There is a huge banyan tree in Lahaina, Maui. It is a busy and popular tourist destination. I have visited it every time I have been to Maui. It is an instantly recognizable symbol of the town and the island.

When the terrible fires destroyed Lahaina and claimed so many lives, many people, after expressing concern for the people, wondered if the banyan tree had survived. People cared about that tree. I was one of those who cared about it and had an emotional stake in its survival. I’m not sure why, but for many it became a symbol of resilience, a (hopefully) living metaphor for the permanence of life and the healing power of nature. If it could survive and thrive, there could be hope for The cure from the people of Lahaina and Maui.

Nobody knew what its fate would be. The leaves had fallen, the branches burned and both the trunk and the visible roots were charred. Over the last year, people have been searching for signs of life, for green shoots and leaves.

On a year Anniversary, When People looked at the banyan, it seemed as if it was waking up from its dormancy. New growth grew on its branches and the first leaves began to sprout. The Rebirth was fulfilled with great joy of many. Others, as expected, reacted less enthusiastically, pointing out that the tree was not a good symbol because it was not native. It was imported to Maui and planted in 1873. Although it was not an invasive species, it did not pass the purity test of nativeness.

It may seem petty of me to point out that Hawaii’s other great symbol, the pineapple, is also not native. It was brought to the islands in the 16th century. As far as that is concerned, the coconut palm is not really native, but was brought to Hawaii by the Polynesians in ancient times. They also came from somewhere else. Whether you can be seen as a belonging depends on how long you have been somewhere.

How long does it take it takes for a plant or people be accepted as native, as belonging? How long do we confuse non-native with invasive? These questions are not meant to pick on Hawaii, which is just one example of a global trend towards xenophobia and nativism.

Currently there are riots all over England in many small and seemingly deserted towns that were once centres of coal mining and industry. The tragic murder of three young girls and the wounding of many more by a knife killer of African descent has been transformed into the murder of an illegal African refugee who was Muslim. A tragedy unleashed a flood of hatred, violence and xenophobia. The murderer was neither illegal nor Muslim. He was born in England. But facts do not count when people are filled with anger, fear and resentment.

It wasn’t long before riots and vandalism terrorized obvious foreigners (i.e. non-white people) as well as identifiable Muslims, their mosques and businesses. Social media was filled with misinformation, disinformation and outright lies. Elon Musk unhelpfully accused the new British Prime Minister of having a “two-tier legal system”: a lenient one for people of color and a stricter, even draconian system for white people.

These riots against alleged foreigners spread to Northern Ireland and there were problems in Belfast. Maybe It is a kind of perverse progress that the Catholics and Protestants of Belfast could unite against the newcomers.

This nativism is alive and sick in France, as the far right gains power based on the grievances of the “real French” who are not Muslim, African, Asian or Jewish. The strongest nativism in Europe is in Hungary. If you are not a heterosexual, Christian, ethnic Hungarian, Really are not included. Foreigners could welcome as tourists or workers, but not as real Hungarians. The same nativism prevails in Russia, where a real Russian must be heterosexual, Russian Orthodox and Slavic. Ironically, even the Swedes who ruled Russia in what is now Kyiv would not be an option, as they neither Neither Slavic nor Russian Orthodox.

Apparently, This nativism exists in India with its ethnic and religious struggles that reinforce its pernicious caste system. Last week in South Africa, nativism manifested itself when a contestant for the Miss South Africa pageant was harassed and abused because her name had roots out of another African country. Her father’s family was not native. There is no nation and no people that escapes this nativism:

“I’m part of it, but you’re not. My people were here before your people. You can never catch them.”

In America, some are catching up. When people have lived here for one or two generations, they begin to feel at home, And then you criticize the newcomers – even from their former homeland. We see this today with some Hispanics moving to the political right because of a certain antipathy toward newly arrived Hispanics, whether the immigration is legal or not.

“I was here first – now go away.” That’s what we say to every wave of immigration.

I hope that one day, People who have lived on Maui for twenty or thirty years and consider themselves true Hawaiians will picnic under the resurrected banyan tree and accept that its 150-year stay is worthy of the status of belonging. The It is not about immigration or the right to control our borders. The is about vicious nativism. My dream is that we open our hearts to the people of other religions and ethnicities who came after us and that we give us a more warm welcome than we and our ancestors have ever experienced.

Related