When Big Men Fall

It is all too easy to criticise President Trump, American foreign policies, and its hypocritical authorities, because it is highly visible.

- BY NILANTHA ILANGAMUWA

Forget the moral and ethical jargon that hangs over every discussion; the most striking aspect is that President Trump is unapologetically blunt about what he will do, why he did it, and what he intends to achieve, unlike so many leaders of the United States who recite ethical rationales and moralistic rhetoric even as they drop bombs and loot. Trump exposes the raw mechanics of American power with gargantuan ambition; whether it turns into enduring success or spectacular failure is another matter entirely. But to comprehend the Trump phenomenon, we must confront it, not merely argue over its consequences. Like any imperial superpower, the United States has never been truly ethical or morally upright, because power itself refuses to be shackled by ethics or morality.

History's paradoxical arc, from Babylon to the contemporary epoch, teaches us that might and strategic interest invariably out-muscle moral imperatives. Trump may be revitalising a 250-year-old strategy, one that has been rehearsed by many empires before, without a clearly articulated alternative. The world is brutal and unforgiving, yet we are ever reluctant to confront our own reflections or unravel the conscience of the so-called global South, which castigates the West even as it remains dependent on Western technologies and markets.

What have we produced in the name of socialism when the "big man" vanquishes his rivals or succumbs to the inevitable pull of mortality? In every instance, once the charismatic founder departs, he is succeeded by a coterie of looters, robbers, killers, and oppressors who stake claims to power and unleash new waves of violence, suppression, and censorship to silence dissent and consolidate authority. We can romanticise these crises and document human suffering all we want, yet we are often unwilling to look in the mirror and ask what sort of system we have created and what sort of society we truly require.