Lions and donkeys

This famous line is supposed to be about the British soldiers of WWI- the poor, brave souls, who suffered through hell over and over again, and died needlessly by the hundreds of thousands because of the –perceived- incompetence of their superior officers.

This post is not about these officers, and what they could have/should have done to avoid this suffering. This post is about our world leaders: politicians, bankers, and pundits.

Christopher Hitchens supposed to have said that during his first meeting with world leaders during a dinner, he realized that we are led by people who are markedly NOT smarter than we are. In fact, he realized to his growing horror that these people were more stupid than he was.

This is a sobering thought, but, if we take a look at world events, it is very much possible that it’s true. We, the little man, Joe the plumber, the plebs, sleep well, knowing that our elected (or not elected) leaders are smart, they know what they are doing, and they are with a plan. A plan that might go wrong, but they have one nevertheless. We never actually stop and think about what they are doing. If we did that, these people would not be in power for long. The sad fact is: we are (lions or not) being led by donkeys.

We can be more forgiving towards rulers who inherited their position, or were put in place by a foreign sponsored coup. They did not get to their position of power through their merit; they were chosen by either sheer luck (they were the ones who exited through the vagina of their mothers) or by the whims of their sponsor. Wilhelm the Second was born to be a Kaiser; and nobody thought of making him pass an intelligence test before he took his throne. The Sah of Iran was put into power by a British-US lead coup; nobody stopped to think about his abilities as ruler. So when these people fuck up, we can dismiss them as the unavoidable results of a non-democratic political system. (Although we’d have harder times explaining the very much effective Chinese technocrats, who were not voted on, but who WERE selected according to their capabilities.)

But the sad fact is that our elected leaders are not much better than an inbred aristocrat. To see this, it’s enough to take a look at the politics of the post First World War world, and especially the US of A. Democracy does not mean meritocracy. Just the opposite, it seems.

The US has been consistently acting on knee-jerk reactions to perceived threats, and based most of its politics on ideological grounds, rather than realpolitics; just look at how successful they were at transforming an anti-colonial struggle in Vietnam into an anti-Communist war; or how they achieved the presence of Al Quaida in Iraq following their invasion.

And not to be accused of America-bashing: the very same thing can be said about European politics. It seems like our dear leaders either act on very short-term, short sighted policies (like the constant support for oppressive regimes and “freedom fighters” abroad), or on ideological grounds regardless of facts (the fixation on austerity above all else in British politics), or simply out of general ignorance, cluelessness and stupidity (the Ukrainian conflict or the recent issues with dealing with the migration problem).

The Ukrainian conflict is an especially good case to this point. A quick recap: Russia pulled back from East Germany and the rest of the satellite states on the condition NATO (which, we kind of need to keep in mind, is an anti-Russian alliance) does not try to move East. Fair enough; the US did not tolerate any deviation from its ways in its own spheres of influence. (Just look at how they reacted to Cuba, and the misery they wrought to Central and South America with coups, banana republics, death squads and puppet dictators.) Any sane, and reasonably informed person (yours truly included) would understand this. And in fact, did.

Yet, the EU and the US (along with the NATO) has violated this agreement over and over again. They pushed further East, which obviously distressed the Russians. Don’t forget: they are a paranoid people, when it comes to the West, and with good reason. They have about 40 million reasons to be paranoid: the death toll of the two World Wars together. The Communist takeover, which resulted from the First War also did not help to make them more trustful of our conflicts. The NATO has been edging closer and closer; there have been efforts to put a missile defence shield into place in Central Europe; and lo and behold, Germany will be hosting US nuclear weapons again. Why would the Russians NOT be worried? Wouldn't you be? So when the democratically elected (albeit corrupt) government in the Ukraine was toppled by a coup, and a coup in which the US had its hand in, the shit obviously hit the fan.

The international press depicted the situation in a very pro-NATO, pro Ukraine (even going as far as ignoring the influence of the far-right light in the new Ukrainian government) - but it’s just as false as their reporting about the Georgian conflict in 2008. Both journalists (if you can call them that) and politicians ignored the crucial fact: the Russians reacted to a situation the NATO/EU has helped to create in both cases. In Georgia the NATO emboldened Georgians shelled Ossetia to try to conquer the contested territories, to which the Russians reacted with force. You did not have to be a genius to see the Russian reaction coming; yet it took both the NATO and the Georgians by surprise. In the Ukraine they reacted when they saw that the possibility of Western military bases close to their Western border –and the loss of access to the Black Sea- was becoming a reality. Again; no great surprise here. If you poke the bear, you have to expect that the bear will not roll over. In fact, you can expect just the opposite.

You can decry the Russians to be evil, to be Hitler, but the fact remains: the US would not have tolerated the presence of a Warsaw Pact nation in Latin America, either. In fact, you only need to look at Nicaragua or El Salvador to see what happens when a mildly socialist government is elected there –democratically. Or how they reacted to the presence of Russian missiles in Cuba –even though they already had more missiles in Turkey at the time.

And so we have it: the EU “sleepwalked” (not my words) into a volatile situation with Russia. A situation which did not need to happen, a situation which you could foresee –even if you are a lowlife little guy, like me, with no access to classified intelligence and international experts. And yet this shitstorm happened nevertheless, because the politicians in charge were absolutely, completely retarded, and were unable to behave like responsible adults. The same case can be made about the war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq, the War on Drugs, the War on Terror, the way Merkel and others dealt with the refugee situation in 2015… it all shows an utter inability for logical thought and planning. I cannot believe but it seems like that in the Ukraine situation only Putin had shown the slightest shred of intelligence… and unfortunately in many other cases there were not even a Putin around to act as a grownup. And this is not limited to politicians. Billionaires, CEOs and other, supposedly smart people sacrifice long-term benefits on the altar of extremely short-term profits. They are happily amassing wealth, creating incredible inequality (something they mustknow will create political instability), fight the acceptance of climate change, hence delaying action, so that they get some more money (something they also must know will impact their own children, like it or not), or work hard to dismantle the welfare state, even though they must know a happy and healthy workforce is more productive than a sick and demoralized one. You can’t export all jobs to China. It seems like the “elite” is far from the evil, scheming overlords many people would think them to be; there are no Illuminati, no Free Masons or Conclave of Rabbis. They are more like egoistic, infantile little fucks, who have no real idea what the long-term consequences of their actions are.

I don’t know about you, but I’d prefer to have people who are intellectually vastly superior to me to lead us, even if they are schemers, and not bleeding heart liberals. I would prefer to have the Illuminati to these bunch. The sad fact is, we’re in no better situation than the Tommies in 1915; only our problems are not as acute as theirs were. Perhaps this is why we let these morons run amok: we don’t perceive the problem either.

How to argue as a Hungarian

It’s quite simple, really. You call your opponent a Nazi or a pinko liberal Commie, and boom, you don’t actually have to argue with them. After all, who in their right mind would start arguing with a Nazi? Or a Commie? From this point, you don’t actually have to take anything they say into consideration. You have a right –what right? you have an OBLIGATION!- to disregard the facts your opponent comes up with, and you can simply ignore anything he says. All you have to do is insulting him; that’s it.

This is the sad state of affairs right now. People shout at each other without actually listening to what the other has to say, because deep inside they already know. Except, of course, they don’t. But it does its job: it effectively shuts down any conversation. This mentality makes discussions, clashing of differing ideas impossible. It’s us versus them. If you are not in my team, you are playing for the enemy. If you don’t agree with me, you ARE the enemy; no ifs or buts about it. You are either a traitor to the motherland, or you are a Nazi, so you’d better be in my echo chamber or else... Trolls are tolerated if they play in your team. This is, of course, an intellectually lazy solution: you don’t actually have to think for yourself: your opinions are premade for you.

I’ve ran into this many times either online or during personal conversations. Depending on your differing opinion, you can be labelled a Nazi or a dirty liberal (well, looking at how intellectually corrupt the Hungarian liberal political and intellectual elite is, I can’t fault people to dislike liberals). In fact, you can be both at the same time saying the same thing to different people. It’s insane.

So this is what lies behind all the political discourse, all the personal discussions; this is how the country operates. This is why it is impossible for a member of the opposition actually agree about anything with the ruling party, even if they would do the very same thing once in power –or agree with them in person. This is why friendships break up, this is why family members refuse to talk to each other. You can’t discuss your differing point of view. If you don’t agree with me, you are no friend of mine. The country is incredibly bipartisan. No wonder nothing gets done.

Fences

Let's see, what sets this particular fence apart from these?

Well, apparently, some fences are more acceptable than others. Bulgaria, Turkey, Macedonia, France and the UK is perfectly OK fencing off Calais, and the Eurotunnel; Spain is fine with its razor wire fence, the US with its own border fence, not mentioning Israel's monstrous walls.

Islamophobia and Hungary

This whole clusterfuck with the refugee crisis levelled a great deal of accusation of racism and xenophobia against the country.

Let's just forget for a second what 160 thousand plus people pouring over the border will do to people's attitudes; let's no discuss other aspects about the whole "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation the country is in presently. Let's not discuss right now how Fidesz and Orban are making things worse, because they are moronic nationalistic fucks, and clueless amateurs.

Let's talk about Islamophobia, and why the average Hungarian is worried about Muslim people.

There are a couple of reasons for this. (These are explanations, not excuses.)

One is isolation; there is a precious little exposure to Muslims and Arabs for most Hungarians. They don't really know people who are either.

There's a historical reason as well: Hungary did not have a very good experience with Muslims in the past. The Ottoman Empire effectively cut the country in three, depopulated enormous areas which later were populated by other peoples (leading to the trauma of the Peace Treaties after WWI), and made the country ripe for subjugation for the Hapsburgs. People don't have fond historical memories of the Turkish occupation, and for most -unfair or not- this is the only exposure to the Islam.

And there's the fact that Western media is extremely anti-Muslim in its narrative. The picture they give to their viewers of the Middle East is a horrible place where these uncivilized barbarians are living under horrible dictators and religious fundamentalists (forgetting to mention the West's role in this), where everyone is violent and would happily blow himself up after raping your daughter screaming Allah Akbar. This is the picture coming from abroad; no wonder people have warped views. It's kind of rich for the very same journalists to condemn anti-Muslim sentiments that they themselves helped to foster.

An other is the whole Israel-Palestine narrative. The country -in this respects as well as in many- is well behind the curve. Here if you say that maybe, just maybe the Palestinians might have a point, you are an anti-Semite. Here the "land without people, people without land" bullshit still holds water. Here, when a famous liberal commentator/writer (TGM) writes a damning article in HVG (Heti Vilag Gazdasag) about the Gaza war, other left-wing liberals slam him, and call him an anti-Semite; furthermore, they say only Israel stands in the way of the Muslim hordes threatening Europe -and it's perfectly acceptable in a left-wing paper! This narrative shows these dirty Arabs throwing stones and blowing themselves up -and only if they stopped, there would be peace in the Middle East.

And this leads to my favorite people to hate: the left-wing intellectuals in Hungary. I am left-wing. I have socialist views, I have liberal views (and some conservatives as well) - I feel more at home with Bernie Sanders than Hillary Clinton. However, the Hungarian versions of Chomsky are frankly spineless, intellectually corrupt little fucks. Tota W Arpad (who was one of those people condemning TGM for daring to express sympathy to the Palestinians being slaughtered in Gaza), Agnes Heller, and yes, Imre Kertesz, the Saint Nobel Price Winner Holocaust Survivor, and Scourge of Hungary, who likes to point out how terribly racist Hungarians are, and how horrible that only in this country you can find racist people, and drawing subtle parallels between the Holocaust and the Fidesz government (while alluding collective guilt over the Holocaust).

What has this gentleman said not long ago?

Let's see.

“Europe will soon go under because of its previous liberalism which has proven childish and suicidal. Europe produced Hitler, and after Hitler there stands a continent with no arguments: the doors are wide open for Islam; no longer does anyone dare talk about race and religion, while at the same time Islam only knows the language of hatred against all foreign races and religions,” writes Kertész in his book, according to a summary by the blogger Thomas Nydahl.

“I should say a few words about politics too… Then I would talk about how Muslims are flooding, occupying, in no uncertain terms, destroying Europe; about how Europe relates to this, about the suicidal liberalism and the stupid democracy… It always ends the same way: civilization reaches a stage of maturation where it is not only unable to defend itself, but where it in a seemingly incomprehensible manner worships its own enemy.”

Doesn't he sound like Donald Trump, Sarah Palin, or Gabor Vona of the Jobbik? I think he remarkably does. (This, of course, was never picked up by the Guardian and other international news portals; after all, it's not Orban we're talking about.) Let me be clear of this: this is not an isolated statement, made by a rambling old man. 

So. Xenophobia and racism is only bad if it's anti-Semitism. (As I said, this sort of thinking is quite accepted in the Hungarian left, which likes to depict itself as the epitome of liberalism.) As a little amusing side-note, someone actually told me that he is right to be afraid of Muslims; he was in the death camps... This person, of course, knew that the Nazis were not Muslims, but apparently, they must be just as bad.

So, Muslims are bad.

And NOW we hate Orban because he talks a lot more moderately than Kertesz himself? Are we surprised that this has a lot of effect on people who never in their lives met or talked to an Arab or Muslim person are worried? They get this from abroad and from home; from the left or the right. After all, Kertesz and the Jobbik finally can agree on something! It must be true!

So before you condemn the average Joe because he is worried about the Muslim hordes, perhaps you should condemn those who lit this fire and keep pouring gasoline on it.