Only their own lives mean something to tyrants. The importance of life for others is dependent on how closely they circle the Sun of the ruler. If they exist beyond the sight of his glancing, disinterested eye, let’s say beyond the orbit of Saturn, a sometime evening star, then the reality of those lives is murky, their humanity erased. “No real person is involved”* in their deaths. Tyrants see them only through the lens of pure expedience, fear and ruthlessness.
Three examples:
Xi Jinping orders 1 million Uigher men, women and children into concentration camps where terrible things are done to them. He orders Hong Kong to be locked into China’s dictatorship.
Vladimir Putin, opponent of American democracy, who orders the poisoning of dissidents, sets himself up to rule Russia until 2036; Putin, who pays bounties for the killing of US Marines.
Donald Trump, who puts children in cages, whose lack of action on the Virus has killed tens of thousands, who destroys life wherever he places his hand, who has known of the Russian bounties since late February and has done nothing.
Everyday, it seems, I keep repeating to myself, like the hook of a bitter song, that I cannot be so swept up in my own life as to let go of what is being done to others by men like Jinping, Putin and Trump (and all the men and women who obey their orders). I just know that I cannot stop writing about them and their continuing threat to individual life and human dignity.
*Logan Roy in “Succession”
