The sinister use of language to seize power

The Weekly #18

Hello,

I hope this email finds you well.

The divide-and-conquer imperial foot soldiers – or their spin doctors – who whip up hate like Nigel Farage, Tony Abbott, and Donald Trump are all adept at manipulating language to their benefit.

Nigel Farage’s new UK political party is called, hilariously, Reform. This is a far-right party that aims to scaremonger white British people into drawing a line in the sand between them and non-white people. Of course, like with any far-right party, the goal is to use hatred of the other in order to get power, so they can then concentrate wealth further in the hands of the already ultra-rich.

Reform means to change something in order to improve it. This is not a new exercise in linguistic gymnastics though. Former UK prime minister and current foreign minister, David Cameron, used to regularly trot out the term to refer to his government’s destructive and national debt-surging policy of economic austerity that generated untold human misery, including increased mortality rates, unemployment, and homelessness. This, apparently, was “reform”, according to Dave.

Behind “right” and “left”

“Right” means morally good, correct, true or justified. Meanwhile “left” is more associated with the alternative. “Left-field” means an unusual choice, beyond the norm, or even bizarre. What’s the implicit message? That right is the default choice and anything “left” is breaking from that norm and even downright strange. The right-wing party is, therefore, the natural party of government, so we are pummelled into believing, and the left-wing party, if one even exists, is cause for suspicion.

In dictator Franco’s Spain and in Ireland when under the iron grip of the Catholic Church, among many other countries, left-handed children were forced to write with their right hand. As a left-hander and a left-footer born in the 80s, fortunately I escaped this child abuse. I did note as a child though, that, as a left-hander, we were still forced to write in a right-handed way. You see, when you write with your right hand, you write away from the ink on a page. When you write with your left hand, your hand moves into the ink. The result is that you smudge the back of your fingers with yet-to-dry ink. For 14 school years, I had smudged fingers on my left hand. Us left-handers still have to adjust to a right-handed world.

Right-handed implicitly communicates “correct.” Conversely, left-handedness has historically been associated with error, moral inferiority, and even evil. If it were a truly representative world, left-handers would write in what would appear in our right-handed world as back to front style. But for a left-hander, it would be truly front to back. Also speaking of handedness, I actually learned guitar with the “wrong” hand, my right, because the only guitar around when I was a teenager was a right-handed one.

Of course, this implicit use of right and left has its analogy in skin colour and belief system too. In the West, the colonial mindset with which we are all brainwashed tells us that white is right and anything else is, at worst, wrong, and at best, not quite as right. And this colonial mindset is not only weaponised on white people to perpetuate white dominance. It also works as a constant messaging system that tells black and brown people that they are inadequate. As a result, the white supremacist system is not only upheld by the majority white population, whether knowingly or not, but by black and brown people too who are indoctrinated to try to “fit in”. As sinister and outright evil as this all is, one can also marvel at the efficiency and devastating effectiveness of it. If there is one thing that the controlling imperial forces do so well, it is to unite in order to divide to conquer. Thankfully, more black, brown, and white people are awakening to this reality. We are increasingly uniting, seeing beyond the facade of division, to our common humanity and struggle against the ruling imperial, plutocrat class.

The lie behind the constant anti-immigrant right-wing agenda

This is the typical pattern when it comes to a far-right party’s anti-immigrant and othering propaganda to get into power.

1. Launch a PR electioneering campaign that demonises and vilifies minorities

2. Seize power

3. Immigration of minorities continues unabated

4. Far-right party blames the opposition or, increasingly, the deep state, for continued immigration

5. Cycle repeats

Because the reality is that economies – and therefore, the rich – need people. One of the primary indicators of economic potential is a country’s population. A dwindling population is a threat to investment. If a country cannot get the skilled or so-termed unskilled workers that it requires, economic activity reduces, or doesn’t grow as fast as it would otherwise. And with people in the West having less children, a population crisis means a bubbling economic crisis, which actually means that more people will need to be brought in from other countries.

Economies need people to work for economic activity to maintain and grow, obviously. But something that is virtually never spoken of, the capitalist system also requires people to consume. The more people in a country, the more demand for services and products. Of course, the overtly racist parties – as opposed to the more inconspicuous racist parties like the US’s Democrats, UK Conservatives and Labour – such as Farage’s Reform in the UK, the Republicans in the US, Chega in Portugal, Vox in Spain, National Rally in France, and so on, know this. They merely use it as a means to divide to conquer and to perpetuate and grow power and wealth for the plutocrats pulling the strings behind every Western government. And the imperial media much prefers them than any actual left-wing party, because a far-right party does not threaten capital with “radical” ideas like using taxes to improve public services.

In search of authenticity

Probably for the last two years, I’ve been on a personal path of seeking true authenticity. It can be exceptionally difficult to know what is your actual, authentic self. Do you change how you behave based on who is in your presence? Do you like that hobby because you actually like it, or because you were socialised to do it? Do you work in your profession because it’s what you truly want to do or because it confers status and societal acceptance? Am I buying that new shirt or coat or car or bag or makeup because I actually want it or because I don’t realise how bored I actually am with life?

I can only speak to my own experience. Take football. I was raised in a culture obsessed with the so-called beautiful game. In the UK and Ireland, if you turn away from sport, you’re seen, still, by many as unusual. So, when you’re growing up in a hyper-masculine, sport-obsessed environment, you become a football person. Or the vast majority do, anyway. Is it not a way to survive the herd mentality that is characterised by a defaulting to the lowest common denominator of what is acceptable, and which tends to be intolerant of anything that is not plain vanilla?

Don’t get me wrong. I always liked playing football and I will probably carry the tribalist mentality to “my” club to the grave, to at least some degree. Because it’s so deep-set in my mind, from infancy. But it isn’t what it was, of course. Far from it. Largely, I could no longer care less who wins between one group of eleven multimillionaires and another, many of whom are still teenagers. I’ve come to realise how influenced and shaped my football fandom was by society at large. And I believe that this is the case for most people who watch football, although most would likely baulk at this statement. Of course – we are taught to reject our shadow self, to push to a hidden recess of our minds our individuality, and to conform to the comfort and safety of the herd.

Then, there is the obvious use of sport as a vehicle of the ruling classes to distract the masses. Give them “panem et circenses” – bread and circuses – and they will never revolt.

I’ve realised that to see and feel your true authenticity, it is necessary to decolonise your mind. This means to scrutinise and examine your beliefs, the things that you take for granted, your ostensible desires and the goals that you believe you really want to attain. To ask why you do, think, or want this or that – to really mine deep.

Why would someone want to get rich? They may say, to buy a Mercedes car. Ok, but why do they want the Mercedes? They may say, it’s a great, cool car. Ok, but why do they want a great, cool car. Is it because they really want it or is it because they want to be seen as cool, as successful by others? We could swap out getting rich for getting a corporate job, a promotion, a house, a new coat, learning a new language, getting a new degree, and so on. Is it because it is truly for you and you really do want it, or is it because of something, someone else? Only you can know the answer.

It’s difficult to do this work. It requires serious thinking, of examining our shadow self, that which we do not want to see. But once we are able to shine a light on that which we do not want to see, it joins the light and no longer festers in the dark. To further reference Carl Jung, the father of the concept of the shadow self, we successfully integrate ourselves and we recalibrate to our true path of individuation. As a consequence, we can often expect to feel emotionally, psychologically, and physically better, even exponentially so. This is a most urgent of tasks for all of us. Finally, we are beginning to awaken to it.

Thanks for reading,

Teo