Alexander's Bastards

Abstract

A curiosity I witnessed within my family dynamic led to these efforts. The fascination surrounding it festered over the years and, in time, convinced me that the same phenomenon within my cultural compound extended beyond it. It doesn't take much awareness to recognize that, as a species, we revere the powerful. In my family's case, this extends to a particular ruler dead over millennia. This collection of essays springboards from my people's fascination with Alexander the Great. Their ongoing and passionate debate over his lineage and its incessant question, to whom does Alexander belong, has, over time, become my own cultural tinnitus. However misplaced, the reverence is rooted in another recognizable feature: a desire to belong. As a result, the dedications offered to the one leading us are often built on the back of conflict and can provide irrational outcomes.

The first essay, the namesake for the collection, explains some of my experiences regarding the Alexander debate. More importantly, it suggests this experience offered a lens to view similar phenomena outside the Mediterranean and the diaspora I belong to. Some of this is nested in the immigration journey, centered around belonging, which I explore in the second piece, "Coming to a Country that is not America." The third essay offers a deep dive into some of the delusions surrounding belonging. It looks back at an unusual occurrence in 5th-century Byzantium, where hooliganism at a colosseum almost tore apart an empire. The evolution of this incident was based on what color of cloth fans wore when attending and what color the charioteers supported. The "Blues vs. the Greens" deconstructs some of what we know about this odd event against the backdrop of a house party I attended that dismantled itself over a casual discussion about climate change.

Collectively, these essays explore the idea that our desire to belong, when it works against our self-interest, along with a bias toward the potency of leadership, leaves behind embarrassing and sometimes tragic entrails. The same desire we have for joining in leads us to untether. The collection of essays asks if we divide and fight not because we have to but because we want to.