Xenophobia

We seem to be having a bit of a Kipling-Fest on Figures of Speech at the moment. Don't worry – it will probably fizzle out by the end of this month.

As part of our Kipling-Fest I re-read a lot of his work, particularly the poetry. My last encounter with Kipling's writings must have been about sixty years ago. I remembered that even then, among the things that struck me and stayed in my memory, was the poem The Stranger. At that time the Western world had still some way to go before sinking into the present insanity, so the poem struck me then as interesting and clever, but not epochal.

How things have changed in only half a century! As a result of the huge levels of immigration that many Western countries have allowed to happen during this time, we must all come to terms perforce with the many strangers within our gate. Kipling's poem can now be read as a masterful dissection of those two contradictory banners of the open-borders advocates: 'diversity' and 'integration'. Note that one cannot have both at the same time.

If citizens nowadays are not happy about all these strangers entering within their gates and into their lives then they are usually told that they are suffering from 'racism', and/or the psychotic condition of 'xenophobia'.

We wrote about the problems with the term xenophobia seven years ago – in short, the word is a cod clinical term that interprets the caution that every rational human exercises in the presence of strangers as some kind of psychotic affliction.

The Stranger ignores the word 'xenophobia', instead going directly to the root of the matter. As such it is remarkably prescient.

The Stranger (1908)

The Stranger within my gate,^[1]
He may be true or kind,

But he does not talk my talk—
I cannot feel his mind.

I see the face and the eyes and the mouth,
But not the soul behind.

The men of my own stock
They may do ill or well,

But they tell the lies I am wonted to,
They are used to the lies I tell.

And we do not need interpreters
When we go to buy and sell.

The Stranger within my gates,
He may be evil or good,

But I cannot tell what powers control—
What reasons sway his mood;

Nor when the Gods of his far-off land
Shall repossess his blood.

The men of my own stock,
Bitter bad they may be,

But, at least, they hear the things I hear,
And see the things I see;

And whatever I think of them and their likes
They think of the likes of me.

This was my father's belief
And this is also mine:

Let the corn be all one sheaf—
And the grapes be all one vine,

Ere our children's teeth are set on edge^[2]
By bitter bread and wine.

References

1. ^ 'The stranger within my gate': echoing the Bible, Deuteronomy, 5:14.
   But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates;
2. ^ 'Ere our children’s teeth … bread and wine': echoing the Bible, Jeremiah 31:29.
   In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children's teeth are set on edge.