On the same page there was another piece in which some arrogant-looking British civil servant warned that any public expression of support for Hamas is a criminal offence and perpetrators will be arrested. The piece went on to consider that, notwithstanding the fact that Hamas is a ‘proscribed terrorist organisation’, this action on the part of the British Establishment opens up something of a grey area. How far is it from being illegal even to support the Palestinian cause in public? (There was a big pro-Palestinian protest march in Britain today, and the same warning was given.) And is it getting ever closer to the day when criticism of the state of Israel will be a criminal offence? I remember the days when the IRA – also a proscribed terrorist organisation – was active in Britain, but as far as I know nobody was ever arrested for merely agreeing with the IRA’s cause as long as they took no part in violent or destructive behaviour.
And so I think we should be asking whether freedom of speech is being further eroded here. And then there’s the concomitant enquiry as to just how democratic our supposed democracy is. I could go on to list some examples from the past few centuries of times when the British Establishment was responsible for some of the worst terrorist atrocities known to man. So should we now be noting how brimful of hypocrisy politicians, civil servants, and the Establishment in general are?
But let’s look at the wider picture. This steady drip, drip, drip to the political right is going on everywhere – in the Middle East, in China, in parts of Africa and South America, in Europe, and even in our dear old and faithful friend, New Zealand. And the Australian public voted today not to allow their aboriginals to have a voice in parliament. (I haven’t included the USA in the list because America is such a divided culture these days, and their politics such a confusing mess, that I haven’t a clue what’s going on there.)
So what is the political right, and why is the world moving in that direction?
It’s a complex issue, or set of issues, but fundamentally it’s about increasingly autocratic state control. It’s about the total ownership of power by the elite few at the expense of the masses. It’s about deciding which sectarian interests might be allowed, and which might not. It’s about crushing protest, denying free speech, and even diluting free will. It’s about the one percent telling the other ninety nine what they are and are not allowed to do and mercilessly punishing anyone who steps out of line. It consciously removes from society such higher values as care, compassion, altruism, and even self-worth. The term ‘humanitarian’ falls out of the lexicon.
So why is it happening on a worldwide scale? I don’t know, but maybe the conspiracy theorists are right when they talk of a shadowy organisation of rich and powerful individuals seeking to create a world run for their benefit. (And conspiracy theorists have been known to be right occasionally. Take MK Ultra as an example.) I make no such claim, but I do wonder. And my reading of world affairs leaves me in little doubt that such a process is happening.
But maybe I’ll never know for certain. Maybe it will be many decades before the rightness or wrongness of my suspicions are proven one way or the other, and I shall obviously be dead by then. And if I am right, maybe it will be several decades before the masses wake up to what's happening because they've been wandering, carefully anaesthetised, through the warm and cosy den of lifestyle obsession for so long. And maybe it doesn’t matter anyway if this whole business of life is but a weak facsimile of true reality which we can all escape by embracing Buddhism and achieving enlightenment.
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