On Friday night as the White Supremacists marched in Charlottesville, VA, they chanted “Blood and Soil”. Yes, “Blood and Soil”.
The Nazis, who popularized the phrase, said “Blut und Boden”.
The phrase originates from the 19th century Germany. Blood and Soil refers to a school of thought that looks at ethnicity based on two factors, descent blood and territory. It celebrates the relationship of a people to the land they occupy and cultivate, and it places a high value on the virtues of rural living.
Richard Walther Darré rejuvenated the phrase during the time of Nazi Germany through his 1930 book “Neuadel aus Blut und Boden “(A New Nobility Based On Blood And Soil). The gist of it was that certain people, by virtue of their blood affinity—that is, their racial ancestry—belonged to the soil of Germany, the Fatherland. It further espoused the idea that real Aryans lived and worked on rural areas of Germany as farmers. That in working with the soil did one really show that his blood was that of a German.
Well, don’t forget that Germany even then was a heavily industrialized nation so I guess all the factory worker were not real Germans.
However, there was a ruthless cunning to all that. The cities were inhabited by factory workers who were most probably in a Union or were communists. The cities also contained the left-leaning and liberal Germans and even more ominously, the arch-enemy of the Nazis, the Jews.
It’s 2017, and White Supremacists are chanting “Blood and Soil”….”Blut und Boden”.
This begs the questions, “Which blood and which soil?”
You see, the originals put out by this soil here were all exterminated like vermin many hundreds of years ago. Those men who marched are the product this soil put out subsequently.
However, what this soil has since put out is not a pure white race but a mix of races – white, black, red, yellow, brown… a real potpourri.
One can split hairs over whether all these different races belong in this pot or not but they are here, some forcibly. They laid their seed, filled the land and now we have this kaleidoscope of people.
Then is the issue of blood. Copious amounts have drenched this soil. The blood of millions of native Americans murdered, thousands of African slaves killed and the innumerable men who died during the civil war. Do not the descendants of all these people, whose blood built this land belong here?
If not then those who belong must have a special trait. Those who belong are the real “Americans”.
Yet, who is this real American? Can we know by the blood that runs through them? That will be difficult because blood always runs red. Can the soil tell us? I doubt it because how can the soil really tell? It’s been drenched with all kinds of blood and swallowed up all manner of bodies so much so, that it also keeps asking, “Who is the real American?’
That leaves us just one more option – the color of the skin.
Aha!, now we are getting somewhere.
Blood and Soil.
If your skin is not white, then your blood does not come from the stock of people who are seen fit to occupy this soil. Then you have no mystical attachment to this soil. You do not belong. You do not belong.
Wouldn’t it just be easier to say that instead of taking this “Blood-Soil” detour?
Of course, silly me, they do say that…..in many ways… and theirs actions express it too…with many sides.
Blood and Soil!
A small reminder that in spite of the illusion of inclusion, some skin colors are most unwelcome on this soil.
Not their blood! Not on this soil!