and vaccinations — the diagonal slash through Appalachia and the South to the Ozarks and Texas, where cases soared; the high vaccination rates in New England — and I’ve thought back to “ALBION’S SEED: FOUR BRITISH FOLKWAYS IN AMERICA,”” David Hackett Fischer’s classic history of British migration to colonial America, which was published in 1989 and explained these phenomena with a clarity that seems even more stunning today. The divide between maskers and anti-maskers, vaxxers and anti-vaxxers is as old as Plymouth Rock. It is deeper than politics; it is cultural.

The Appalachian hill country and much of the Deep South were settled by a wild caste of emigrants from the borderlands of Scotland and England. They brought their clannish, violent, independent culture, which had evolved over seven centuries of border warfare. They were, Fischer wrote, “a society of autonomous individuals who were unable to endure external control and incapable of restraining their rage against anyone who stood in the way.” The spirit of the Scots-Irish borderlanders could also be seen in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol; their ancestors staged the Whiskey Rebellion against the U.S. Constitution.

In New England, it was quite the opposite. “Order was an obsession” for the Puritan founders. Everything was regulated. Local selectmen had to report — that is, to spy — on the domestic tranquillity of every family in their jurisdiction. Cotton Mather defined an “honorable” person as one who was “studious, humble, patient, reserved and mortified.” These habits have lingered, too.

“Albion’s Seed” makes the brazen case that the tangled roots of America’s restless and contentious spirit can be found in the interplay of the distinctive societies and value systems brought by the British emigrations — the Puritans from East Anglia to New England; the Cavaliers (and their indentured servants) from Sussex and Wessex to Virginia; the Quakers from north-central England to the Delaware River valley; and the Scots-Irish from the borderlands to the Southern hill country. This is a controversial argument, especially now, as the very nature and importance of “culture” has become a point of contention, especially by those who would reduce the American experience to the single lens of race. And, of course, our national sensibility has evolved since the colonial migrations. There are centuries of non-British immigrants to account for and there are the formerly enslaved African Americans, who brought distinctive cultures of their own to the mix. (Fischer planned a second volume on Southern plantation culture, but it hasn’t appeared. He drops a hint, though: The values of the Virginia Cavaliers caused the unusual brutality of the American system of Black enslavement.)

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Mahboob A. Khawaja, PhD.

Has civilization taught us to be more friendly towards one another? Asked Bertrand Russell, the British philosopher and intellectual and explains further:  …Within the herd we are more friendly to each other than are many species of animals, but in our attitude towards those outside the herd, in spite of all that has been done by moralists and religious teachers, our emotions are as ferocious as those of any animal, and our intelligence enables us to give them a scope which is denied to even the most savage beast. It may be hoped, though not very confidently, that the more humane attitude will in time come to prevail, but so far the omens are not very propitious.                                      (Bertrand A. Russell, Ideas that Have Helped Mankind.)

To Recall Active Attendance of Former British Colonialism

The G-7 used to be G-8 inclusive of Russia, but it shrinked to being the “West and America First” and anything else is a matter of opinion to be relevant for global peace and harmony. We, the People of the world are constantly becoming victim of modern ignorance, rooted insolence of withered expectations and growing indifference to much desired international cooperation and working together for peace, intelligence and goodness of humanity. While common masses who are victimized by the atrocities of the few against all – war is not the means to peacemaking and cutting short stupidity and evil-mongering against the global mankind – the real inhabitants of Earth and extended Universal harmony.

Will rationality teach the global leaders to realize the unthinkable horrors, devastations caused by nuclear arsenals and space weaponry hidden from the public eyes and to contemplate a world of harmony different from their own mindset? Not so, the G-7 leaders and their supporters met at a British island as if once again history was witnessing loyalist thumb lickers of colonialism gathered to subscribe their allegiance to Western imperialism. The leaders included those of former subjects of British colonialism: America, India, South Africa, Japan under the US control after the 2^nd WW, Australia, Canada, the EU and of course, the UNO Secretary General had to be there to be included in the reports and final communiqué to remain collectively relevant to the news watchers. None had the vision of a sustainable future that will gather momentum for a universal accord and not to perpetuated animosities. The G-7 gathering looked more like a prelude to some ideological planning for militarism rather than dealing with the unusual human emergencies caused by COVID-1 9 Pandemic and its widespread suspicions, pains and impacts beyond known human capacity to absorb for public normalcy across the globe.

 Leaders Disconnected to Future-Making of Global Mankind

The Western leaders are at a critical juncture after collapse of the American democracy and January 6, Trump planned attack at the Washington Capitol for a peaceful transfer of power to then President –elect Joe Bidden and restoration and continuity of liberal democracy. The leaders seem to worship the form and ignored the essence of reality – the challenges to working of democracy in the Western hemisphere. The G-7 gathering echoed the usual outburst of blame games to the rising culture of global influence of China and Russia as formidable challenges to Western democracies. Were colonialism and imperialism part of the Western democracies at any time of the formative history? They led massive military campaigns against the poor, vulnerable and less developed human societies and subjected them to prolonged pains, horrors, killings and imposed foreign cultures and thinking on the helpless humanity. This was the net working of so-called Western nations claiming to be relevant for democratic norms in the 21^st century of knowledge and wisdom. Islam is a living force, but Muslims and Arab leaders are dead entities, dismantled puppets breathing oxygen for their survival at the mercy of America and former British colonialism. The Arabian Peninsula is submerged into moral and intellectual incapacitated chaos being unable to think of the future. America will gear Israel to take initiatives for more control of the oil pumping nations. Palestine, Kashmir, human rights, social justice, black lives matter and equality of humanity – the real global issues are discarded because there are no intelligent Muslim leaders except dead-ended princes, kings and dictators to forge alliances with the Western militarized nations.

We, the People, wish to rejoice truth, not evil. Western colonialism was built on vices of dehumanization of millions and millions of human beings throughout Asia and Africa and Central Asia. Was the G-7 gathering an exposition of a hybrid culture – part human and part vulture to mislead the conscientious global humanity? To a critical observer and peacemaker, the G-7 leaders failed to come up with any reasoned Plan for change, global peace and cooperation across the board. It was a gathering just to appease Bidden or to one another for being active in compelling global developments. The G-7 leader’s unexcitable shadows on the beach of Cornwall ended without any strength, good wishes of human serenity and led to clouds of suspicion for an unattainable future of confrontations with China, Russian and all living men of ideas. William Boardman, “A Country at War with an Illusion” (ICH8/19/2013), noted the same several years earlier:

“We have now been at war for well over a decade,” the president said in a statement so simple and broad as to include all the devastation we’ve wrought in Iraq and Afghanistan to so little useful effect, right down to the latest drone strike against some person we decided fits today’s enemy combatant profile. 

That much is obvious to almost everyone. Less obvious is that the same war has been turned inward, waged against Americans at home – increasingly prisoners of the homeland and increasingly surrounded by homeland security, whether it’s needed or not. The unchecked expansion of policing entities since 9/11, too vast to be easily or briefly described, continues unchecked, because we are at war……America’s Main Enemy Is Nameless, Shapeless, “Associated Forces”

 In Search of Competent Moral and Intellectual Leadership for Future-Making

We, the People observe increasing political cynicism and indifference as part of global leadership across many continents. The ideals of harmonious and sustainable societies do not come out of perpetuated foolishness and animosities if the leaders knew what happened during the previous Two WW. The need for a reasoned dialogue between the economically and militarily active nations is the secret of peace and articulating a sustainable global peace and future for all. Sanctity of human life and preservation of the Planet is vital at all the times and in all policy-making and global consensus.  Should the leaders go on a ride out in space to learn the reality of our lives and a peaceful future of all human beings? What if Russia and China were invited to be part of the G-9 rather than G-7, would the earth have trembled or would the Western war machines collapsed from its superior manufacturing agenda capacity and active warmongering across the Middle East?  Imagine if President Putin and President Chi Pang were at the meeting, would it not have enhanced the imagination for a better world of understanding? The world of reason should not be tainted by ideological warfare or dictates of Capitalism, Communism or Socialism or any other viable ideals so to speak. Often, politically aligned thoughts in Europe and America have ignored the humanitarian vitality of China and Russia for convenient political expediency. There appears to be lot of conjures to be cleaned and clarified for change and a new world order of collaboration and help when it is most needed beyond national flags and borders of the G-7 nations.

We, the People uphold this ideal that leadership based on knowledge and wisdom and representing the interest of larger mankind will lead us to human unity, benevolence, social justice, equality and global harmony, and certainly not to malignity, tyranny and neo-colonization. To make the global humanity peaceful and collaborative, the Western nations must think of unity and not of military confrontations, new animosities and economic warfare – We, the People cannot imagine another “war of all against all’, unless we have lost the common sense and rationality of human unity for the good of all.

Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in international affairs-global security, peace and conflict resolution with keen interests in Islamic-Western comparative cultures and civilizations, and author of several publications including the latest: One Humanity and the Remaking of Global Peace, Security and Conflict Resolution. Lambert Academic Publications, Germany, 12/2019.