Fear is a Liar

Fear is a Liar

By: Erreh Svaia

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Let's put it in easy terms, in the past, cavemen lured their prays by using a small number of hunters who scared animals with loud screaming and violent moves, making the irrational creatures run scared right to the selected place, where a large group of hunters waited to catch them all and kill them, it’s a classical ambush, a trap, remember the three precuels to Star Wars? Just as the menace of the return of the evil order known as the Sith, supreme powers were conceded to the charismatic Senator Palpatine, who turned out to be in reality the leader of the Sith, Lord Sidious, who ends up changing the republic into an empire assuming absolute authoritarian control, in a...let's say, democratic way.

Yes, in reality is that simple Machiavellian plans are made every day in our world, Primitive History or Star Wars seem to be the kind of stuff kids enjoy at an early age, but the thing is that we seem not to pay attention, we are lured into traps made by perverse and astute schemers who make plans in order to fill us with fear, forcing us to put absolute powers in their hands, as Turkish authoritarian ruler, Recep Tayipp Erdogan once said, he used the democracy train to get to the top, and once there he forgot about the train, he literally has been working on derailing that train, just like Vladimir Putin did, just like Donald Trump is pretending to do in the USA.

Erdogan, who started just like Senator Palatine as a charismatic leader, looked just like the man to take Turkey from the middle east and its fundamentalist governments into the modern European Union, cosmopolitanism, democracy and modernism, but just as Erdogan was taking that democracy train, he was imaging the way to derail it so no one else could follow him to the top, or get him out of there, a "phantom menace" was required, the Kurds, Russia, terrorism, Syria and the Islamic State were the perfect excuses to instill fear into the daily life of Turkish people, who in between the chaos created put supreme power into Erdogan hands, who started to show his true authoritarian face, ruthlessly repressing civilian demonstrations, attacking the Kurdish minorities with the excuse of a war with the Islamic State, and even took advantage of the refuge crisis from the Syrian war in order to black mail the European Union, who gave money in order to receive the massive influx of refugees from a war he was really fueling.

Vladimir Putin, the Russian president who managed to bring order into the chaotic mess that was left in his country after the Soviet Union, was able to achieve notorious popularity after his brutal actions against terrorist attacks on Moscow, including bombings, a theater kidnapping and a rebellion in Chechnya; Putin has used fear to strengthen his regime and to increase his popularity, he has made an alliance with the Russian Orthodox Church and has fashioned himself as the protector of the Christian faith and the moral in Europe, where everyone is an enemy and he is the unique defender against West "depravity" an example loved by Europe's far right who has adopted Putin as their patron, it may have been a rude statement made by Bill Clinton, but is not too far removed from the reality, Putin is franchising his brand of far right authoritarian populism to countries like France, UK, Poland, Hungary, Greece, Italy and Slovakia, getting benefited from the nationalist disease he is spreading, as a divided Europe would be easier for Putin to manipulate, it’s no surprise that he authorised the bombing of Syrian regions using the excuse of a war against terrorism, Putin knows very well how to use terrorism in his favor, as bombing created and even bigger exodus of refugees putting more and more pressure into the EU.

When you are endorsed by people like the Ku Klux Klan, Putin, Aleksandr Dugin, Nigel Farage, Andres Lopez and Kim Jong Un, you know what you can expect from, Trump is remaking Putinism, the political game currently in fashion, the populist game of accusing elites of manipulating politician and branding oneself as an outsider and a non-politician, people get easily caught on that game, let's not forget that populism is a strategy not only owned by the left wing, but also played by the right wing, and consider that the ultimate right wing party was the Holy Inquisition, don't forget its intolerant policies and his virulent attack towards independent thinking, so when thinking about Trump, let's not forget the real type of guy he is, a ruthless businessman, he might attack companies working overseas, but at the same time he has his money invested in them, he might be pointing Democrats of losing territory against China, but his isolationist stance towards foreign policies will only sank the USA, putting them into a commercial disadvantage, for a nationalistic creep like Putin, Jong Un or Andres Lopez, those who praise Trump, are precisely those who want the USA weakened, the thing here is such a egomaniac like Trump won't be able to see it, hope the civil society will be able to stop him before a major ambush like a terrorist attack could turn the tables and make fear favors Trump (benefiting just like the National Front got benefited after the terrorist attacks in Paris), hope the architect of fear doesn’t catch us off-guard.

This time fear could become our worst adviser and the best friend of the extremists, carrying us all into a deadly ambush, also be careful when you wish a firm hand to put order to the chaos, because that firm hand could easily turn into an iron hand.