The Brute Shall Inherit The Earth

A Catholic growing up in a patriarchal society that still, to this day, smells the heavy wafts of religious colonialism, would have been made to believe that “the meek shall inherit the earth.” A diet of beatitudes is common fare.

However, as we come to locate the ‘meek’ in the grand scheme of things, we see that they are really nowhere in the struggle to inherit the earth. A struggle would have to involve assumedly opposing forces. The ‘meek,’ by their nature, do not oppose.

If the meek do not so much as put in effort to play the struggle game over the ownership of this earth, then it is easy to assume that the meek will not win the price and will never inherit the earth. So much for that beatitude, then. It can be decimated in a single line of thought.

But look closely.

There really is no power struggle between the mild and the fierce, or between the weak and the strong. The power struggle has always been between the harsh and the harsh. Besides, power struggle connotes some sort of a level playing field.

Hence, we only have a no-struggle between the cannot-win-the-struggle-at-all and the will-do-everything-to-quash-any-struggle.

Those that we see manning the barricades, the picket lines, the protest, and revolutions cannot really be considered mild. And, chances are, they don’t have a stronghold in the real battle between strong opposing forces.

Look even closer.

The strong ones in the power struggle are really all living in fear. Fear of the competitor, in pursuit of the earth.

They get paranoid as they advance. They build higher walls and wider, deeper moats to protect them. They stack up arsenals. They concoct anthrax and other biological warfare. They build weapons of mass destruction (as if their presence in their subordinate nations isn’t massively destructive in itself).

The ones in competition suffer from dread.

Burma’s junta relocated its seat of government in a jungle that it can protect and seal. Iraq had to see 5 (maybe, even more) surges to guarantee oil for one nation. Russia and China are fiercely protecting their business interests in Africa. War on terror had to be waged. Islamophobia had to rise. The European Union has expanded to more than 30 members that are assured of oil and gas from North Africa.

It used to be just social Darwinism that implies competition among all individuals, groups, nations or ideas. Then, it became eugenics that is necessary for the improvement of human hereditary traits towards dominance and superiority via such interventions as birth control, in vitro fertilization, sperm banking, and genetic engineering.

Both these social philosophies had been considered immoral in their time. And who had been the moral arbiter, thereby the one that holds the baton of orchestration? It’s the emerging most powerful that have acquired some degree of consent from their subordinate conquests.

It used to be just imperialism when a nation’s ego was measured through territorial conquest with the use of economic and political powers. But imperialism has given way to the dominance of hegemony where a few powers can dictate the policies of all other inferior powers.

To say that it’s all about power is both a cliché and an understatement. The power struggle will not end until hegemony is the order of the day.

Those with the darkest fears become the most powerful.

And the ultimate hegemon is the one most paranoid.

I wish I have the foresight to enable me to tell you that everything will be okay and that happiness is for free. And that the world will reverse climate change. Or Iraq is assured that it has seen the last battle on its grounds. Or that Afghanistan will stop farming poppy so heroin addiction will be totally eliminated from that land. Or that Mugabe will, by some voice of an angel or enlightenment from the Holy Spirit, step down from his throne. Or that all the desaparecidos in this world will come out and reveal themselves to be just fine.

But I merely chronicle and synthesize what I see, hear, and learn. And what I see, just like you do, is ugly.

As for the world-is-hopeful, man-will-overcome-distress, and man-will-outgrow-his-evil-ways, I leave those to others. They probably mean to pacify.

I definitely hope to agitate – from my own little corner of the earth that the brute will surely inherit.