Ah, the joys of trying to navigate the present with an eye on the future while politicians born in the 1940s, imposing economic ideas from the 1800s, begin to flirt with power structures from the 1200s, all the while invoking a Bronze Age god to disguise that they are driven by lusts little changed since the primordial ooze. You’d think we’d be used to it by now and yet even the most far-seeing historian and thick-skinned cynic must surely be struggling with the speed at which it’s all happening. Of course, predators have always been nimble: when hegemons fracture and fall it is swiftness of foot as much as sharpness of tooth and claw that draws first blood.
Still, new frontiers, both metaphorical and literal, seem to be being staked out with astonishing — and in some cases nauseating — haste, as seen at Davos last week, where Jared Kushner proudly revealed his vision for the Levantine Monaco he plans to build on the blood-soaked ruins of Gaza; a monument to impunity and the erasure of the Palestinian people. Much has been said about Donald Trump’s cognitive decline, but there’s nothing sluggish about hisBoard of Peace, either, a lightning-fast cash-grab that would make the slickest pickpockets proud, with Trump already cashing billion-dollar cheques from current and future war criminals as his opponents flounder. Even traditionally laid-back South Africans are taking the interregnum gap: from AfriSol, whispering sweet, fact-free nothings in MAGA’s ear as it angles for a US-backedvolkstaat, to secessionists campaigning for an independent Western Cape, the would-be founders of newblankestansare pushing harder than ever.
And why not? If geopolitics is now a rigged casino, you might as well have a word with the owners and then put everything on white. Admittedly, not everyone is moving quite so quickly.
Read Full Article on Business Day
[paywall]
In the past few days, for example, some members of the local left have explained to me that, while manythousands of Iranianshave been murdered, probably by the regime in Tehran, we must be careful of exaggerating the death toll since this is what Israel wants in order to take the focus off Gaza. Though, given the inevitable presence of Mossad and the CIA in Iran, many thousands of deaths are likely and partly the fault of Mossad and the CIA, though we must also be careful of blaming Mossad and the CIA, since this denies that Iranians are capable of spontaneous uprising against their oppressive regime, though we should also be wary of branding the regime as too oppressive since this is exactly what Mossad and the CIA want… Parts of the American right seem equally confused: since the murder by federal agents ofAlex Prettiin Minneapolis on Sunday many of the Second Amendment crowd have completed their transformation from “Don’t Tread On Me” to “Bend The Knee And You Might Not Get Summarily Executed In The Street”, insisting that Pretti was asking to be shot 10 times in five seconds, mostly in the back, because he was legally carrying a holstered weapon. I’m not surprised that I’ve seen Gramsci quoted a lot lately.
It feels fitting to suggest that “the old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters”. But this time, I would humbly suggest, it is not a new world struggling to be born but rather a second coming of the old; perhaps Yeats’ rough beast slouching towards Bethlehem; perhaps simply the past — fascism, colonialism, feudalism and theocracy — moving silently up behind us and around us and ahead of us, like wolves in the trees.
[/paywall]
