In 2010 I published a book. It is a social justice commentary, interleaved with my autobiography, supported by enthralling, provocative anecdotes. It was only after I had written the book that its name emerged as self-suggestive and this came as a surprise. From the sum of its parts it struck me forcefully that, generally speaking, human beings relate to each other as “us”, “them” and “others”. I had been fully aware that we are almost inevitably constrained into “us” and “them” camps. However, it had never struck me that there were millions of humans who were being regarded and treated as “others”.
“Others” are certainly not part of “us”. They don’t even merit being regarded as “them”, because that category comprises humans that matter, albeit as opponents.“Others” don’t really matter. They exist as shadows that simply “accompany” those that do matter. They are recognised only if useful but are generally stripped of any right(s) to compete as equals or even to disagree. As said, they simply shadow the other groups.
When you read the book you might find that there have been occasions when you too were treated as an “other”. People who are “others” typically find themselves up against a brick wall as regards issues. They cannot get answers and/or are just strung along indefinitely. They are not taken seriously. Being disregarded and/or treated as the “other” is particularly pernicious as it strips you of your humanity. Suicide is an ultimate refuge for extreme cases of the condition/status.
In this region, that has undergone revolutionary change about redressing inequality, we find the ruling ANC Party’s Chief Spokesman, Jimmy Manyi, insisting that Coloured folk are “over represented” in the Western Cape and should “migrate” out. This is despite the fact that Coloured folk are the majority and the only descendants of the original Khoi-San inhabitants of the region.
Jimmy Manyi is not being consciously racist or capricious. His mouthings are organically induced because of this unrecognised phenomenon of there being “others”. Coloureds are “others”. Blacks and Whites are “us” and “them”.
Now, because of the advent of Donald J Trump and the “Far Right”, I have noted that more and more political commentators are stumbling into use of the noun “others”. We should understand that brexit, in the United Kingdom, and the advent of the far right, led by the likes of Marinne Le Pen and Geert Wilders in Europe, was induced by a phobic sense that too many “others” were/are drifting into the other groupings. So, as much as many of the far right supporters are indeed rabid racist bigots, many of them are not. They are simply subconsciously acting out extreme discomfort with and about the advent of “others”.
However this raging Trump buffoon is on a conscious pernicious path to create a world comprising “us”, “them” and “others”.
In Donald Trump’s world, the White male Republican is part of “us”, with the White male Democrat being part of “them”. Anyone else is part of “others” for being irrelevant and non-cognisable, especially Mexicans, Backs, Hispanics, Chinese … and just about all other humans on the planet.
Please play the clips where Trump talks about Muslims … talks about Mexicans … talks about Chinese … talks about the disable reporter … talks about the female reporter that was “bleeding” … and pay particular attention to the tone of voice he employs. You will surely discern an attitude of complete lack of respect and/or contempt for these other humans. In Trump’s world members of the “others” group stand to drift in and out of the other groups at his complete, unfettered discretion.
Included in Trump’s psyche is a pathological need to provoke/drive all Muslims into the ISIS camp so that he can lead a modern day Crusade against them.
It is blindingly clear that Trump suffers from what is known as DID (Dissociative identity disorder) in terms of which he sees himself as an emperor on the world stage administering to and revered by naïve masses who will hang onto his every word and antic.
What this buffoon is actually doing is to relinquish America’s status as leader of the free world. He has a pathological need to be the emperor of an all powerful isolated America whose only attribute is complete dominance over all other nations militarily and economically.
In short, he craves taking the world back to the place it was before the lessons of the last World War and the Holocaust.
In them days might was right … not universal brotherhood and equality that the 1948 signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights gave the world as a paradigm shift in the historical culture of mankind.
Trump’s world for the future is one in which his group is in a combative, dominant relationship with all “others”. This is what political commentators and social scientists are now referencing as a commitment to “isolationist, protectionist, nativist, nationalism”.
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