I was taught in primary school – we all were – to adore my country, its flag, its king and its government, which represented us and acted on our behalf.
As we grew older, we could not fail to notice that our government often made what we considered mistakes, though we assumed it always did its best. After all, nobody’s perfect.
In high school, more and more of us started taking sides, right wing or left wing. Of course you also had the smug set, the people who maintained they followed a middle course.
We voted, defended the party we voted for, and denigrated the other parties. We read the paper we subscribed to and/or listened to our favourite news channels. Those were the days of innocence! Governments came and governments went; left side, right side (or, as they are now called, “centre left” and “centre right”). We would grumble when our side lost as though the whole business of elections was a sports event, and between elections we would discuss the performance of prominent politicians when they appeared on television.
Did we really think that the lies that led to the war on Iraq were a one off? Yes, I’m afraid we did. As for the lies that led to our war on Libya – well, they were never really exposed, were they. At least they were not loudly exposed, not in the mainstream press.
The outrageous persecution of Julian Assange was a wake-up call for quite a few of us, not least since even the Guardian joined the witch hunt.
For some time now, I have realised that we need to go back and re-assess a great deal of post-WWII history. What really happened when Yugoslavia was dismantled, for instance, and why? What they told us was definitely not true. What is? David Gibbs has spent years studying the matter.: I find his book very unsettling and interesting.: First Do No Harm: Humanitarian Intervention and the Destruction of Yugoslavia. I also enjoyed the documentary The Weight of Change, which challenges the official record.
Now, many of us “Westerners” – even many of Charlie Kirk’s people – have understood that we have been lied to about Gaza. Actually, we have been lied to for decades about Israel and its treatment of the Palestinian refugees after the Nakba (many of whom settled in Gaza) and about its gradual but methodical ethnic cleansing of the occupied West Bank.
I wonder how Trump voters of median and lower income will feel in the face of the unassailable fact that living conditions will remain as bad or worse under his rule as under Biden. Trump duped his voters.
They all do, of course. It’s a show, after all.
Someone shouted at me the other day during a discussion: “I don’t want to distrust everybody!” No, I certainly understand that.
And it’s not that everybody merits distrust. It’s not the players that need to be replaced, but the rules of the game. That’s what Zohran Mamdani seems to have understood. Who knows, maybe he will prove to be the spark that sets fire to the refuse left by years of mismanagement in Europe, as well as in the USA. If he can inspire the rest of us to demand the Democracy we were promised, that would indeed be great.
Alas, I am not optimistic. Many have tried in various parts of the world, and they have been undercut or killed. Even JFK was killed when he showed indications of leaving the track that had been laid out for him.
And if there is to be real democracy – Ben Norton maintains that Western governments are NOT democracies, they are oligarchies – we must understand that financialization of our countries’ economies is not the way to go.
Another thing we must understand is that “sustainable growth” is a contradiction in terms economically and certainly ecologically. At least in the so-called West. My country talks louder than most about “sustainable growth”, and performs worse than most, according to an assessment of the Nordic countries’ very considerable contribution to the accelerating ecological breakdown .
Finally, let it be clear: War destroys immeasurably. Yes, there are occasions when there is no alternative to armed self-defence. But it must be a last – a really LAST – resort. Imposing “democracy” is not a plausible excuse for violence.