Fear isn’t a word people like. To the masculinity-challenged, it has the sound of cowardice, an unforgivable flaw for any True (and oafish and boring) Male ™. To many people, it’s something to put in the background, and forget once it’s behind closed doors.
Or so they think.
We never forget about fear. It’s always with us, always present, always whispering in our ear little words and trickling clod down our spines. It’s fear that makes us consider voting for the likes of Nicolas Sarkozy, or Philip de Winter, or Jean-Marie Le Pen, or Georges W Bush. We would of course never admit that’s fear that drives us, no. It’s pride, national or cultural or historical or whatever nonsense we can spew out to justify ourselves to our guilty consciences. If we stopped and thought for a bit, if we analyzed what we’re dumped in terms of information, we would realize that all those men base everything on it, on our beloved fear, our faithful companion. Everything will do: terrorist threats, immigration threats, fake humiliation sensations, you name it. All these people spend their nights and their days reminding us of our fears, feeding our fears. They organize grand operations (military, police, or other things), with the outward and false aim to show the population that they’re taking care of problems and dealing with them.
The truth is, they’re not. They’re just spreading images of violence which work on our minds, which do not assuage our fears but help our fears to dig their claws deeper in our hearts. It’s a very well known process in psychology: showing police or military, and violence will always make the viewers’ sentiment of insecurity grow, no matter what the police or military forces are doing. The more we see police people in the streets, geared for riot-combat, the more we will feel threatened, even if there is no real root to that sensation. Of course, all these politicians know this, and abuse it. It’s so easy (the more so when one is minister of Interior, isn’t that true, Mr Sarkozy?), so why shy away from it? Certainly not because it would be manipulating people or because those people want to get to power through fair means, through positive propositions and projects!
It’s also fear which makes people turn to faith in the hour of death, when they are in pain, or shattered by grief. The reason there, is even easier to understand: because the Catholic religion (well, all monotheistic religions) dangles before the eyes of the suffering or bereaved an extraordinary promise: nothing ends, it continues forever, and once you die, if you've been good and obedient, you are reunited with all those you love. They will all be there for you, waiting for you. They will know you, you will know them. And you will be happy. Forever.
Nice, isn’t it?
I don’t think anyone has come up with a more alluring answer to the problem of our fear of death (or maybe Islam has, provided you’re a man, who ends up in Paradise with a good number of beautiful virgins—or gorgeous young men, in death things not allowed in life are allowed of course—you can rape^H^H^H^H oops, I meant “fuck” over and over again while they remain pure virgins—please note that if the Islam’s idea of a paradise for women is to end up as virgins to be fucked by men for all eternity, I think all women will always prefer ending up in Hell, thank you very much).
We’ve been buying it for 2000 years, but we’re starting to get better, fortunately. There’s still quite a bit to do, because deconstructing isn’t sufficient (well, if you ask the high and mighty who dominate the global finance it is, of course), you have to build something over the ruins of what was. Some argue that nothing of the old can be used to build something else. I say they’re fools, and that laziness is the best guide: if some things were good, they should be reused. Perhaps rephrased, placed in a better context, but reused anyway.
But that’s work for another day.
Today, I just wished to celebrate the defeat of Fear in Anvers, aka Antwerp. The far-right was defeated, it was pushed back from its postion of 1st party in the city, a position won by the socalists of Patrick Janssens.
Even though everyone predicted a black Sunday, it was not. It was a bright, blue and sunny Sunday. The minions of Fear were defeated. Of course they do not recognize the fact, after all, why should worshippers of such a ferocious deity bow to mere numbers? Still, It doesn’t matter. Fear was defeated.
And the sun shines in a sky free of clouds.
(PS: as usual holidays meant writing, so a fic will be forthcoming in the next few weeks, time for me to retype and proof read everything, so watch out for a new title on My Fic page, to be released soon! ^^)
No comments:
Post a Comment