The view from the cheap seats

Where do I even begin?

George Santayana has a surname that rings as if it belonged to the ancient times. It is possible to associate the name to a Sanskrit scholar of yesteryears. Of all his quotes, the most well-known and oft repeated is

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it!

This quote is the first thing you notice when you enter the first block on a guided tour of Auschwitz- Birkenau.

Looking at the affairs of the world and some who are running it I begin to wonder if mere remembrance alone is enough; looks like we remember but we have learnt zilch from it.

We appear happy to repeat the atrocious past and allow this quote to become relevant to our next generation.

If the thousand-year Reich did not survive beyond a mere 13 years, it is not because of lack of trying.

It is just Pure serendipity.

The second world war and the enormous amount of documentation that is made available today, has made it explicitly clear where the fault lines were.

Aggression, over confidence and the cardinal sin of fighting on two fronts!

Back to what made the 1000-year Reich to gain popularity followed by acceptance.

Misplaced nationalism, populist measures, fascism, authoritative regimes, stoked xenophobia, inclusion and exclusions based on color of your skin, your race, religion or ethnicity.

There – we have identified most of the main ingredients that needed to disturb the equilibrium of congenial co-existence.

That people today would still fall for this is beyond comprehension. That we just needed to look back a mere 70 years into our recent history and we are missing to do that is incredulous.

Geographical ignorance and being alien to the term “rest of the world” could be par for the course to the Americans (I will come to them in due course of time) but to see the same old shit being played repeatedly all over the world really makes me nervous. What sort of a world are we encouraging to exist today.

Will our children forgive us for the mess that we are going to dump into their laps?

Collective intelligence seems to have vanished off the face of the earth and we seem hell-bent on destroying the moral and social fabric to a point of no repair.

If things continue in the same vein, the history shall not forgive us for having failed in our duties in the most pusillanimous way imaginable.

While I shall calm down by voicing out my sense of deep dissatisfaction and a feeling of impotence in the following pages, I am equally aware that I am just chronicling the malady that I see, all to be available in one place.

It can be called as the toxic encyclopedia of the current state.

I am just a historian recording the symptoms of the disease that is so prevalent that we had ceased to see for what it is. The only solution is a simple time-tested remedy.

Use commonsense. I have no other panacea to offer at the end.

Let me spin the globe and gaze upon any country that will catch my gaze and examine the hopeless situation that we have brought on ourselves (like playing the Russian Roulette)

Philippines

Could I have landed on a more apt place than this to start my rant.

Rodrigo Duterte; epitome of nationalism and populism. He was clever enough to target the drug traffickers to increase his populism among the masses. I am cleaning up the city was his war cry. How could people vote for and elect a person to this stature when he openly admits to insensitive remarks about women and rape.

If the following account of officially recorded conversation does not disturb your conscience, I do not know what else can?

At a campaign rally on April 12, 2016, Duterte told supporters that, as Mayor, he thought he "should have been first" to rape Jacqueline Hamill, an Australian missionary who was gang-raped and killed during the 1989 Davao hostage crisis. He recalled examining her corpse:

When the bodies were brought out, they were wrapped. I looked at her face, son of a bitch, she looks like a beautiful American actress. Son of a bitch, what a waste. What came to my mind was, they raped her, they lined up. Was I angry because she was raped? Yes, that's one thing. But she was so beautiful, I think the mayor should have been first. What a waste.

After being condemned for his comments, Duterte later apologized for the incident and acknowledged the comment as a "bad remark" saying he regretted his "gutter language" but would not apologize for being misinterpreted. He insists though that the remark was not a "joke" as reported by some media outlets, saying that he stated it in a narrative. He further said that he was not apologizing for stating the remark reasoning that he made the remark out of "utter anger" when he recalled the events. He threatened to sever diplomatic ties with the US and Australia, if elected, after their ambassadors criticized his comments

And he is a leader of a nation! And we will continue to vote and elect him and people like him!

Despicable.

He had gone on record to glorify his violent nature and trivializes judiciary by pardoning himself and signing it citing Presidential immunity.

My next spin takes me to my homeland – India

India need not even look back 70 years into the world history! It needed to look back just 40 years to see the result of what the “Emergency” declared by the then prime minister Indira Gandhi did to the nation. It brought back totalitarian control, press censoring and gave absolute power to the police. The result was a complete disaster as was expected. Mrs. Gandhi lost her position in the immediate election.

Have we learnt our lessons?

NO.

We vote the right-wing Hindutva party to power.

Mr. Modi, when he was the chief minister of Gujarat, exhibited his, hitherto unknown, grasp of science by quoting Newton’s third law of motion, “Every action has a reaction in the opposite direction”

This was in reply to the sustained anti-Muslim riots that the state of Gujarat (ironically the birth place of Mohandas Gandhi, the proponent of ahimsa) sponsored in retaliation to the Godhra incident. 

I, not for a moment, am going to justify the incident of the massacre of the Hindu pilgrims in Godhra that led to this subsequent riot.

If people are going to retaliate, deliver their own judgment, and if state is going to sponsor it (well, not doing anything is worse than officially sponsoring it), why do we need a state?

We are back to two (or more) clans fighting for territory and beliefs, answerable only to themselves or their supreme leader.

He is now in power over the whole of India, and if indications are to be believed, he will be the leader for another 4 years after the next election and another 4 after the next …..

It is a nice country to be in today, where students are afraid to voice their opinions, where activists are shot to death, where people are lynched for eating beef, where a Statue Of Unity, costing millions of $, will be unveiled on 31^st October while farmers in thousands commit suicide bogged down by unpayable loans, where a visit to a temple (Sabarimala) is more important news than rape and constant discrimination of women.

The slogan of Indian Tourism is absolutely spot on!

Photo Courtesy: Thompson Holidays.

My next spin stops at KSA and I involuntarily shudder!

Can a country that has been violating all known code of conducts still come around and shock you with its capacity to plumb depths of human depravity?

Apparently yes!

Saudi Arabia is an example that might is right. If you are powerful and when you are holding the vast oil reserves that can make or break the world economy, then you can get away with anything!

Anything!

But even the world that is immune to the abhorrent behavior of a country of the stature of KSA, was still given a rude shake up when the kingdom decided to get rid of one of its critics.

How dare an ordinary reporter by name Jamal Khashoggi (all right, he was not any ordinary reporter, but in front of the mighty kingdom and MbS himself, what is he after all?) question the ways of how the kingdom is run and whether they are morally right in conducting certain affairs?

The Bible claimed “The meek shall inherit the earth” – how naïve!

This “meek” who dared to raise his voice and question the unquestionable, did inherit the earth. As a matter of fact, the earth inherited him.

In pieces.

After being tortured and dismembered while still alive. The most powerful nations of the world are still searching for his remains.

And what a farce that was played. He left the embassy. We have no idea where he is or what happened to him. We have no idea. We do not silence the voice of reason. This is pointless accusation. Yes, he is dead. He was killed in a scuffle that broke out. Inside an embassy!!! Where is the body? He is dead. Where is the body? We are sorry to say he died in an altercation. Where is the body? The general and other officers who ordered his death have been arrested. Where is his body? We convey our condolences to the bereaved son. Who incidentally can’t leave the kingdom. Where is his body? Trump says that the explanation offered is now credible.

Where is his body?

Stop this nonsense. The reaction of the world to the killing of the reporter is over the top. We are a beacon of light against the dark forces of Iran!

WHAM! What was that.

A man is killed. In cold blood. Premeditated. The world demands an answer. The accused says go shove it up your backside.

The entire spectacle is straight out of Ripley’s!

The other flipside of this show is that Recep Erdogan (whose very name reminds you of an evil ruler from the Lord of The Rings novels) comes across as an angel and the guardian of humanity and free press.

What is left in this world to consider as sane. 

I need to take a break now. This entire exercise is more enervating than I had bargained for.

The next spin finds me in a jaw drop at Myanmar.

This is exceptional by any standard. In how many other instances can you have a Nobel laureate, for Peace, no less, presiding over one of the worst recorded instances of ethnic cleansing. The accounts are blood curling. The organization is impeccable. The Google aerial maps show systematic and systemic obliteration with industrial scale extermination. The military was given a carte blanche to go and kill and rape and plunder and destroy, by any or all means at their disposal. Use your imaginations if you are running short of entertainment.

While the world expressed its shock and anger – we are getting better at this, practice makes one perfect, right? – we do not even need to write new editorials, just take the previous one, change the names of the exploited, insert the right regime and it is ready – Aung San Suu Kyi represented the state by saying NOTHING.

She kept quiet, not one pod of jasmine in her hair wilted.

It is debatable if she participated. Does it matter? That she did nothing is worse than if she had perpetrated.

Which she probably did.

Moments like this make you lose the last sliver of hope on humanity.

I am tired of spinning this globe; disgusted with the whole unnerving experience, I logged into my laptop and opened The Guardian to catch up on the headlines and what do I see?

Jair Bolsonaro sweeps to power in brazil!

I have seen this meme, the Redeemer with his face in his hands, a trillion times over the years, more recently when Germany thrashed Brazil 7-1 in the world cup semifinals. Can you beat that?

Beating Brazil.

Not just beating, but a severe thrashing.

At home.

In a World Cup.

In the semi-finals.

Yes, you can. This meme appears most apt after the election result.

Come on. How do you elect a man who supports torture, says he will relax gun-control (is he blind and deaf, or is he dyslexic that he can’t read the newspaper reports) and abuses women and gay people?

He tells a woman that he would not rape her because she does not deserve it. Seriously? And then he pushes her and threatens to slap her. Live! On TV.

And people vote him in! Who leaves me more dumbstruck? He or the people who vote him to power?

Under him, the police force will enjoy as much freedom as those under Duterte.

Next, I neither need the globe nor the newspaper. I resign myself to ruminating on the biggest threat of them all. Trump.

When Brits voted Brexit, I had resigned myself to the fate and feared that the Americans will do a one-up on the Brits and will vote Trump in.

They did not, by popular vote, but the complicated American Presidential Election system still made him POTUS.

The world was aghast in 1935 when one Adolf Hitler started to unleash organized chaos. The world was surprised, “how could he?”. It was rather naïve as Mr. Hitler spelt out exactly everything he intended to do when (not if, but when, the small man was full of confidence) he came to power. It was the mistake of the world that they did not either read Main Kampf or if they had read, had not taken him seriously.

The same held true for Trump.

He has done almost everything he promised, except sending Hilary to prison.

Not yet, at least.

Started his tariff wars, went against globalization, made populist and nationalist overtures, (make America great again! A nice slogan as far as slogans go), openly supported supremacists, ridiculed physically challenged people, called women horseface, pulled out of UN aid for refugees, pulled out of Paris accord on climate control, called climate control a Chinese hoax and declared that the instances of mass shooting had nothing to do with gun laws and once even bizarrely proposed to arm the teachers.

Meanwhile, quietly Putin and Xi Jiping are consolidating their stranglehold on their respective nations, where, unlike the rest of the world, the population does not have, even, a notional voice.

This whole soliloquizing has had an adverse effect on me already. I am nervous, concerned, helpless and close to falling apart.

Accidentally my hand went back to spinning the globe.

And left me gazing at the channel separating England from continental Europe!

Almost Poetic, I would say!

How many problems do I see here?

England separated from mainland Europe due to a great decision of its population to vote for Brexit!

If individual stupidity is bothersome, collective stupidity is terrifying.

With a single stupid vote, the British have managed to wipe out a gargantuan pie of their trade, driven investors away, will lose jobs, make travel difficult, lose the value of its currency, make housing and healthcare unaffordable.

The shit had hit the fan and earnest persons (yes, they still do exist) are still trying their best to see if they can find a way out.

Looks highly impossible as the EU is now taking its turn to ensure “You made a mistake, you pay for it. We will make sure there is no easy way out”

The stand taken by the EU is being twisted to present to the people who voted for the Brexit and say “See, we told you! These are the unreasonable people we wanted to be away from” and drive the wedge of acrimony further down to make sure that the rift comes to pass.

Is the mainland any different?

Not in the least. And this pain the most as, if anyone should understand the perils of fascism, it is the people of Europe.

Still what does one get to see?

A succession of victories to the far right.

Sweden, Italy, Austria…..

The voice of reason is fading, and extremism is becoming the new norm. Whipping up the masses to a frenzy, making them lose rationale is something that Europe has perfected from their past.

Leaders like Zeman and Orban do not even hide their intentions. They are blatant as if challenging the world – this is what I am, and this is what I will do, what can you do?

“Not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims” – with a single insensitive statement like this Zeman has altered the fate of millions.

And the height of his insensitiveness can only be exhibited by this chance conversation he had with Putin, the conversation was caught on microphones when they met in China.

The 72-year-old president told Putin in Russian: “there are too many journalists, we should liquidate them.”

His Moscow counterpart joked back saying: "Liquidation isn't necessary, we can reduce them."

And his friendly neighbor Orban from Hungary spews no less venom.

“We are fighting an enemy that is different from us. Not open but hiding; not straightforward but crafty; not honest but base; not national but international; does not believe in working but speculates with money; does not have its own homeland but feels it owns the whole world,” Orban said

Orban referred to Soros as “Uncle George” and compared him to Hungary’s historical foes, such as the Ottoman Empire, the Hapsburgs and the Soviet Union. He emphasized that Hungary and the rest of Western Europe is experiencing an invasion of immigrants that will turn native-born Europeans into a minority.

Imagine how much this messes up an innocent impressable mind, his target audience. It works like the inception. Plant an idea early on and repeat it endlessly and the impression becomes an opinion and then a conviction and sooner than you realize, a cause to fight for.

Even worth losing your life in the process.

Hatred works wonders!

The main reason this whole eruption of emotions occurred is when I read that Angela Merkel decided not to stand for presidency in 2021. The one sole anchor we had to cling to. It is true that she can’t continue forever. But, like is the case with most charismatic leaders, her succession planning is terrible. Her party without she is nothing. And the far right is slowly gaining ground in Germany.

So, what do I see?

A world ruled by Trump, Bolsonaro, Duterte, MbS, Erdogan, Zeman, Orban, Modi and the likes and regimes that openly violate accepted norms and dare the world with atrocities after atrocities.

A friend of mine, sarcastically, quipped.

We have front seats to the burning of the world. What a time to be alive!

That is when I realized what it means to have a view from the cheap seats.