WHAT HAPPENED TO 'NEVER AGAIN'

Why, in a world with an instructive history of countless horrific destructive conflicts, on a planet so full of riches, with serious higher educational institutions of every description established across the globe, are countries still incapable of resolving argument without recourse to violence, thus continuing the seemingly never ending slaughter and devastation?

 

One would have thought that the human and economic consequences of such actions would, by now, have become so significant, in the human brain, as to dissuade any individual from grievous quarrel; yet, it appears, it is of no matter. Despite the fact, that there is not a country or nation in the world that has not benefited from some form of cooperative social interaction, there are still those who resort to violence.

 

The concepts of strong leadership and self-defence seem to run in conflict with strength of mind and common purpose. What is it in the human psyche that prompts otherwise normal average citizens to vote for and/or support political leadership that leans towards dictatorship, gangsterism and narcissism of the worst kind?  There are of course varying degrees, but in all its variations it amounts to the same in the end. The symptoms are often missed in the strong leader who veers towards dictatorship and so we get the likes of Vladimir Putin, Robert Mugabe, Viktor Orbán and the like. Or we have the alleged strong leader who turns out to be a clown or dangerous buffoon, as in Boris Johnson and Donald Trump. What they all have in common is the willingness to tell lies and the temerity to impress the lies as truth to their gullible supporters, whether civilian, political or military.

 

Why, in the face of what has been going on, on their own doorstep, have so many Hungarian citizens chosen Vitor Orbán as their president? What has happened to that Hungarian dissident resistance against the Soviets of 1956, that leads them back to supporting greater ties with the current Russian Dictator Oligarch Putin? Have they no sense of their own history? Have they forgotten what happened in 1968 to their neighbours, in what was then Czechoslovakia, when Alexander Dubček reforms were overrun by the intervention of Soviet backed Warsaw Pact forces?   Ther is no history of great success with Russian leadership, of any kind, as ally.

 

One also has to question the current soviet citizenry, now living in an Orwellian fantasy which has become their real world.  In a century that is able to transmit actual information through extraordinary multimedia networks, how is it the majority of the Russian people are subdued by Putin’s Thought Police and Ministry of Truth?  How has he been allowed to create this fiction into reality? There are over 146 million souls in Russia. There are some 309 Universities in Russia and well over 8 million students. Surely some of them have read the book?

 

What is going on is an atrocity to the human race. It is not for the first time. I do not have solutions, save that the solution resides within the minds of any individual who has access to Vladimir Putin and his entourage. He deliberately started this conflict and he can just as simply end it. He seems to revel in what is going on. His country apparently sees him as defending the Russian State. Exactly what he is defending the state from is problematic and therefore hard to understand. A variety of conspiracies against the Russian State are available and the proximity of NATO armaments are compared to missiles in Cuba in 1962. This is one of the problematic conspiracies. Reaction to the Cuban Missile Crisis was instantaneous.  There have been armaments of all sorts adjacent to the Soviet Union and Russia for over half a century, and so far as the current Russian state is concerned, for at least 30 years and on the doorstep for 18 years. No direct threat has been made in that entire time to the Russian State. It is unclear as to what his objective is. Putin believes his pronouncements and intentions have been made clear, yet so many people are still asking why. Indeed I believe that several of his very entourage are asking themselves that same question, but are too cowed to actually ask.

 

It seems to me that Mr Putin is suffering from the ingestion of too many steroids and his current hysterical and psychotic behaviour is as a result of that medication. His puffy facial features are indicative of that diagnosis. Changes of mood and behaviour and mental health problems can result. Is it safe to assume this prognosis?

The Ukrainian lawyer and politician Lesia Vasylenko, currently serving as People’s Deputy of Ukraine in the 9^th Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine’s unicameral parliament), has very clear views on the current situation in middle Europe. One should at least try to listen to what she has to say. She is very clear in her views. The United Nations should stand up. All those Nations who signed up to the United Nations Charter have a duty to do so. It is difficult to find fault with her argument.

I come back to elections and the current trend to put in office an individual whose politics are not about change or movement to improve the condition of the citizen, but are solely about reversing progress, of returning to a status quo, a time when people understood the order of things, the order provided by the state. 

So stamping out crime, means repression, additional police powers and increased detention of offenders to prevent what is termed anti-social behaviour including any form of demonstration objecting to that very repression. It means closing off borders to prevent any additional burden on the state and satisfying the anti-immigrant and racist elements in the population. “We have enough foreigners to be getting on with, we don’t need more, well maybe some to help clean up the mess”. The politics of the right is about reducing the responsibilities of government and just letting the “market” dictate the agenda, after all freedom is all about letting people do whatever they like, getting on with it without interference and things will sort themselves out. That’s what charities and philanthropic organisations are for, people are always generous. The individual has the freedom to be whatever they want to be, through their own effort. All they have to do is work hard and they can achieve anything. The government is only to provide the framework, however flimsy that might be.

 

So certain leaders put themselves forward on the agenda that they will provide the citizen with the ability to take full advantage of freedom to do what they like, by removing any and all obstacles in their way. “I will lock up those people who annoy you, I will prevent any further influx on the employment market, I will remove any legislation that causes you difficulties to trade, I will make government spending more efficient and reduce your taxes so you can be expand your business, I will make you richer and that will benefit us all, I will let you live your life, I will let you take back control and I will become invisible”.  That will be the object of their public service.

 

In reality they will use their power to make the citizen believe that they are doing just what they claim. They will maintain power by implementing the appropriate legislation to enable them to do so. No need for people to demonstrate, we’ve got it under control. No need for people to worry on the streets, we’ve got it under control. No need for people to bother about immigrants, we’ve got it under control. No need for people to worry about anything, we’ve got it under control. And so on.. They will create a state apparatus that renders them invisible behind the scenes with total control.

 

That is what dictatorships do. They have secret police. They have larger prisons and detention centres. They have specialist squads for law enforcement. It happened in Russia some time ago and continues to this day. It is beginning to happen in Hungary. Victor Orbán has legislated himself into almost permanent power, and the Hungarians seem to love it. Donald Trump has tried to do it in the United States and part of his rhetoric has caused some States in the Union to affect voting rights and procedures to enable him or his likeness to succeed. Why is it 70 million Americans feel they have to return to the good old days of the wild west. That is conservative America, grab a gun and stay out of my way.

 

Boris Johnson’s cabinet is attempting to do that in the United Kingdom., gratefully without the gun. One only has to look at the current shambles of Priti Patel’s nationality and borders bill which she has attempted to push through Parliament, and which has been “ripped apart for a second time by the House of Lords” (The Guardian). One can only be thankful that the Government is so inept, and led by an idiot, that they are having difficulties in succeeding in their agenda; but there appears to be no stopping them, they will continue to push and may yet succeed. There is other still worrying legislation on the books, and it is all intended to repress.

 

The French elections are this month. Will Marine Le Pen succeed? There is a clamour for a return to order in France, although, with the French, it is difficult to know just what state of order they would prefer. The longest Republic, the Third lasted 76 years or 71 if one discounts the 2^nd World War Occupation and Vichy. We are now in the 64^th year of the Fifth Republic and perhaps a return to the Gaullist reformation of 1958, is what they are after.

 

Personally I would prefer the Fourth Republic, what with its ever changing Governments, and a seemingly endless refrain of “Le cabinet est tombé!” (Some people tended to look out into their back yard to see if the loo was still standing). I was at school then and it was an idyllic time to be growing up in France. There was something about the early fifties in France that still resonates.

 

There is much happening around the world that causes disquiet, but the ease with which the politics of the right seems to flourish gives greater cause for concern. It is all very well for the western European states to bemoan and partially assist the Ukrainian Government with supplies and weapons to defend itself against outside aggressive dictatorship, all the while there are blossoming rightest political movements within their own borders. Why must real democracy be continually under threat? Why must would be Napoleons, Stalins, Trumps, Mussolinis, Francos, Pol Pots, Sese Sekos, al-Assads, Putins, etc, constantly have to be addressed with the force of arms? Why do so many feel the need to be controlled and kept in order? Why do so many people vote for what is manifestly a short sighted, repressive and dangerous political policy, the outcome of which invariably leads to survivors crying out “Never again”?