Charlottesville — Trump’s Waterloo?

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” — Martin Luther King, Jr. “If you are neutral in situations of injustice you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” — Desmond Tutu

On Aug. 15, the president of the United States showed his true colours to the world and it were as though he had somehow freed himself from the bonds of honesty, decency and the very humanity that up to the point where he had taken the oath of office defined the very role of the president.

And what is truly amazing: it only took a sentence or two to turn Charlottesville, Va., into Donald J. Trump’s Waterloo. I can’t imagine how he will carry on as president.

In brief, he told the world that those who would stand in solidarity against fascism, white supremacy, Nazism, hate and bigotry were the moral equivalent of their foes; that there were two sides to the outrage in Charlottesville; that the same neo-nazi thugs who, in fact, had called his own son-in-law a “Jew bastard” were fine people; and that (arch-treasonous) Robert E. Lee was somehow on the same historical footing as Washington and Jefferson.

Worldwide, the reactions were instantaneous and outraged. Immediately anyone who had the flimsiest understanding of world history knew that the president was totally and woefully ignorant of that same history; that he was by his very words embracing the neo-nazis in his midst; that his words would embolden the thugs who had invaded Charlottesville; and that the president of the United States was wilfully pandering to the very worst elements of those who had brought him to office in the first place.

Like many of you, I was shocked to hear the scum of American society chant such slogans as: “Blood and soil. The Jews will not replace us. We will not be replaced.” All of this with additional and mean-spirited references to persons of colour and different sexual orientations.

While watching the events unfold in Charlottesville, if you had changed the shape of the torches, the hairstyles, and the language spoken, you could very easily have believed yourself to be in Hitler’s Germany or Mussolini’s Italy. And worldwide I thought I heard the collective sigh of Second Word War veterans from Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, Britain, the United States, Africa, India, Norway, and all other countries who had been the victims of the madman of Berlin.

I could not remain silent or neutral because I believe Desmond Tutu and, like many of you, I have read some history. I’m fully aware that the Civil War in the U.S. had very little to do with me or us, yet many of the very slaves who were being fought over had found refuge in Canada before the war; I know that the First World War had — according to many — nothing to do with us here in N.L., but some of the very first to die on the front lines of Europe were our best and brightest; and, I know that the Second World War again, according to many, had nothing to do with us, yet it is estimated that 15 million people died in that war, including some six million Jews and more than our fair share of Canadians.

It is a small world, and if it were not small enough already our technologies are bringing us closer and closer together. Should for example, Vladimir Putin and his adversaries in the U.S. (not Trump, he will be long gone) decide to engage in nuclear war, Russia will come at the U.S. over the North Pole. The missiles will be shot down by the Americans before they will reach American soil. Guess where they will fall?

So yes, while Charlottesville is but a small part of the American story, it is also part of our own story, for we are all children of this living Earth and the blood that soaks it touches all.

President Donald J. Trump is committing a gross injustice to those he swore to protect and, in the process, he is committing an injustice to all.