MONSTERS
"The
first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the
people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it
becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its
essence, is fascism -- ownership of government by an individual, by
a group, or by any other controlling private power.... Among us today
a concentration of private power without equal in history is
growing."
-
Franklin D. Roosevelt
The
striking similarity between Adolf Hitler of Germany and Rodrigo
Duterte of the Philippines is that they're both monsters. Their
tongues are equally wicked and the wickedness is deadly. Hitler
dragged Germany to Second World War because of his fiery rhetoric;
and he seduced the Germans to hate, persecute and kill the Jews whom
he blamed for the defeat of Germany in the First World War. Unlike
Hitler, president Duterte is not a powerful speaker, he speaks more
in a casual manner. However, he's a rabble-rouser to the core like
the German dictator. Duterte's jokes and innuendos are taken
seriously by his followers particularly by the police and military.
Mr. Duterte is so charismatic that his followers believe in whatever
he says, and they're willing to carry out his orders no matter how
gruesome it may be. Almost twenty thousand people were killed since
Mr. Duterte became the president of the Philippines; all these so
called "drug related" killings were inspired by the consistent
demagoguery of Mr. Duterte. Hitler blamed the Jews for the
"destruction" of Germany; Duterte on the one hand is condemning
the drug pushers as the prime menace in this country. In a speech,
Mr. Duterte even compared himself to Adolf Hitler. He said that if
Hitler massacred the Jews, he would be glad to slaughter three
million drug addicts for the sake of his country. In his last speech
which is truly nauseating, Mr. Duterte was tempting the people to
kill the Catholic Bishops, because according to him, they're fools
for criticizing his administration's campaign against illegal
drugs.
This
latest statement of Mr. Duterte reminds me of the speech of King
Henry II of England against Thomas Becket the Bishop of Canterbury.
Because of the latter's opposition against King Henry II the king
uttered these ominous words "who will rid me of this meddlesome
priest"? Four Knights loyal to Henry II responded to this call,
they went to Canterbury and murdered Becket by hacking him to death.
The Filipino Catholic priests are now afraid, they worried about
their lives. Their fear is not baseless since what happened to Bishop
Becket can also happen to them.
But, why
the people (Germans and the Filipinos) loved these monsters (Hitler
and Duterte), why did they choose them as their leaders? Well, this
is what happens when the so called system of democracy fails; fascism
is the opposite of democracy. It thrives when the opposite pole is
weakened. Hitler was chosen by the German people because he portrayed
himself as the only savior of the defeated German nation. While
Duterte depicted himself as the punisher of criminals and drug
pushers. Hitler and Duterte used the same strategy: they capitalized
on the fear and ignorance of the people. This is the same strategy
that Donald Trump used when he won the election. He promised to make
America great again; that he will not allow immigrants to invade
their country and they shall fight a relentless economic war against
China to win back the jobs that were deprived from the Americans. In
short, fascism is the last resort of the masses when they're in a
desperate situation. Nobody wants to have a monster president, why
should people want that? What the public is actually looking for at
times of crisis is a strong leader who can lead them out of disaster;
rabble-rousers always posed themselves as strong leaders, whether
this is true or not.
There's
nothing terrifying about the personalities of Hitler and Duterte; on
the contrary both of them are comical figures. What's really
chilling about them is the type of message that they're spreading
every time they open up their foul mouths. They're talking like the
messenger of death. They're inspiring their people to commit
murders and all kinds of atrocities; and people follow them. Real
power lies in the ability of a leader to influence his audience. I
remember the interviewed conducted by Mike Wallace on Ayatollah
Khomeini of Iran during the "Iran Hostage Crisis". Mr.
Wallace asked Imam Khomeini what he can say about the comments of
President Sadat of Egypt that he (Khomeini) is a disgrace to Islam
and that he's a lunatic. The soft spoken Ayatollah answered the
question of Mr. Wallace. After that, Imam Khomeini demanded from the
Egyptian people to overthrow Sadat in the same way that the Sha of
Iran was ousted by the Iranian people. Two years passed after that
interviewed, President Sadat was murdered by a group of Egyptian
renegade soldiers in a parade ceremony. Now, that's a real display
of power. In a similar situation, there's an ongoing ethnic
cleansing in Myanmar, the Rohingya Muslims were systematically being
persecuted, tortured and killed by the Burmese nationalists; the man
behind these atrocities is a Buddhist Monk named Wirathu. Like
Khomeini this monk is soft spoken and very gentle in his movement yet
his message against the Muslim minority is filled with hatred. In
effect, Wirathu is calling for the annihilation of the Rohingyas. The
sad thing about this is that Wirathu is being back-up by the military
junta and the majority of the Burmese people.
When he was still a soldier Hitler's passion was to fight to the
end for his adopted country (Germany); when he joined the workers
socialist party (Nazi) his main desire was to make fiery speech
against the Jews and the traitors of the fatherland; and when he
wrote Mein Kampf his focus was on the preservation of the
purity of the Aryan race. In all these stages of his life there was
no hint that Hitler planned of becoming the ruler and dictator of
Germany. In the same manner, it's also evident that Rodrigo Duterte
was satisfied in being the city mayor of Davao; there's no
indication that he wanted to be the president of the Philippines. His
desire then was just simple: to punish and kill the criminals in his
little town. Hitler and Duterte were catapulted to power because the
masses accepted their perverted ideologies. Monsters are not born,
they're made. They're not powerful, stupid people empowered them.
Like heroes, villains and monsters are the inevitable product of any
crisis.
|