There are many things I don't and will never understand about human beings, but one of the most perplexing is the rigid adherence to a set of beliefs (political or religious), despite any and all facts pointing to contrary conclusions. I've been reminded of this recently by a Facebook (where else?) friend, a person with whom I used to work at a large English language school chain in Tokyo way back in the 1990's. M identifies as a leftist and a socialist - no problem there, as I share many of the same beliefs, but am reluctant to attach any sort of "-ist" suffix to describe my outlook on things. M has no such hesitations, but the result of that is why I avoid labeling myself and others, and assigning rigid pigeonholes to everyone and everything.
Like many ideologues, M is reluctant to criticize governments and politicians that he considers exemplify what he believes in. This would be comical if it wasn't for the fact these leaders and regimes do some very nasty things to the peoples under their control. It's one thing to justifiably criticize Israel's suppression of the Palestinians (though M sometimes crosses the line into anti-Semitism while doing so), yet ignore everything that is going on in, say, Russia - the imprisonments, murders and poisonings of dissidents, acts of aggression against Ukraine (a country ruled by "fascists", denying their people their cherished dream to reunite with the Russian Federation, according to M), the bombings of civilians in Syria by Russian jets, the actions of the Wagner paramilitary group in the Middle East and central Africa and so on. M is a serious Russophile*, so it's perhaps understandable why he would want to put on the blinkers when it comes to the actions of the Russian government (he even claims RT is an "independent" source of news!). What is incomprehensible, and particularly offensive to me, is his lauding of a certain Asian government and its "achievements".
Now M may know a lot about Russia (though I'm not so sure - he seemed to be unaware of the Red Terror and War Communism when I brought those up on one of his posts celebrating the successes of the Bolsheviks, the group responsible for the sufferings of millions of Russians), but when the subject turns to the Middle Kingdom, he comes across as very ignorant. It appears he has traveled there at some point in his past, possibly seeing the Great Wall, eating some delicious food and trying to chat up some pretty Chinese girls, but to the best of my knowledge he's never lived or worked there, nor speaks Mandarin. Yet this lack of first-hand experience doesn't stop him from sharing articles, memes and so on blaming the U.S. for China's aggressive military moves in recent years (think the Senkaku Islands, South China Sea, the border with India and so on). His shared posts (never any original content, of course) downplay at best, or deny at worst, the well-documented sufferings of the Uyghurs and other minority groups in the Xinjiang region, and the only reason Tibetans ever rose up against Chinese rule was because they were directed to do so by the Dalai Lama, and he of course is a CIA puppet. Even something as innocuous as a sleek new train being rolled out there (and the country has an impressive high-speed rail system) is introduced by M with language that seems to justify the rule of the authoritarian state, as if countries like Japan, South Korea and France couldn't also build cool-looking trains without targeting members of certain ethnic groups and sending them off to "re-education centers".
The irony here is that the Party is hardly "leftist" or "socialist" these days, and in fact the current economic system seems to embody the worst aspects of capitalism - huge wealth gaps, rampant corruption, the lack of any kind of rule of law etc. But M insists on identifying the modern PRC state as incorporating his political beliefs, and so he continues to share and post on FB.
Which is, of course, his right, as is my right to question those things, much to his annoyance. And when he gets annoyed, M gets personal. I work for the State Department, so naturally "half" of what I share on FB is just promoting US government propaganda, and that I'm "toeing the line". But it goes even deeper than this, according to a recent bizarre rant**. Apparently it all dates back to 1997, when I supposedly promised to help him move a safe, only to back out by claiming I was going drinking instead. I have absolutely no memory of this, but I won't deny it could be true. But to hold this grudge for so long over such a trivial matter? There must have been a lot worse things I said and did in years past to still be angry about (and I should know, there's a lot I'm angry at myself for having said and done in the past).
People change over time, as has M. 24 years ago he used to boast of how many Japanese girls he was bedding, which would give me the creeps, but something which to my shame I never called him out on at the time. As he has since married and had a child (like yours truly), I hope the misogynism (and what now, in retrospect, had a rapey vibe to it) has long been put behind him. No need to dredge up the past, am I right?
And why is all this such a big deal? Why don't I just ignore that which I disagree with? I would, except glorifying an authoritarian state which is constantly threatening my family in Taiwan with death if they don't adhere to "one party two systems" is something I find particularly repulsive. Especially when the response to my pointing out my wife and daughter were in Taiwan at a time when the regime on the opposite side of the strait was especially ramping up tensions was met with yet another tired rant about "U.S. imperialism", with no compassion or empathy at all shown toward my family. None whatsoever.
What a dick. I apologize for backing out of a promise to move that safe (if indeed that was the case), but if you place ideology over people near and dear to me, well I hope that safe was heavy and that you had to lug it up a long flight of stairs by yourself on a hot and humid afternoon.
Back in reality, the clock continues its countdown to departure day. And it's beginning to look as if we'll be leaving at the right time. Yesterday (Sunday) was a beautiful (albeit windy) day, but we didn't venture out of our neighborhood due to a large crowd in Meskel Square demonstrating against recent remarks by the Biden administration. Our interactions with people here in Ethiopia have largely been positive, so I hope any anti-Americanism is confined to well-organized demonstrations and not targeted at ordinary people (like ourselves). I plan on going out into town later this week so we'll see what (if anything) happens.
In the meantime here are a few photos taken since the last blog post. Much has been made recently of the "blood moon". While the lunar eclipse wasn't visible here in Addis Ababa, our satellite was a bright shining orb for the past several nights. It's too bad my camera and cell phone couldn't really capture the scene:
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ReplyDeleteI do love me a good rant!
ReplyDeleteI may have to look into getting a "Loving Hut" franchise here in the U.S. Sounds like something the conspiracy folks might be into.
The funny thing was it didn't look like a franchised restaurant. The signs and menu were handmade, and the place looked like it was thrown together. But there were the videos and the literature, and the photo of the leader on the wall. I got the impression the owner of the place was a true believer who took it upon themselves to open a local Loving Hut.
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