When did you become so cruel?

This is almost the “Who is John Galt” of this book. This single question is pivotal to the entire theme of the book. We are passing through one of the most politically volatile times in recorded history. I am making this statement with the complete knowledge of the Third Reich that fortunately did not last the thousand years that was promised by the Fuehrer. That regime was a one-off aberration. More importantly, when that regime happened, and later spread like cancer, the rest of the world collectively, for reasons that are various individually, decided to stand up and rescue that nation as well as the rest of the world. But what we see today is a different template. This is being played simultaneously all over the world.

 

Philippines, India, turkey, Hungary, Italy, Brazil, China, KSA, USA, UK…….

 

I once lamented about this in an earlier blog. Check it out here, if you would like it.

 

Back to Ms. Temelkuran.

 

Her angst is currently shared by billions across the world. The anger is palpable, the rage is suppressed, and the sense of helplessness is reinforced each passing day. One of the reasons why her book is so relevant today. Part of the remedy, if any, again the sense of helplessness drives one to this point of cynicism, is in understanding the malady, or the course through which the malady sets in.

 

Having studied, and experienced, the events developing in Turkey, in a personal capacity she is able to nail down the surprisingly simple process to the last detail. Her seven chapters are spot on. She has chronologically elaborated the steps that the regime, a synonym for the ruthless authoritarian, takes; one step at a time with unerring precision and practice and reaches a final stage where a cure is, almost, impossible. The book should not be read only as a documentation of the degeneration of human values or as an exercise in finding out how low a human being can fall, but rather as a boy-scout manual of how to avoid such collapses in future or if we can reverse, I will come to it at the end, the toxic spread.

 

The authoritarian figure is at the center of all such pathetic regimes currently we see rampant all over the world. Orban, Erdogan, Modi, Trump, Putin……

 

Not surprisingly, all are men.

 

On the other hand, in an unrelated statistic, there was an article that hailed the countries that handled the Covid19 well; Germany, New Zealand, Finland….

 

All women.

 

Maybe, there is a simpler way to avoid catastrophe when you go voting next time.

 

What drives the authoritarian figure to, first grasp power, and then drive a country to a state of coma where dissent is crushed, only “his way or highway” philosophy is established, doublespeak becomes the official language, sycophants are rewarded, educated and the intelligent are portrayed as a villain, and discouraged continuously to the point of them deciding to leave the country altogether is not entirely understood. The said leader on a couch will give a psychoanalyst an instant orgasm, at the mere prospect. The findings of such a session are not going to be useful.

 

Understanding and stopping his methodology, however, shall be extremely beneficial on a personally satisfying and globally meaningful way.

 

He, I shall stick to the male pronoun as the female leaders have exonerated themselves by their conspicuous absence, starts with a “movement”. A movement always gains traction. You need nothing specific or concrete. On the contrary, the vaguer the better. He makes sure he addresses all the poor, the sidelined, the lower strata of the society and spins a story that this is NOT due to economic and intelligent aspects, but because of an elaborate scam by the “others” who had stolen from them systematically and systemically. He successfully creates a conflict between “real people” and the “others”. Who gets bracketed into which category is left entirely to his whims, his prejudices, his idiosyncrasies. And bracketing people is easy – we have generated enough categories to slot them into, over the years - intelligence, political leaning, religion, caste, race, economic status…. Unfailingly the “real people” end up in rural and the “others” in an urban area. The inherent trait to ignore any grassroots uprising as symbolic and uninteresting, the urban dwellers, not realizing that they have recently been labeled “others”, plays a great role in creating the drift and divide and when the authoritarian ruler-to-be strikes his final blow, as a culmination of a slow-burning process, it is already too late. Victory is announced and before the shock of the venom and vitriol that is put on, blatant display starts to register, subsequent waves of more incredulous demonstration of disregard for basic human decency start numbing one’s senses. In wartime and in serious accidents, the victim undergoes a stage of “shock” where the sudden nature and the magnitude of the injury leave him numb and the person can’t feel any pain. One reaches almost such extremes.

 

Once in power, the authoritarian keeps his charade and the program on ceaselessly. Never stops. He appears to live in a bubble. Reality is just a figment of the imagination. Armed with his sycophants and paid trolls and the social media/print media, TV at his disposal, he sets about dismantling all façades of truth. Nothing exists in a realm beyond the one that has his blessings. His wish is the party’s command. He can make any outrageous claim and his loyal bootlicking army shall make it happen. Let the claim be, the earth is flat, Muslims are evil, the mosque was a temple, the museum is a mosque, immigrants are the problem, the neighbor is evil, economists do not understand the economy, WHO is lying, there is no Uighur…. (go on, entertain yourself by filling it out, or use my comments section). Any sane person who decides to question or oppose becomes the “elite” not the “Real People”. To quote Ms. Temelkuran “And we all know what happens when self-doubting intellect encounters ruthless self-evident ignorance". The battle is won before you even enter the arena. You are not just defeated, you are DESTROYED. The entire troll army, the judiciary, the police, and every single establishment is unleashed on you with an unimaginable ferocity and in relentless pursuit. Even the strongest are broken. Sooner or later. But in the end, without an iota of doubt.

 

It is impossible to argue with the followers either. The author beautifully describes it as “trying to make a milkshake without the lid on”; a wonderful modern-gadget version of “fighting with a pig, where you both get filthy and the pig enjoys it.

 

The leader is now unfettered and marches on to accomplish all his ambitions and outrageous goals. Once the movement is set in motion, the content does not matter (Example – After 1.5 million confirmed Covid19 cases, the Indian prime minister  Modi said this on live TV-am not exaggerating “Thanks to the timely and decisive actions taken by this government, we are now in a far better position, globally, than any other country” – India stood 3^rd in the John Hopkins global list when this statement was made). Like the judiciary that sentenced innocent men to sterilization and death to keep Hitler happy, hoping it was just a passing phase, soon Hitler would be gone and the country would become great and then stood aghast while the passing phase turned into raging inferno sweeping across the nation, many great people and the institutions that they represent start by accommodating the mad man, nursing the same hopes; let us give in some and harvest grander gains later, only to realize that the capitulation is complete before they could regroup or reclaim. The media, the judiciary, the police and the army is all compromised one at a time. The best route is diabolically simple. Ridicule them, bypass them, let the “real people” start to feel that these institutions are superfluous. There is only one truth. The supreme leader. And nothing else.

 

When this becomes evident, the stalwarts of the judiciary, the system, the police, and the army (maybe others too) stand dumbstruck, wondering where it went wrong. It went wrong the very first time you sold or compromised your conscience, your intentions are irrelevant. This is summed up beautifully in the last scene of that poignant film, to which I have referred to in the preceding paragraph. When Dr. Ernst Janning, the learned, much-respected judge tells Judge Haywood – “I did not know it would come to this. You must believe me”, more a soul consoling cry for recognition and the anguished appeal not to judge him harshly as a person, the reply of Judge Haywood is probably the finest piece of that film, a film with multiple scenes vying for exhausting your superlatives.

 

 

 

This is the answer to all those who have accommodated and made the authoritarian leader a monster. No evil can ever triumph in a vacuum. It needs collaborators. Their intentions do not exonerate them in the end.

 

The next arsenal in the supreme leader’s repertoire is a diversion. White noise. Whenever there is a real national crisis, make an incredulous statement, and send the entire nation running after the red herring. And the best diversion is always to target women. Again, quoting the author here “periodically say something outrageous about women's issues. Let there be a shock. Keep the controversy going until whatever you're doing behind the white noise has been accomplished”. I know, you the intelligent smirk, and think this is not possible. Hello, wake up.

 

A case in point is the uniform reaction of almost the entire Twitterati yesterday, 29^th July 2020, when India announced a NEW EDUCATION POLICY! The policy is so outrageous, that the only sensible reaction appears to be humor and/or laugh. A point repeatedly hammered in her book. Given that India is a land of several languages, with many languages spoken by a population equal to entire Europe, the reaction is just a stunned incredulity, and the only way to channel your astonishment is through sarcasm, wit, and humor. A set of armories wasted on the megalomaniac and his mad disciples. Even as the nation reeled in shock, the trolls set about hailing it as a masterpiece and the same old fundamental fulcrum – “the real people are now reclaiming what is rightfully theirs” – so, all you elite, you can go shove your grievances up your derriere.

 

Another distinct possibility, rather unlikely as this is not just an outrageous claim but a policy introduced, is that this is another white noise to divert and suppress yet another development that the leader does not want the nation to acknowledge.

 

Right in front of you, for all to see, except to those “real people”, the country falls apart. The Orwellian nightmare is a reality in your day to day life. Big Brother is watching you.  With a digital leash, the watching is so must simpler. The author expresses the outrage of her friend who goes for abortion and finds out the “forces” have informed her father! This particular part of the book reminded me of the seminal film of Cristian Mungiu “4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days” which describes the harrowing reality of a girl seeking an abortion in Nicolae Ceaușescu era Romania. I watched the film during the first winter that I lived in Romania. Stories told by my friends about those days and if anything, the stark depression in the film was only an understatement, sent shivers down my spine.

 

Nothing sums up the full essence and the horror than this single statement from the book.

 

THE TIME HAS COME THEY WILL NOW DO THINGS YOU THINK THEY CANNOT.

 

There is nothing in the realm of improbable or undoable for the supreme leader. The whole country is a puppet and wrapped around his finger. Any meaningful opposition is crushed. Dissent is wiped out. Any threat is neutralized. Slaves are rewarded, so long as they know their limits and keep their ambitions in control. Intelligence, independence, empathy - each is discouraged and those who practice the same are driven to the edge of insanity or simply incarcerated. The assumed Dr. Jekyll has completely transformed into the evil Mr. Hyde. He was never the Dr. Jekyll; it was just your complacence.

 

The author mentions more than once, one of the first questions, invariably, after all her speeches, after the first few minutes of stunned uncomfortable silence that marks the end of her speech, “Is there any hope?”

 

She answers them playfully, truthfully, frankly. It usually is “we should not give up” or “no, there is none”.

 

Hope, triggers in me, with Pavlovian certainty, the recollection of the quote from Matrix

 

“Hope. It is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strength, and greatest weakness.”

 

With that hope, I request Ms. Temulkuran to write the next book “How to reclaim your country. The seven steps from dictatorship to democracy”

 

 

Footnote: This is the first review I have written for a book. This book is timely, relevant, and full of rightful anger. The review of mine surely does not do enough justice to her book. If you feel excited after reading this blog of mine and go ahead and buy her book, I would feel that my post has served its purpose. But, please do not stop with just reading the book, spread the word, raise the concern, let us create a movement of the REAL “real people” and save the world if we can. We owe it to the next generation.