Talking Shop: Overrun by thieves

“As long as human labour,

power and life itself remain

articles of sale, exploitation

and robbery, the principle of

“sacredness of human life”

remains a lie, uttered with

the sole objective of keeping

oppressed slaves in chains.”

―Leon Trotsky

Having begun by quoting Trotsky, let’s proceed by delving into some more history for a bit; I am talking about memoirs of thievery, robbery, bigotry and all things unseemly. If we talk thievery, the first cases depicted in historical literature involved the Lusitanians, with the Iberian people being associated with a negative and deleterious image of ill-intended people looking for land, practicing banditry to make good on their nefarious aspirations. Moving on the robbery, none less than The New York Times and the Saturday Evening Post reported that the first bank robbery in the United States occurred on 19-20 March 1831, when two men, James Honeyman and William J Murray, entered the City Bank of New York using forged keys. In fact, the 1820s and 1830s were the ‘glorious’ era for US bank robberies.

Shifting to bigotry, which is still inferred as societal discrimination and racism, let me set the record straight; they are miles apart. And here’s how—racism is discrimination based on an individual’s or community’s race, while bigotry and social exclusion have always occurred. For the record, it was white Europeans and Americans who created the modern concept of ‘race’ to justify their indulgence (or should we say ‘dependence on’?) in slavery. In the 17th century, white Europeans and Americans needed a justification for slavery and readily found one in the form of ‘race’ and ‘colour’. Today, a couple of centuries later, that bloody quest continues, though, in keeping with a changed Global Village the, goal-posts have changed.

Marauding vultures

That brings us to the crux of our discussion today, wherein history has shown us that mankind has always been under the onslaught of two-legged fiends out to steal and rob. The stark difference is that today, what’s being snatched is far more than money. The marauding vultures have been circling for long, patiently waiting to swoop down on and chomp away at the prey. But today, what they are after are impressionable minds to exploit and wreak their carnage. You may and should ask why I am festering on such an issue on a bright, new Monday morning? It is because my recently-departed grandmother (Paati), just before her passing, spoke to me of her life—the historical and present-day protagonists who she said were headed the way of their ill-fated predecessors.

Paati recounted instances from her own living memory from the early 20th century and related the horrors and tragedy she witnessed or read about. She lived through the Great Depression, World War II, India’s struggle for independence from the British Raj; she saw the advent of global leaders and cult figures rise like the phoenix, cause pain and mayhem through their misplaced sense of pride, and then descend into the depths of misery when destiny played catch-up. She named Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Hu Jintao, Seyed Ali Khamenei, Muammar al-Qaddafi, Joseph Stalin, Islam Karimov and Idi Amin. I could add a few more names, for Paati’s list of the devious has grown.

India too is being overrun by thieves, people who are robbing the average Jane and Joe on the streets of their belief in togetherness, tolerance, bonhomie and a hitherto impermeable social fabric. This is not happenstance or a coincidence, and much of it is a strategically thought-out agenda to bolster their personal standing, even as sections of people in the average Indian society totter and stagger till their feet give out from under them.

Values are being battered

Worldwide, bonhomie and democracy are in a crisis. The values followed for centuries—the right to choose leaders, freedom of the press and the rule of law—are being battered and in retreat. Over three decades ago, at the end of the Cold War, it was assumed that absolutism had been vanquished and liberal democracy had finally won the battle of ideology. Today, democracy again finds itself tattered and weakened; and those who still see ‘green-shoots’ are actually referring to black and withered asps of the values that society once stood for. Who can forget the fascism wreaked by the Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s, in camps like Lichtenburg, Auschwitz, Sachsenhausen and Buchenwald? If we fast forward this vein of thought, similar atrocities were committed around the world and continue to be manifested in Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas.

See what all this bloody thinking and bloodier actions have created today—for the 15th consecutive year now, countries that suffered democratic setbacks outnumber those that have registered gains. Nations that seemed like runaway success stories a decade ago are sliding into authoritarianism. Even military establishments of countries that made their democratic debut a few years back are shocking the world through their brutal campaigns of ethnic cleansing, turning a blind eye and thumbing their nose at international criticism and outrage.

So what is being stolen?

Our very souls, I would daresay. Of course, a common problem is that the world’s most powerful and oldest democracies are facing problems within their own borders—social and economic disparities, fragmentation, terrorist attacks and an influx of refugees from strife-hit neighbouring states. Look at almost all of our own neighbours; they are all facing this. The situation is the same in the Western World, with the most powerful of nations with once-booming economies now teetering on the edge of economic and social collapse. To be fair, COVID-19 took the wind out of everyone’s sails, crippling economies, gobbling up jobs and playing havoc with budgetary allocations, but it also exposed the absolute lack of global preparedness on the healthcare front. Today, the blinkers on this front may have been torn off, but clear sight and fortitude eludes us, for something deep within us has been stolen.

None less than William Shakespeare once said: “The robbed that smiles, he steals something from the thief.” Mind you, in no way is the moral of this story to keep you smiling no matter what the onslaught and the excesses, it is to stop us grimacing in private while maintaining a stoic outer countenance. At the risk of repeating myself, the painful truth is that we are surrounded by influencers who are anything but apologetic. Quite to the contrary, these new-age luminaries are nonchalantly dismissive of the plight of the masses. History shall write about this some decades down the line, but our world will be a lesser place by then.

The writer is a veteran journalist and communications specialist. He can be reached on narayanrajeev2006@gmail.com. Views expressed are personal