[from CAQ #78]
Kersasp D. Shekhdar
“That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.” –Aldous Huxley
Below is a set of properties identifying a particular country at a particular point in time. What is the country and what is the time?
1. This country is still feeling both humiliation and resentment over an outright defeat suffered thirty years ago in a vicious and hard-fought war which it itself initiated without cause. (Prior to actual onset of hostilities, this country had already infiltrated considerable numbers of military men and spies in the attacked nation; it was meant to be a quasi-Imperial outpost; these agents were preventing the people of that nation from gaining their freedom.)
2. This country is purposefully carrying out the largest militarization in world history, and has been doing so for the past several years. Its military expenditures dwarf those of other countries.
3. This country has been, and is, stockpiling huge quantities of poison gas, chemical weapons, and biological weapons.
4. After a very closely contested election, the leader of this country does not win the leadership post outright. Instead, after haggling and dickering, the final word is had by an extra-electoral governmental entity. It awards the would-be leader the highest governmental post of the country.
5. The media of this country are no longer independent news organs but are shills and “whores” for the government and the powerful, and yellow journalism is becoming more and more frequent.
6. The media and the government have inculcated into the unsophisticated masses a stupid type of disdain for free-thinkers, intellectuals, and those highly educated in the liberal arts; these groups increasingly are reviled by the masses.
7. Peculiar and warped chemical and biological experiments are conducted by State agencies in secret on prison inmates, POWs, and mental patients.
8. An officially supported, apparent campaign of thought-control is underway as the government and its media channels barrage the public with slogans, doublespeak, misinformation and propaganda terms. It goes undetected by the vast majority of the people; for the most part the campaign succeeds.
9. The same year that this country’s ruler comes to power, an atrocity is committed upon a national symbol that causes it to burn. This act inflames the populace. Blame is quickly and undoubtedly placed on a specific group of people. However, a well-informed and intelligent minority find the official explanations hopelessly inadequate and unsound.
10. Cynically using the terrible act on the national symbol as a pretext, the ruling elite have rammed certain laws through the legislative body under cover of whipped-up hysteria. Those who had asked pointed questions when the laws were introduced are intimidated by being branded “unpatriotic” or “enemies of the state.” These laws “enable” the government to assume extreme authoritarian powers, eliminate civil liberties and contravene the (written) constitution, inter alia; thus the illegal and unconstitutional is provided a facade of legality.
11. A loose corps of jingo thugs, encouraged by agents of the government, harass and tattle upon free-thinkers and dissidents who express disagreement with those in power. The government also encourages informants to report any supposed suspicious activity on the part of their fellow-citizens to the government.
12. Initially, there is a silencing of dissenting voices; they are branded with a few different undesirable labels and are ostracized; this lets loose a slow-burning vague fear across the land; thus, those who lacked courage to begin with have become too frightened to express any political disaffection whatsoever.
13. Later, detention and internment (on trumped-up charges) simply for demonstrating opposition to the agenda and actions of the regime in power and even presumed guilt-by-association gradually become more common. Even after several hundred citizens and residents have secretly been detained, this anti-democratic phenomenon is ignored by the controlled mass-media.
14. A monopoly on State power is a hidden agenda which is gradually becoming not-so-hidden, and this is being carried out by a particular, well-organized group (in one or more government, financial, and/or industrial sectors).
15. The demonization of an ethnic group is underway in this country. It is subtly encouraged by the government and its media cohorts. A considerable number of members of this group emigrate from the country.
16. A particular racial group has claimed exalted status and exclusive privileges in this country. This group considers itself to be an unblemished and/or preselected class and is officially, i.e. by dint of legislation and/or governmental pronouncements, first among equals in this country. They have acquired the majority of potent assets in this country by hook or by crook and they lord it over other – to their way of thinking, lesser – races.
17. A majority of the citizens is on the whole happy to be citizens of this country but a minority is becoming more and more alarmed at the unusual and extreme change of direction in their country’s politics.
18. While the global citizenry is very slow to wake up, serious political scientists and career historians around the world closely watch this country with rising concern. Yet nobody takes any action to redress the global balance of power which is at risk of moving permanently off-kilter.
19. The (comparatively) small-scale invasions and police actions this country has launched in one or two other countries to achieve de facto annexation or extensions to Empire have gone unpunished by an increasingly emasculated international body which is (supposed to be) an unified consortium of nations.
20. This country has launched a cruel war of aggression under thoroughly bogus pretexts.
21. Citizens who were not members of the armed-forces proper when the war was launched are sent – and most willingly go – to the other countries to fight the war.
22. Prisoners and POWs are tortured using sensory torture techniques, including extreme sleep deprivation and other methods.
23. The war crimes and atrocities of this country’s warmongers and armed-forces, rather than being reported as such, are either suppressed, justified by way of casuistry, and/or twisted into heroic actions in this country’s mass media’s reports.
24. Those citizens suspected of crimes can be, and are, tried in special secret courts or tribunals in which due process is either suspended or not recognized, the accused are denied their choice of counsel and do not have any course of appeals. All this is deemed necessary in the interest of “national security.” The government suppresses news and publicity about these actions and keeps them as secret as possible. The controlled mass media is only too happy to oblige.
25. The country’s ruler makes public claims of having a Divine mandate regarding his misrule. But his actions – and increasingly, the conduct of the people themselves – show that the country by-and-large is going the opposite way.
26. The people of this country continue to experience increases in their sense of international isolationism and their xenophobic tendencies are reinforced by the government and the media.
27. As time goes on, this country is looked on with increased suspicion and loathing by other nations.
28. Cunning psychological manipulation (by the government and its media agents) cause the people of this country a vague sense of feeling “put upon”; there appears to be a reactive borderline paranoia and an unhealthy, virulent breed of nationalism simmering across this country. These feed upon each other in a vicious cycle.
29. In an election that stuns interested watchers world-wide, the people of this country re-elect the ruler. This time, a greater number and a greater percentage of voters ostensibly vote for him, and this time he is directly elected to the top governmental post without the intercession of any third party.
30. A few of the above properties give one the impression of creeping Fascism.
31. A few of the above properties give one the impression of creeping Totalitarianism.
32. Most governments and nations, though discomfited, go about their usual business and pursue the policy of appeasement. However a few prescient and courageous governments are loudly protesting the whole thing.
What is the country and what is the time? No extra points for coming up with more than one correct answer. . . .
Austrian traitor Arthur Seyss-Inquart, the Nazi chief of Austria and Holland: “I hope that this . . . is the last act of the tragedy of the Second World War and that the lesson taken from this world war will be that peace and understanding should exist between peoples.” When diabolical tyrants make utterances of “peace” and “peoples,” they always do so to deceive and manipulate the populace. The only time that they utter such humanistic words with sincerity and belief is when they face imminent death. As did Seyss-Inquart when he spoke these last words just before he was hanged on the counts of Waging Wars of Aggression, War-Crimes and Crimes against Humanity by the International Military Tribunal in 1946 at Nuremberg.
“History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.”
—Maya Angelou.
Mr. Marx, Will we have Farce? Or Tragedy, Act the Second?
To learn more about the above mentioned 32 points, please refer to the Back Issues list of CAQ. The whole set of CAQ is available for ordering.
Kersasp D. Shekhdar is a Zarathushtrian (‘Zoroastrian’) Mazdayasni by birth. He is a scientist and a freelance writer.