A case of dejavu – old hurts for a new generation

A convicted floppy-haired felon steps up to the podium to great cheer. He is President-elect. His ageing wife, a former escort and erstwhile Einstein Visa grantee looks a picture. His numerous children from as almost as many wives are there to enjoy the spotlight. And what a spotlight it is. They look polished and preened and anointed as only the unashamed rich do. There can be no family more representative of the garish glamour of the heady 80s than this. Here they are, dancing and grinning through veneered teeth, with a son-in-law whose father a disgraced and disbarred lawyer has become Ambassador-appointee courtesy of his son’s father-in-law. Hail to the Chief, it’s the 80s all over again, that decade when it became unassailably clear that greed had become the leading idea propelling humanity since the advent of Christianity.

It’s all too easy to eulogise dictators, captains of industry, and prominent members of our human community. There are plaques and mentions of them aplenty. Their contributions – whether good or bad, or in between – will make sure of that. Alas, the task of naming one of the thousands of asylum seekers stuck in limbo, would confound even an Einstein Visa grantee (how does one obtain an Einstein Visa?) Much of their lives assailed by hardship and heroic struggle, they are nonetheless invisible and, beyond their kin, no one will remember them. The overwhelming majority of the world’s humanity consists of invisible lives, lives existing on the breadline, hand-to-mouth, propelled not by a desire for corruptive power but by hope. It is hope that guides them to traverse perilous terrains and borders patrolled with heavy artillery. It is hope that does not stop them from seeking employment in places where they know they may be subject to degrading and dehumanising treatment by the very people profiting from their labors. In spite of their harsh and often cruel reality, they go forward, hoping that when they come face to face with their fellow human beings on the other side, they will be treated with empathy and compassion. What will they face on the other side with a man at the helm, a man who is propelled by greed and conceit?