People are talking a lot about opressed versus oppressor. Well, when I was really very young, I had the feeling that this World was probably not just. Altough I certainly didn’t use this word at the time, “equality” was what I think the World needed. I didn’t know who was Marx, communists were just bad guys in the movies, I just thought God didn’t like people being deprived of things.
Later I lin my early 20s, I even agreed with some socialist ideas (altough you will not find pictures of me with those t-shirts) . But I was always more on the pacifist side of it. I thought that there were people, a few very very rich and powerful people – not all rich people – some extremely greedy that were abusing power and, for their own benefit, not leting society grow and thrive as it could, and these people were probably doing a lot of – literaly – ilegal things, so they should be handled with in law.
But the people who weren’t comiting crimes, the people who just thought different from me, and that I thought they might be suporting some oppressive aspect of the system, well, we would have to talk to this people. It always felt insane to make a total war dividing society in two teams – opressor and oppressed – and fight violently until the “final victory”. Who would be the referee responsible for drawing the dividing line? How many situations in life are not so black and white? How could everybody, millions of people, agree with the same perfect division of the two “teams”?
But now so many people don’t think that creating a civil war is a bad thing, so many people say horrible things like “for any means necessary”. I never say I want “any” anything. Logic and reason are being thrown away, too. For instance, so many people now consider “equality” and “impartiality” as opposed things, seriously, they say you can’t be impartial if you want equality. Man, impartiality does not mean being neutral in face of injustice, it means that, before you know the facts, and before you know the people, you will not take sides. It’s a way to begin a reasoning. But now so many people don’t want to begin any reasoning anymore, they think all the puzzles have already been solved and we just need to “finish the things”.
So, with all this confusion, I tried to go back to my most basic motivations to change the World, the things in my youth, my childhood, that made me think that some things should change.
As I said, what bothered me was that some people seemed to be deprived of some things that were common for others. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t care if some people have a luxury car and others don’t, or that some people fly in the first class of a plane and others don’t. It don’t bother me. Your neighbour drink expensive wine and you drink normal beer? That’s life.
But that a lot of people can’t go to a very nice bakery and have a really good pie, not just something to fill the belly but a real nice thing, or that for so many people it’s so difficult or impossible to go to the beach every year or two, these things bother me. Because I think they are important.
I am not a socialist, I don’t believe in governments that centralize everything, and I don’t have a magic formula for that to change. I’m just saying I think it’s something worthy of our time, to imagine how we could make more likely that people will have those things.
Now, if you are thinking that I love pie and beach, you are right. You see, I am focusing on things I like. I feel I owe gratitude to God, gratitude to the Universe for being here and having good things in my life, and I should wish other people had it too. I must always keep that in mind when I think about Justice. Because if I only focus on what I don’t like, I will be misguided by treacherous feelings. I can’t only speak of “evil” without having a decent definition of “good”. Maybe “beaches and pies” are not necessarily a perfect definition of “good”, but you probably got the idea. I must focus on the things I would like to share.
There are lots of college folks who love going to “anti something” manifestations and even “anti something parties”. If you ask them what they care for, they will probably say “Justice”. Okay, but if they are honest, they should also add “manifestations” and “parties”. Or, to say it in a nice way, “gathering with people in freedom”. Now, how come they agree with the people they call “oppressed” when this people follow leaderships that don’t have any intentions of improving their right to “gather in freedom?”
I think it’s because they are not focusing on the people they say they want to help, they are focusing on the people they call “enemy”. They are focusing on hatred. Anger is a natural feeling and we all have it sometimes, but you shouldn’t put it in the first place, to guide all your thoughts. Hate blurrs the mind. How will you reason to find the real relations that make people suffer if you let your mind be guided by hatred?
For instance, if a historically oppressed people finnaly find a way to prosper with learning working, building, uniting, then they will became the oppressor, necessarily, because they prospered? I know that some people will say, “no problem with that, as long as you don’t start oppressing others”. But if you believe in your anger, and you don’t believe in impartiality to start a reasoning, then how is your brain going to resist to the temptation of just applying stereotypes and go for the “fight”?
Stereotypes work, when people are angry. Let’s speak the truth, how likely is it that you will be able to physically knock some bilionaire super powerful guys this week or the next? Hate, anger, are feelings that demand a satisfaction, they need the feelling of “crushing the enemy”, and it’s so much easier to crush a neighbour that is “different” than the real oppressor, the ones in control. Don’t take me wrong, I don’t think people should physically attack billionaries. I don’t think violence is the solution. On the contrary, what I am saying here is that if you are guided by hatred, hatred will lead you to the direction where it thinks it can satisfied.
And powerful people know that, of course. Of course that every massacre, every war, is unique and deserves to be studied on it’s own, but we can see patterns. For instance, almost every, or maybe every, “succesful” fascist group – and I consider socialist dictatorships just as fascist – used these words: “See those people there? They work less than you and are more prosper than you”.
It seems to work perfectly, from Germany to Russia, to intertribal wars in Africa. Of course it doesn’t even have to be true. It works because people are frustrated with their lives and it’s always easier to try to crush a neighbour that seems a bit happier than make demands to your real oppressor, the people in control.
In this exact moment, the biggest controverse in the World is the war that started with the Oct. 7 attacks. Some people say Israel deserves anything, don’t matter how horrible, because it’s stolen land.
Well, jewish people always dreamed about returning to that land. It’s historically undeniable that that was the only country the jews ever had, and by the traditions they kept you have to admit that the jews are the jews. But there were people living there, of course. Some jews, but much more arabs, and there were even more jews dreaming of going back there.
So it was agreed by the International Guys that Britain, who owned the land, would give it half to the jews and half to the arabs. And at principle nothing should prevent an arab to live in peace in jew-ruled land or vice-versa. The jews accepted it, most of the Arabs not. Wars followed, in wich Israel was attacked by a dozen countries, and always fought alone. America gives money, wich is just the right thing given the disproportional contribution of jews to American prosperity. It’s their money.
Anyway, it seems that the mathematical problem I mentioned above: there were more arabs living there and the land was divided in two, is the justification for all this horror. But there were too people indigenously entitled to the land, one of which was spreaded through the World. And if you see it the other way, it was a brittish colony before, and now the palestinians could have a country. And they could have good relations with the jews, most of whom wanted just peace with them. It could be a dream. But the only thing their leaderships nurtured was the wish to push the jews off the land.
And now, 76 years later, it should be more than obvious that Israel is not going anywhere, it will not cease to exist. So why so many people think they are being so righteous while they stimulate the Palestinians in a fruitless and violent dream?
Are the terrorist dreaming with land? A nice place where they can kiss their daughters, see the children play? By the methods they use, you can be sure they are only dreaming with blood and revenge.
There is so much money in islamic dictatorships full of petroil, none of which accepts Palestinians to enter their land. It’s another trick of the oppressed versus opressor: so many times the nations who seem to have the most oppressed people are oppressed by their own leaderships.
But people fall for that same scheme: they follow their anger, and soon they are guided by hatred, and not seeing straight. Attacking your happy neighbour instead of confronting the guy who’s keeping you jailed.
But what makes american college students, who at principle should not be so dissatisfied with their lives, to act in a fascist way? And what’s been going on is fascism. Making a big mob to go to a small venue where someone that think different from you will be speaking, to shut that voice, is fascism. Trying to push someone off a work or study place where she is legally entitled to be is fascism. And so many other examples.
Well, I always assume that people don’t wake up in the morning and say: I want to be an asshole. So they must see some beauty in what they are doing. Here is what I think:
Starting in the the 19th century, a lot of uprisings happened when people struggled for legitimate rights, be it against the absolutism or for better work conditions, or for woman’s right to vote, and etcetera. Later most of it was turned into politics, but I think those people back there, in the begining, were being sincere.
And those uprisings created a great imagery. People side by side, taking the streets, and all. Those images are strong, energizing. And sadly, Evil always try to put his hand on beautiful things. Fascists, nazis, communist dictators, all used those images. Yes, it was all about “opressed people”, “gathering like brothers”, “demanding justice”, “the people united fighting for a new era of beauty”.
Now you imagine what you can do with these kind of imagery and the power of Tic-Toc. A student hears his teacher giving their “opinion” that terrorism is not absolutely evil, and then, instead of go to a room and think and search for himself, to check what the teacher said – which should be a part of academical life – he just goes there and spends hours talking to that biased algorithm, being fed with seductive images and sounds, and ends all pumped up to be a “fighter for justice”, no matter how little sense his “cause” actually makes.
And it makes no sense. You are stimulating people you call “oppressed” in a fight that will give them none of the things they are being deprived of. You don’t even care if the result you want is actually impossible, after all, it’s not you there. It’s just you and the mirror, thinking you are fighting for justice. Because as always, it was easier to define an “enemy”, than to be honest about the things you consider good. It wouldn’t be so funny to call off real dictators. It’s funnier to attack your neighbour.
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