Land of the fearful
SEVENTY five years ago the name Adolph Hitler was on everyone’s lips.The world trembled with fear, as Hitler vowed to restore Germany’s glorious past.
Today the entire globe is being shaken by the name Donald Trump, as he vows to regain America’s role as the world’s No 1 powerhouse, using protectionism and isolationism.
In reality, the US has followed this policy for the past 50 years.
All of this is codified in one form or another in US political and military doctrine. Every US president from George Washington to Barack Obama has trumpeted in some fashion what Trump has proclaimed to make America great again.
Author George Orwell said these prophetic words in 1984: “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face, forever.”
In 1941, US president Franklin D Roosvelt defined America’s goals as four freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear. Trump has destroyed these goals, in one legal swoop, seven days into his presidency.
The US controls the world not through respect or leadership but through violence and the threat of violence.
President Theodore Roosvelt said: “To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
America under Trump is today the home of the fearful, and the land of the destitute.
Since 1945 the US has started almost 250 wars to defend its own narrow political and economic interests.
Trump has discarded the wise words of President Dwight D Eisenhower: “We do not accept the use of force as a wise or proper instrument for the settlement of international disputes.”
Many nations are afraid to speak out against the policies of Trump. The silence is deafening. We are trapped in this “conspiracy of silence”. Neutered, blind to this suicidal path, incapable and unwilling to face the greatest threat to democracy since the rise of the Third Reich under Nazi Germany. FAROUK ARAIE
Johannesburg