“Whichever option we choose, men are going to die”.
This was the devil’s alternative, a grievous dilemma which confronted US
President Mathew in Frederick Forsyth’s novel The Devil’s Alternative, as he
grappled between the choice of containing a drastic environmental catastrophe
and the strength of the Soviet Union.
A carefully plotted and well executed plan by two Ukrainian freedom
fighters, bent on freeing their captured colleagues from the Soviet KGB,
prompted them instigating an environmental catastrophe by intentionally
spilling millions of gallons of oil into the North Sea, until their colleagues
were released; but as Drake (one of the Ukrainians) and his colleague would
find out too late, the oil they spilled as a threat to the world’s governments
was what retarded the Oil Vessel that they were using as a means of escape with
their rescued colleagues from the North Sea.
“Our Oil…”.
That was Drake’s agonising comment as he noticed that the modality for
rescuing their friends became the mode of their capture.
I shall liken the present worldly state of affairs to the circumstance
which transpired around the two quoted statements above from ‘The Devil’s
Alternative’. I hope to use each preceding week, until Christmas, to digest the
signs of times, from the emergence of Donald Trump against every odd, to Brexit
and the rise of the extreme Rights, to ISIS and the radicalisation of Arabia,
to Putin’s Russia and the journey back to Communism, to North Korea’s Kim
Jung-un and the threat of hermit rogue nations.
To me, the most salient and worrying issue is the emergence -in time- of
the Trump’s era. Like or loathe, we cannot discountenance the fact that any
major event within the US would of necessity have ripple effects on the rest of
the world and would thus set the direction in which the world’s affairs would
lead. It is usually said that when America sneezes, the world catches cold.
Aside deep seated racial, ethnic and religious biases which
characterised the 2016 US election, many who voted Trump were also rightly
troubled about the forceful proselytical trend in which the Obama’s
administration was championing the inherently abhorrent, from criminalising
those who were against gay marriage, to squeezing the conscience of those
objected to abortion into contributing towards a pro-choice fostered Obamacare.
These sort of issues, amongst others prompted droves of conservative into
opting for Trump ahead of Hillary.
Whichever option is chosen, it seems the world is torn between the path
of men dying. Democrats stifled birth and propagated the silent scream of
aborting the voiceless. Posterity would surely look back on our age one day and
be shocked at the rate at which horrific killings from abortion went unabated,
a scenario worse than the holocaust. The fact that these issues are not being
mentioned in CNN or BBC does not mean they shall not bounce back on us with a
catastrophic effect.
On the other hand, the rise of Republican Trump does not portend a
business as usual future. You cannot rubbish over 1.6 billion Muslims, over 1.4
billion Blacks, over 1.3 billion Chinese, close to half a billion Latinos and
expect an easy Presidency ride. In fact, the entire electoral conduct that
brought out Trump as champion is one that is deeply contrary to the conscience
that American portrays and forces on the rest of the world. 2016 U.S election
would one day be studied as the greatest act of historical hypocrisy.
I do not need a soothsayer to tell me that the rise of Donald Trump and
right wing extremism would give more credence to Islamic fundamentalism and the
possibility of more Arab nations declaring their support for extremist groups
like ISIS and Al-Qaida. It is also commonsensical to assume that the rise of
American right wing groups like KKK and Tea Party which gave birth to Trump
would now be countered by groups like Black Lives Matter and other Civil right
groups with the likelihood of more internal unrest for the United States.
Welcome back to the 60s.
Long ago, the Spiderwoman taught a very salient lesson of life, she
said:
“While you are weaving the complex web of life, structures and systems,
always leave a hole of escape in the middle of the web blanket like every
spider would do, otherwise you may get caught in your own web”
It is time to frankly consider whether Democracy and Capitalism has at
last caught itself within its own webs…
Just as Drake exclaimed in The Devil’s Alternative, when they were
retarded and caught within the web of their escape: “Our Oil” , the West
may be poised towards the deadly catastrophe of being caught within the two
ideologies that have fostered its progress and success unless deep and radical
reforms are done.
I hope it would not be too late, and we would not have to regretfully
exclaim:
“Our democracy and Capitalism”
