We have a primitive need to band together, and we are more comfortable banding together with others who are like us. There is enough recorded history among our species to tell us that this is not going to get fixed racism is, in a way, a human condition. At present, it seems to mean anyone who is not Caucasian, at least in spirit if not in fact (which is how there are diehard supporters of the Tangerine Tyrant among Filipinos, and how a Latino came to be the leader of the so-called "Proud Boys"), heterosexual, at least vaguely Christian, and believes that the needs and wants of the individual define "freedom," and are non-negotiably superior to those of the community. It is a profound and in many ways fanatic exceptionalism based on an imagined ideal of white superiority, where the definition of "white" evolves somewhat over time. Historians struggle to define it because it has expressed itself in a variety of ways throughout the years, but the thread that connects the discontent across the past four centuries is what we understand as racism. That's why history is littered with perversely accomplished figures such as Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, Baby Doc Duvalier, Ayatollah Khomeini and Narendra Modi and also-rans like Vladimir Putin, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Rodrigo Duterte and the aforementioned sack of human garbage. It almost worked because the methodology has historically been fairly successful. In history, the "why" is more important and usually, more interesting than the "what." On the surface, the almost-successful insurrection on January 6 was not that unique: it was the result of a psychotically conceited, pustulent sack of human garbage using the rhetorical tools of despotism that are so predictable that they are practically boilerplate to provoke a mob into doing his bidding.
I am ashamed of my country and sick at heart to be learning more and more that I should be but at the same time, cannot help but have a perverse sense of wonder at witnessing a profound and unprecedented historical event. What we are just beginning to learn now, however, is the terrifying degree to which it was planned ahead of time and how close it actually came to being successful.Īs a student of history, and American history in particular, watching the conspiracy being unwrapped fills me with an almost intolerable mix of revulsion and fascination. Of course, any reasonable person with even a passing awareness of the news already knew that the attack on the US Capitol on that day was an attempted coup that much was obvious about 10 minutes after it started.
#FOREIGNER DEFINITION SERIES#
I SPENT several hours over the weekend catching up on the news of the first of what will be a series of publicly televised congressional hearings about the attempted overthrow of the US government on Jan.
Read this in The Manila Times digital edition.
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