Even if this is an empty gesture, it’s better than the appearance of consent
Words & images © Paul Ransom
I know you will not listen to me, but I am hearing you loud and clear. Yours is the bully pulpit, from which you thunder, calling forth your storm troopers, leading them in the catechism. But I will not mouth your talking points, because you do not speak for me.
Everyone knows you have the might but that does not make it right. Your pockets may be deep, your friends powerful, your chorus catchy – yet what lies between the lines? You talk of liberty, promise greatness and offer salvation, but you walk the walk of empire. Cluster bombs and suicide vests. Chest-beating threats and made-up gods.
In the playground, you are the petulant bully. The selfish, jealous brat getting their own way. Taking everyone’s toys, kidding yourself they are yours by right.
How like the adolescent alpha you remain. Biggest fists, loudest voice, smallest dick. If not for your gang you would be a comedy act. We would not even pretend to be your friend.
But give an insecure, immature, self-centred hawk its wings – megaphones, money, military muscle – and the joke gets nasty.
Yes, I hear you laughing, reminding me of your power, showing off your crusading armies. Scary. Yet see-through. Hollow. Yours maybe the appearance of victory but, before you silence me, know this: you do not speak for me.
Your flag does not fly in my yard, and your deity will not find me on my knees. I will not be your patriot, nor your jihadi. You will not conscript me for your front line; neither will I signal the virtue you seek to make of territorial pissing. Of hubris.
I have no wish to live in a world of your making. Yours is not the kingdom. I do not trust you with my wellbeing, my security; and when you tell me you will ‘fix it’ I know you likely mean in your favour. And as for your sweeteners…already sour. Holy land, motherland, a medal for my corpse. Great again, except not so great. More like vain, short-sighted, and dead.
However, to be fair, you are not the first, and neither shall yours be the final word on the art of warmongering. Nor indeed the art of the steal. We have heard your speech in many tongues. It is a tired old script. Yet still there are buyers, enough for your sly sales pitch to land. Every predator needs prey to feed on. (It’s just that predators like you, who act tough, yet are profoundly weak, tend to outsource the dirty work. I get it, your suit is expensive and blood stains are hard to shift.)
Yet perhaps, one day, when your exceptionalist fantasies bump into the same reality that dethroned your equally deluded predecessors, we will thank you for the example. This is how not to be. Here is a party not worth the membership fee.
Until then, remember, you do not speak for me.
In saying this, I realise you are not listening – and even if you were, you would probably not care. I am a single cell. You are an apex predator. All the aces are yours. What’s more, I understand that my chances of making an impact with these words are virtually zero. More likely, I will be pilloried by your mouthpieces, accused of living in la-la land and other such thought crimes.
What they will almost certainly fail to recognise – or choose to overlook – is that I am no preacher of paradise, Earthly or otherwise. The pursuit of utopias, of spotlessly virtuous Caliphates and ethnically pure homelands, soon becomes the practise of tyranny. The simple formulas beloved of the either/or mindset have a long track record of devolving into vicious cycles of us/them violence. Vengeance heaped upon vengeance, pridefully and pointlessly repeating while the anthems ring out and the flags flutter over the rubble of self-inflicted misery. Be assured, I am not singing from that tone deaf song sheet.
You and your armies may also be surprised to learn that I have tried to walk a mile in your shoes. There is, I accept, a brutal truth about ourselves that we prefer not to see. There is a hard, survivalist reality with which we must each deal, as individuals and as societies. There will always be hawks, and the doves better beware. This is what seduces people into the kill-or-be-killed way of thinking. It tempts us to narrow the focus of our self-interest. In turn, it drives us to grasp and hoard, to seek control, and see enemies everywhere. This is the logic of the amygdala; and none are immune.*
Even the alpha bully is human; afraid another hawk will swoop down and seize the toys they stole.
But do not kid yourself. However much I share your weakness, I do not hail your name. For you do not speak for me.
No, not for me your recipe. Your crude wrecking-ball ideology. Your rationalised cruelties and entitlement dramas. The crass, spoilt child whinge you broadcast as your excuse for futile campaigns of righteous reclamation and other acts of deceit and vandalism. The cynical and predatory nature of your rallying cries. The way you use up the hope and spill the blood of your followers. The holy wars you con others to fight. The riches you reap from work done by those you casually dismiss. The mess you leave the rest of us to clean up.
Perhaps, in time, you will make me your victim, but I will never knowingly be one of your victimisers. In truth, I may tell many lies, but I shall not repeat yours.
This I declare not for the moral spectacle but because I do not wish to be aligned with your doomed empire project. Because when the mob turns on you – hangs you in the city square, tears down your egomaniacal monuments – your name will be carved on the headstone of the mass grave where so many of your role models rot. Infamy and dust; this is your legacy. How can you not know this already?
Okay, strap on your gun if it makes you feel strong, invoke your so-called god, pursue your mad ambition – just don’t count me amongst your collateral damage.
Pick on someone else, little bully, because I will not speak for you.
* The amygdala is often called the ‘fear centre’ of the brain.
As If You Were Listening 