Fascism: a warning

I was noticing a pattern. In my own country, Romania, and some of the neighbours, Poland and Hungary. Turkey even more extreme. United States started to smell like it as well.

I didn’t know it has a name. And I would have not linked it to Mussolini and Hitler. Given the Cambridge Analytica scandal and some (reliable) press reports of Russia supporting right-wing extremists, I was more thinking of Putin. 

What’s the pattern? 

Feather by feather, the chicken is plucked. Or Fascism- which “tends to take hold in a step-by-step manner than by making one giant leap”.

Practically, the feather by feather approach can be the following:

• take power (democratically or not);
• invest in some good governance so that you have popular support (Mussolini started by cutting bureaucracy, building bridges and roads, taking care of the poor);
• strike a chord (in Poland, Kaczynski claims to speak for “true Poles”, Hitler had his “pure race” ideas, Orban also considers that “a person of Magyar ancestry living in Serbia or Romania is more authentically Hungarian than a Roma or Turk born and raised on Hungarian soil”);
• undermine justice (preferably be the one to appoint the judges);
• undermine press (preferably, slowly slowly start to control it all. In Turkey 2.500 journalists were sacked, some of them are in jail);
• undermine political system (in Hungary, Orban re-wrote the constitution and gave more power to the prim-minister at the expense of the parliament);
• find a scapegoat for all the badness in the country (Orban started a strong campaign against Soros. “Late in 2017, the government sent a questionnaire to every household asking whether it supported the “Soros Plan” to force Hungary to accept migrants, pay them welfare, and assure them lenient sentences for any crimes the might commit”. The whole thing was, of course, a lie. But, “by asking questions based on a lie, it makes the lie a central art of the conversation.” Plus it makes people fearful. Plus, they know who is guilty for the badness: Mr Soros. Funnily enough, the same scapegoat, Mr Soros, was also found in Romania. Now, at least Soros is Hungarian- his connection to Romania(ns) is not so clear. But when the fake news are repeated often enough, such details become unimportant);
• hit in minorities (as they have difficulties to defend themselves anyways. A friend was telling me that in Poland, there are “LGBT free zones”. This is so outrageously inhuman that I really hope that’s not true);
• and the list can go on on on, lower and lower the more “the bad people” are in power, and the longer the “good people” pretend not to see what is happening.

Well, I have to say that I find writing this quite sad.

Madeleine Albright writes about this with a lot of context, nuanced, and brightly. I took most of the example above from her book, “Fascism: a warning”. The parts between inverted comas are copied from it. The book makes for an exciting read and I can only recommend it.

I would like to end with a little paragraph from the book:

“In times of relative tranquility, we feel we can afford to be patient. We understand that policy questions are complicated and merit careful thought. We want our leaders to consult experts, gather as much information as possible, test assumptions, and give us a chance to voice our opinions on available options. We see long term planning as necessary and deliberation as a virtue, but when we decide that action is urgently needed, our tolerance for delay disappears. In those moments, many of us no longer want to be asked “What do you think”. We want to be told where to march. That is when Fascism gets its start (…)”

El Capitan and the Amazon fires

“People, my people need food in their bellies. They cannot chew ideas. Ideas, great ideas, wonderful ideas, about mother earth, climate justice, ethics and blabla, these all make me wanna puke”. He grinned and stroke his belly, rather full of himself, feeling great about what he has just said. His name was El Capitan. People started to call him more recently Nero. You know, like the guy who set Rome on fire just to make more space for his palace. 

Tim was a bit scared of these kind of people. In his world people were good and they were helping each other. Only two weeks ago Tim received a slice of cake, specially made for him. Just like that. While he was sitting at a table, slightly lost in thoughts while he was bravely eating his veggies. That lady, the cook of the hostel came, said that she was searching for him, put on the table the slice of cake (gluten-free, real yumm) and left. It is true. Tim felt so overly happy and grateful about that. And like this he had many examples. Of good people doing good things. So El Capitan type of people were troubling him.

What could have happened to these people to be like that? Tim was imagining them as kind of weird creatures. Very very hungry who wanted more and more, never feeling completely satisfied. With their huge bellies that swelled and grew and bloated and took more and more space. Their bellies took over their humanity.

Creatures to keep distance from.

Only that these kind of people started to show up more and more often lately.  They were even considered in some circles as strong, outspoken, no-non-sense leaders. True Leaders.

“Brrr.” Tim thought. El Capitan, in his leadership allowed the Forest to burn. When temperatures rise, glaciers melt, sea level rise, and hurricanes become more furious.

Hum. Funny times. Maybe good people need to show goodness a bit more so that El Capitans and their huge bellies don’t have that much space anymore.

That may be a good idea.

 

some context:

Amazon forests have been on fire for weeks now.

“What is causing all these fires? In recent decades, human activity has lead to significant deforestation in the Amazon. Over the past 50 years, 17 percent of the Amazon rainforest has been cut down and destroyed by humans, 80 percent of which is for cattle ranching (to produce beef and dairy), according to the WWF. Most of the rest of the deforestation in the Amazon is due to illegal logging, harvesting palm oil, and growing soy to feed livestock (about 67 percent of the world’s soy is grown to feed livestock).” –  see https://www.greenmatters.com/p/amazon-rainforest-fire

what can I do?

• for the moment I am not eating meat and dairy. I try avoiding eating products containing palm oil and soy. 
• keep cool and stay more in the heart. Heart feels nice and warm, and compassionate. It’s really nice company. Try it.

How are you?

“Where have you been?”
“I have been hiding. Initially it felt like the honest thing to do. I felt I didn’t really have something to share anymore, you know? Then I started a mad and often frustrating search for… myself: self enquiry, meditation, who am I, focusing on the breath, attending to satsangs, meeting non-dual teachers, getting tired, starting to feel that all this in (finally) going somewhere, feeling more and more a sense of gratitude, and then moments of lack of meaning, feeling tired again, feeling grateful again. Like this.”

“And now?”

“Now silence is here. But, shhuush. I’m a bit afraid to speak about her. What if she’s veiling herself again? It does this, you know: she simply pulls her blanket up and I feel left out, all on my own.”

“Oh, no. We don’t want you to have the blanket slammed in your face. We can keep quite. Welcome back.”

 

And you, my friends, how have you been all this time?

 

today’s mood

Illusion

we all need a bit of illusion. sometimes.

why aren’t you?

– why aren’t you a real egg (like he is)?

be an egg- 1st attempt

the mask

do you think that if I removed my mask, would there be anything left? He asked.