Brody's Scribbles... Treason

By Bart Vogelzang | VANCOUVER ISLAND, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA -- Treason can reasonably be defined as a violation of allegiance owed by someone to their own country.

However, country is not a real thing, despite our initial gut feeling that it is easily identifiable, specific and concrete. One need only look at the examples of Tibet, Palestine, and Basque (in Europe) to see that a country can exist without land or borders. Indeed, hundreds of times throughout history there have been displaced peoples from conquered lands who have maintained their ‘country’, entirely with their indomitable spirit and actions.

Of course our understanding that a country is much more than real estate, but is actually the spirit of the people, gives us a new way of looking at treason. Perhaps the allegiance owed by someone is actually an allegiance owed to the people, your relatives, neighbors, friends, and the people in the next block, town, or state. Perhaps treason is not simply a military or political violation, or subversion against the nation but a betrayal of trust, a betrayal of decent behaviours, a betrayal of the spirit.

Whilst everyone is considered equal under the law, at least in popular mythology, most every one of us knows that this is simply not the case. Some people are superior at specific tasks, some have stronger traits and abilities, unscrupulousness, and even luck, and those people can, and often do, move up to a higher level of equality, one in which they can ‘get away with’ any number of things that we, the normal people, cannot.

Regardless of their reassurances, too numerous to count, we all know that racism is rampant even in the greatest democracy, and that being the ‘wrong’ race will limit your equality significantly. Sadly, race isn’t the only category to suffer from this. Economic position, religious affiliation, gender, and even sexual orientation, not to mention any number of other conditions like physical and mental challenges are burdened by the suppression of their avowed equality. Interestingly, we can see that, over time, it is actually a small minority who are ‘more equal’, with the vast majority of us being suppressed to the lesser levels of ‘equality’. 

Treason, the violation of allegiance to the spirit of the people, is committed daily by many of those in that higher echelon of ‘equality’. Not only do they utilize their positions for their own good, but also they continually dump abuse, hatred, and even counsel of violence onto those not so equal. Why…because they can only maintain their craved positions by keeping others divided, each suffering in their lower levels of equality.

It really is time for everyone to recognize that divisive bigoted hateful remarks made by our supposedly responsible yet morally corrupt leaders are actually treasonous actions against us, the people; our country.