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Papal
travel is a complex science: a delicate formula that has to balance
Vatican diplomatic relations, religious occasions, strategies to reach
the world's 1.2 billon Catholics - and the incumbent Pope's personal
wishes.
Pope Francis' trip this weekend to the Greek island of
Lesbos, which hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants have used
as a stepping stone in their trip to northern Europe, clearly emerges
from the Pope's own personal desire. Migrants and refugees have
always occupied a central part of his discourse - and so has his
criticism of the way developed countries have dealt with this crisis. "All
too often," he said recently of migrants, "[they] meet along the way
with death or, in any event, rejection by those who could offer them
welcome and assistance."
In two speeches - at the Moira refugee centre and at
the Mytilene port - Pope Francis is set to urge leaders and societies
to show more compassion for those fleeing war and poverty.But
more than anything, the short visit is seen as hugely symbolic - and if
you look at Pope Francis' travel record, it seems that for him, making
an appearance is enough of a message.
Media power
In July 2013, his first trip outside Rome after being elected pontiff was to Lampedusa, the tiny Italian island off the coast of Libya that - like Lesbos - was becoming a symbol of the incipient migrant crisis.
The visit occurred months before the attention of the world turned to the deadly crossing between Libya and Italy. Ever
since then, it became clear that travelling to the front line of a
conflict would become a recurring feature of Pope Francis' travel
agenda. And it has also become obvious that the Vatican is
increasingly aware of the symbolic power that the Pope has - and the
global media attention that comes with a visit by one of the world's most popular leaders. So
the Pope is also using his seemingly unrivalled media power to shed
light on certain conflicts around the world - even if this means pushing
the boundaries on the definition of papal travel.
War zones
Take his trip last November to the Central African Republic
(CAR), one of the poorest countries in the world, ravaged by more than
three years of armed conflict between Christians and Muslims. For
months after the Vatican first announced the trip, observers insisted
that it posed too high a security risk for the Pope himself and the
crowds that were expected to greet him in Bangui. After all, never before had a pope visited an active war zone.
Pope Francis, oblivious to calls to reconsider, went
ahead with the trip - visiting a mosque and camp for displaced people,
holding a mass at the cathedral and calling on factions to lay down
their weapons.After the papal plane left the conflict has
continued, but the visit did bring an enormous amount of media coverage
to a conflict that ranks amongst the most under-reported war of our
times. It was the "Francis effect", in full form.
Message to mobsters
In
2014, moved by news of the savage murder by the mafia of a
three-year-old child in the southern Italian region of Calabria, he
travelled to the remote village of Cassano allo Ionio. At the stronghold of the local crime syndicate known as 'Ndrangheta, the Pope issued a strong message to mobsters:
you are all excommunicated. And his words reverberated across the
Italian peninsula, where the mafia continues to expand its tentacles.
Sometimes his attempts to mediate in international conflicts are seen as naive, if not somewhat clumsy. During
his trip to the Holy Land in May 2014, at the end of a mass at
Bethlehem's Manger Square, he broke the news that he was inviting the
then Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas
to a "day of prayer" at the Vatican. A few weeks later, the event did take place
and under the eye of the world's media the three leaders - joined by
the Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew - shared a slightly awkward
photo opportunity, during which they planted an olive tree in the
Vatican Gardens.
It is difficult to establish what concrete,
on-the-ground effect - if any - such a gesture had on the decades-long
conflict in the Middle East.But, ignoring the sceptics, this Pope
seems keen to continue his policy of getting involved in continuing
crises - visiting hotspots in what he calls the "peripheries" of the
world and issuing strong calls for more mercy for the downtrodden. This weekend's trip to Lesbos is clearly emblematic of this approach.
Pope Francis
Born Jorge Mario Bergoglio on 17 December 1936 in Buenos Aires, of Italian descent
Ordained as a Jesuit in 1969
Studied in Argentina, Chile and Germany
Became Cardinal of Buenos Aires in 1998
Seen as orthodox on sexual matters but strong on social justice
First Latin American and first Jesuit to become Pope, the 266th to lead the Church
Said to be a football fan, supporting Buenos Aires team San Lorenzo de Almagro
TRUMP
supporters are, perhaps, the only group of voters in America’s history
who have been so viciously and consistently maligned, and in such a
co-ordinated manner, by both political parties. At the same
time, not much is known about them, despite the recent spate of articles
attempting to explain the phenomenon. The problem with that is that the
authors admittedly don’t know any of the Trump supporters themselves.
Well, I happen to know quite a few of them personally. Full
disclosure: first, I can’t vote because I’m not a US citizen yet,
despite my best and decades-long efforts — but let’s leave the
immigration system’s misplaced priorities for another day. Second,
I like to form my opinions about the candidates and their supporters
independently, without taking advice from media pundits or Facebook
messages from pro-Cruz acquaintances. Third, I like both Cruz and
Trump. I’m not as passionate about them as some; I’m merely pragmatic: I
like anyone who can stop America’s descent into socialism or, better
yet, reverse the course entirely. I also realise that America has come
to a point when having big ideas is no longer enough; in order to shake
up the system and get the economy moving the next president must also be
a bigger-than-life mover and shaker.
Oleg in Ukraine in the early 1980s.Source:Supplied
Since
I’m not allowed to vote, I remain simply an objective observer of
American politics, judging the process from the perspective of a former
Soviet citizen, who during the times of the glorious Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics was forced to cast single-name ballots for
candidates I didn’t know nor cared about. A total 100 per cent voter
turnout in practice meant total apathy: most people dropped paper
ballots into the boxes without reading them. The occasional rare
signs of passion were the ballots with crossed-out names and large
capital letters saying, BLOODSUCKERS ALL; those were extracted by the
KGB for handwriting analysis. Voting had become a periodic ritual of
obedience and surrender before the powerful state and a reminder that we
were all equal slaves in the eyes of our masters. That memory
makes American elections even more interesting. First it’s the
primaries, where candidates from each political party position
themselves in a circular firing squad, trying to assassinate each
other’s character and reputation. Once only a few of them remain
standing, their supporters start fighting and demonising each other on
social media to the point where to an objective observer every candidate
looks like the most corrupt and immoral scoundrel and the worst human
being who ever lived. Finally, the two surviving candidates from
each party, badly wounded and bloodied, begin to punch each other in the
wounds during the general election, as their supporters continue to
fight and demonise each other on social media. The one who still stands
by November is then declared Leader of the Free World.
Donald
Trump gives a thumbs up to supporters after speaking at a campaign
rally on April 11, 2016 in Albany, New York. Picture: Eduardo Munoz
Alvarez/Getty Images/AFPSource:AFP
At
least that’s how most foreigners see it, especially if they are
unfamiliar with the differences between the two parties and get their
facts from the mainstream media which always promotes one party and
pretends to be fair to the other. Democracy is the worst form of
government, except for all the others, said Winston S. Churchill, and he
had his own political wounds to prove it. This year’s election
especially fits the above caricature. The strongest fire from all media
portholes and loopholes is directed at the Republican frontrunner,
Donald Trump, and his supporters. They are being described as
uneducated, angry, vengeful, racist, xenophobic, and plain stupid.
Authors of these assumptions, mostly writing from within the Boston-New
York-Washington corridor, admit that they don’t even know anyone who
likes Trump. But how can they write about what they don’t know?
When the electoral map is fluid, when things are happening rapidly in
real time, and when no reliable historical data exists, we rely on
personal experiences and anecdotal evidence. In the absence of
such, the writers simply fill the gaps in their knowledge with their own
prejudices, similar to how medieval mapmakers marked unexplored areas
with “here be dragons.” There’s a big probability that Trump
supporters are, in fact, all around them, even in their own families —
and the reason why these writers don’t know it, is their own snobbery. No
one likes to be called stupid, his IQ questioned, or presumed to be an
unthinking herd animal, and many simply don’t have the time to stop and
explain their reasons whenever a #NeverTrump activist feels like
trashing Trump voters. Many simply choose to remain silent.
Supporters
gather for Donald Trump prior to a campaign rally on April 6, 2016 in
Bethpage, New York. Picture: Andrew Renneisen/Getty Images/AFPSource:AFP
This study
explains why many polls underestimated Trump’s support: Trump has
consistently polled better on anonymous online polls than on phone
surveys because some of his supporters were unwilling to identify
themselves publicly. In other words, public shaming didn’t unwean Trump
from his supporters but caused them to go underground. Doesn’t
this also describe how the majority of Americans have felt in recent
decades, being constantly shamed into silence by the “progressive”
media, education, and the cultural establishment? I know this too
well, having worked in New York’s “progressive” corporate environment.
My co-workers would ask me about life in the USSR and I would tell them
exactly what I thought about socialism and political correctness until I
realised that most of them didn’t like my answers and I was only
hurting myself by speaking my mind. Some gave me frightened looks,
others stopped talking with me. I might as well have told them that
life in the USSR was similar to life in New York, where people had to
learn to keep their mouths shut and to look over their shoulders before
saying anything remotely political. So much for emigrating into a free
country. It felt like history was about to repeat itself. Until now. Consider
this story: there lived an apathetic silent majority, maligned and
shamed by its leaders and the official media, and they thought it would
never end. But one day a miracle happened: they suddenly heard a
voice that articulated their own forbidden thoughts — something they had
been afraid to articulate in public, even though it was common sense —
words not dressed in flowery rhetoric and rounded sentences, but
delivered roughly, in a regional accent of the common man — plain and
truthful words coming from the highest pulpit in the nation. Millions
of people recognised their own voices in his, lending him their support
— silently at first, but more and more vocal as time went by — to a
point that they went out into the streets to defend him in the face of
violent and dangerous opposition from the far Left.
Donald Trump supporters attend a rally on April 11, 2016 in Albany, New York. Picture: Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Images/AFPSource:AFP
I am talking, of course, about Mikhail Gorbachev
and the reaction he first received from the Soviets when he started his
Perestroika and Glasnost in the USSR. I remember it clearly because I
was one of them. Gorbachev wasn’t perfect by any measure, and yet
he started a process that shook up the corrupt establishment, ended the
rule of the powerful Communist Party, liberalised the economy, and
opened the country to an honest debate about its problems. The parallels with Donald Trump, his message, and his appeal with America’s silent majority are unmistakeable. That
the Soviet Union’s problems turned out to be irreconcilable wasn’t
Gorby’s fault; the country had already been damaged beyond repair by
seven decades of ruthless socialist experimentation. America
hasn’t yet gone that far, but the wild popularity of socialist Bernie
Sanders with the “screaming minority” of young voters may be an
indication that this election may be America’s last exit before the road
ends off a cliff. Giving voice to the silent majority is one of
the factors why Trump leads in the race. Some other factors will become
clear if we look at some of his individual supporters. I know who they
are because they aren’t afraid to open up to me. They know that
unlike the above established essayists, I won’t be calling them names or
trying to shame the silent majority back into silence. For the same
reason I’m not using their real names.
Soviet
President Mikhail Gorbachev makes a point to News Corporation chief
executive Rupert Murdoch during the latter's Kremlin visit in Moscow,
1991.Source:Supplied
JACK
Jack
is an accomplished classical musician, a fine wordsmith, a long-time
conservative, and a devout Christian. When a broken shoulder made him
unable to hold the instrument, he used his sharp, perceptive mind and
his degree in economy to make himself a fortune in the financial
markets. Now he can afford to relax and write novels. Jack gave me
his take on the demonisation of Trump and the stereotyping of his
supporters as poorly educated, low-information rubes. According to
Jack, both the Republican and the Democrat establishments are corrupt
and dysfunctional, but the one thing they can do well is manufacture
media narratives that infect people’s minds with notions that are
beneficial to the respective branch of political aristocracy, while
causing aversion to anything that endangers it. Trump is a clear
and present danger to this corrupt and elitist system. He is willing and
fully able to blow to smithereens all their carefully established
social hierarchies and to change the entire political culture, which
will make the elites unnecessary and expose the uselessness of their
cherished and very expensive apparatus. The GOP establishment’s
fear and loathing of Trump is so intense that even losing the election
to Hillary seems to many of them a lesser evil. The same
establishment remained ineffective throughout the Obama presidency.
Obama didn’t threaten their careers and each one of his disastrous
policies was to them a lucrative fundraising opportunity. In
contrast, Trump threatens their very survival — and suddenly the
establishment’s speed and effectiveness is phenomenal. Their quickly
constructed #NeverTrump narrative is targeting conservative “purists”
and diehard Ted Cruz supporters, infecting them with hostility that
reaches and surpasses the ill-famed Bush Derangement Syndrome. The
sad irony of the #NeverTrump movement is that these self-proclaimed
“true conservatives” and “anti-establishment rebels” have swallowed the
establishment’s narrative hook, line, and sinker. Worse yet, they
now indiscriminately share social media links from previously despised
leftist sources, as long as they attack Trump. So much for their
stereotyping of Trump supporters as gullible, angry jerks. Jack
isn’t a Cruz-hater. In fact, he would just as much like to see Ted Cruz
become president, if he can win in the general election — which is
unlikely. Like most Trump supporters I know, Jack doesn’t treat other
candidates with the same hostility. There’s no organised
#NeverCruz movement to speak of, and no one except Cruz supporters are
creating blacklists targeting the other side. Jack is sad to see that so
many good, previously sane people have succumbed to the #NeverTrump
lunacy.
Supporters
shout for Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders as he speaks
at a campaign rally Monday, April 11, 2016, in Buffalo, New York.
Picture: Mel Evans/APSource:AP
MIKE
My
other friend, Mike, who is a conservative writer, approaches this from a
different angle. He likes Ted Cruz because Cruz has all the right
answers, but that’s not enough. Mike compares Cruz to a professor who
can recite the chemistry textbook by heart. Trump, on the other
hand, is a wild man who wants to use the formulas in that same textbook
to blow away our enemies. At this point in history we don’t need a
professor, we need the wild man. BRENDAN Brendan is
an immigrant from Ireland, who says that when he came to the U.S., he
expected to see an American leader to be more like John Wayne — a
decisive and confident guy with swagger — and not like Pee Wee Herman or
a European-style spineless socialist. Brendan has spent years
working on New York construction projects, including some that involved
Donald Trump. He witnessed Trump getting personally involved with
contractors and workers without any mediators, not afraid to get dirty
and drive a hard bargain. Trump has never lost his lower-class
accent he picked up growing up in Queens, and he was never accepted by
the snooty New York elites as their own. But he has always been liked
and accepted by the working classes as a “people’s billionaire.” He
doesn’t see anger among Trump’s supporters, but rather optimism and
love for the country. He also scoffs at those who compare Trump to
Mussolini or Hitler. Trump has been in the public eye for almost 70
years, running a large business, producing a TV show, and nobody ever
complained about him acting like a despot. Don’t you think that if
Trump had the slightest trace of a dictator in him, someone would have
brought it up and the media would have trumpeted it all over the world? Brendan
also likes Ted Cruz and shares many of his ideas. But even if Cruz is
president, says Brendan, he’ll be lucky if he’s able to implement at
least 10 per cent of those ideas in practice. Trump, with his
ability to overcome obstacles, will probably get at least 70 per cent
done. Brendan may not share 100 per cent of Trump’s ideas, but he would
rather see 50 per cent of them implemented by Trump than 10 per cent by
Cruz, or 0 per cent by Bernie or Hillary.
Democratic
presidential candidate Bernie Sanders reacts to a fist waving supporter
as he speaks at a campaign rally Monday, April 11, 2016, in Buffalo,
New York. Picture: Mel Evans/APSource:AP
ANN
Ann
has recently parted with feminism and quit the National Organization
for Women (NOW) over what she describes as the betrayal of women’s
rights by feminist leadership. The politically correct, leftist
feminist establishment has done nothing to oppose the oppression of
women in Sharia-dominated societies, and continues to oppose any attempt
to prevent the spreading of the patriarchal and misogynistic Sharia
values through Muslim immigration in America. In Ann’s words, by
supporting pro-Sharia multiculturalism, NOW effectively sided with male
chauvinists over women’s rights. Ann isn’t buying the divisive
argument that Trump is anti-women, saying that giving women special
allowances because of their gender is condescending. You can’t eat
cake and have it, too. If you demand equal treatment, be ready for
equal treatment. One can’t beat Hillary if one is too concerned with
sparing her feelings. We are all adult individuals. While fighting
patriarchy in our society, she says, the radical leftist feminists went
too far and destroyed manhood itself, along with fatherhood. It’s bad
for the families, for the children, and especially for women. Ann
sees Trump as a successful male role model and a father figure. If he
weren’t one in real life, his own children wouldn’t have turned out so
well. The Left has emasculated our men, she says. Fathers in
popular culture changed from “Father Knows Best” to Homer Simpson: the
butt of all jokes and the last to get the joke. Fatherless
children who grew up watching The Simpsons are father-hungry. Trump, she
says, will be like the dad who comes home to an out-of-control house
party, makes the kids clean up, kicks out the troublemakers, and sues
their parents for damages.
Republican
presidential candidate Ted Cruz addresses a rally at the Town and
Country Resort and Convention Center on April 11, 2016 in San Diego,
California. Picture: Bill Wechter/AFPSource:AFP
Ann
sees today’s emasculated warrior class, with new recruits using
time-out cards if under too much stress, and she is worried about their
ability to defend us. She sees the European “men” who do nothing
to protect their women or their nations from organised, systemic rape by
Sharia-fuelled “guests,” and predicts that will happen to us, too, if
we don’t change course. She sees the spineless millennials wishing
for Bernie Sanders to ensure their perpetual childhood, and she blames
the leftist education for crippling their minds and souls. The worst
part is that these young doormats hate, not those who disabled them, but
those who keep spines intact. Ann believes we have entered the
age of fear and denouncements, where anyone with a spine is
automatically perceived as a fascist, racist, homophobe, Islamophobe,
and so on. Trump is giving American men permission to be men
again, to say what they think, and to stand tall without guilt or fear,
says Ann. She quotes Billy Graham: “Courage is contagious. When a brave
man takes a stand, the spines of others are often stiffened.” No
wonder Graham’s son endorsed Donald Trump. With Trump as president, a
new generation of Americans will have a chance to grow up having a
spine, with a positive male role model to compensate for their fathers
who are either missing or have been neutered. His campaign slogan may as
well be, “Men! Take back thy manhood!” After seven painful years
of watching our Commander-in-Chief bunny-hopping down plane and
helicopter steps, struggling to lift one-pound barbells, girl-throwing
first baseballs in mom jeans, and dressing up in little cowboy outfits,
the country needs a masculine reset. The return of a strong, manly
man to our culture will be great news for women, who have grown tired
of being single-income mothers, leaders, fighters, and protesters, Ann
says. And America will have a chance to get back its emotional and
psychological health, confidence, optimism, and positive disposition
that’s been missing for too long.
Donald
Trump signs a hat for a supporter after speaking at a campaign rally on
April 11, 2016 in Albany, New York. Picture: Eduardo Munoz
Alvarez/Getty Images/AFPSource:AFP
COLIN
Colin
had a successful international career as a dancer and choreographer,
ranging from performing and teaching classical ballet to modern dance,
from acting on Broadway to choreographing dances for some of the most
famous pop stars, whose names I’m withholding for obvious reasons. In
case anyone is wondering, Colin is not gay and lives with a long-time
girlfriend. He also has a sizeable collection of guns, likes hunting and
fishing, and drives an SUV. Having been to every corner of the earth,
he retired and became my neighbour here in Florida, where we became good
friends and have spent many evenings playing music and sharing stories. Colin
never spoke about politics and whenever I or anyone else touched on
that subject, he would start singing some silly tune in a loud, raspy
voice, ending any possible debate. That was until this summer,
when he decided to support Donald Trump. Not only did he tell this to
all his friends and neighbours, some of whom were diehard liberal
leftists; he also called everyone in his phone book, encouraging them to
vote for Trump as well, thus becoming an unaffiliated Trump campaign
volunteer. His reason for the sudden change of heart was that for
the first time in his life he heard a presidential candidate whose words
made perfect sense. All the others, according to Colin, were trained
weasels giving rehearsed performances, which he could instantly spot
with his professional background. Unlike the rest, Trump spoke off
the cuff, didn’t mince words, called things by their real names, and
used strong language when necessary, unconcerned about what society and
the media would say about that behind his back. I couldn’t help noticing
that, in a way, Colin was describing himself. If he were ever to go
into politics, he would’ve done it pretty much the same way, except for
the hairstyle.
Donald
Trump holds up a sign handed to him by a supporter after speaking at a
campaign rally, Wednesday, April 6, 2016, in Bethpage, New York.
Picture: Julie Jacobson/APSource:AP
CHRISTINA
Christina
has a PhD in literature, but her academic career ended when she evolved
from a liberal into an outspoken conservative. All her previous
activism in helping the inner city families, being involved in refugee
resettlement programs, working with the ACLU, and other liberal
credentials didn’t matter anymore. She became an untouchable and
soon lost her job. Since then she has been active in local Republican
politics and Tea Party circles, exposing the rot in America’s education
system, fighting Common Core, and organising book tours for conservative
authors. She sees Trump as the only candidate who is not buying
into the neurotic identity politics that’s currently driving both
political parties. In her experience, identity politics and
political correctness are the drivers of fascism in America today. In
that sense, Trump is the most anti-fascist candidate in the race — and
the most optimistic one, too. The first Trump rally she attended
was different from all other political events she has seen, which
usually attract party regulars and the party elite. The people in this
crowd weren’t very political; many of them first-timers — those who
don’t live and die over the latest little fluff-up in DNC or the GOP or
even the Tea Party. Christina thought that was very significant. There
were old people, young families, teenagers, blacks, whites, and a good
number of Southeast Asians. This was in Norcross, Georgia, which has one
of the most ethnically varied populations in the South and maybe even
the U.S. It’s a major refugee placement site and also attracts
immigrants from India, Asia, and Africa. So there are a lot of immigrant
entrepreneurs and small business owners in Norcross, and she saw a lot
of that actual diversity — including economic diversity — in the crowd,
says Christina.
Donald
Trump greets supporters during a rally at Memorial High School in Eau
Claire, Wisconsin, Saturday, April 2, 2016. Picture: Marisa Wojcik/The
Eau Claire Leader-Telegram via APSource:AP
She
doesn’t understand how anyone in the GOP could be so recalcitrant as to
not see this as an extraordinary opportunity to grow the GOP brand.
Trump alone has the ability to move people towards conservatism: doesn’t
the GOP get that? Christina sees Trump as an object lesson in moving
towards conservative values in his own life, and he can move other
people in the same direction. She objects to the description of
Trump supporters as angry. There was no love lost for either political
party or for the media in that crowd, she says, but the people weren’t
angry at all: they were optimistic. It was the sort of optimism people
felt when Reagan was elected. Trump’s message was patriotic and
positive, praising America’s virtues and the value of hard work and
self-sufficiency. It’s sad that the Republican Party couldn’t see the
extraordinarily positive message Trump was delivering, and the positive
spirit with which it was received. At that moment, the election
could have been in the GOP’s hands, had they not launched a co-ordinated
assault on Trump and his followers. The editors at National
Review and others of their ilk ought to be on their knees celebrating
their good luck that someone like Trump has come along at this
particular moment in American history. But instead, they’re so angry
they’re overturning their sandboxes and pitching tantrums, she says. Imagine
how different this race would be if the GOP hadn’t tried to salt the
earth around Trump and his supporters, says Christina. She believes that
if they had only remained neutral, the party would currently be growing
by leaps and bounds. The very landscape of the electorate would
be shifting towards conservatism and away from liberalism. But it was
more important for the party elites to control people than to listen to
them. Oleg Atbashian is a writer and graphic artist from the former USSR who moved to the U.S. in 1994. He is the author of Shakedown Socialism and the creator of satirical website ThePeoplesCube.com, described as “a Stalinist version of The Onion”. This article originally appeared on American Thinker and was reproduced with permission.
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