National Traumas Warp Politics
Don’t project your past upon your present for a new future.
The text below may not talk about Israel/Gaza, but the similar traumas as mentioned here, are at play there. Trauma begets trauma. Hurt makes you want to hurt others. Kids raised with beatings often beat their children, unless they find a way to step out of the cycle. Stepping out of a collective trauma, that is part of all national sentiments is much harder. You will be pressured to keep playing along. We are trauma addicts.
Putin has a story why invading Ukraine made sense (for him). The USA has a story why invading Iraq and Afghanistan made sense (for them). China invading Tibet had a story making it alright (for them). When you listen to these opinions and or propaganda of countries some things stand out. Many nations, and the people within, are driven by a few historic traumas that have become part of their national narratives. It drives their decisions and explains the logic of their choices. And always there are some big lies hidden in all these stories. Let’s look at the traumas of some countries and how this shapes their politics. And to conclude similarities we find and what price they and other peoples pay for that.
National Traumas Lead to Collective Convictions
Nations behave more like individuals than we sometimes acknowledge. And you’ll notice perceived truth and nuanced truth can differ a lot.
First thing you’ll notice is that being invaded, or attacked, leads to remembered trauma. Nations will deny their own war crimes, swipe them under the rug, or downplay their importance. Pain done to them sticks around way better. This is much like how individuals reason. You hit me because you’re an a’hole, and I hit you, because at that moment you left me no other options.
Around the world many peoples are still angry over cruelty they suffered. What makes it worse is when they feel the guilty party denies responsibility, let alone never made excuses. This includes slavery, genocide, war crimes, state run discrimination and racism, and years of suppression. And we’ve seen healing only starts to happen, where excuses and sometimes retributions were made.
Here come, what I think are, the two dominant trauma’s of three nations, Russia, USA and China and how they impact their choices and actions.
RUSSIA
“The naked king promises all his subjects warm clothes for the winter
With open mouths, the people applaud his flaming speeches
From the cold, the lips are covered in cracks, naked shoulders tremble in the wind.” ~ Ivan Alexeev, known as Noize MC
Many Russians are convinced they are the best people in the world. Russia has been ignored for centuries or seen as the ‘too far away part of Europe’. When noticed it got invaded by the Mongols, Sweden, Napoleon, Hitler and more. The last two invasions were beaten by general ‘winter’. Winters that also their own people have to deal with every year. Drinking vodka seems a national habit in dealing with the cold, the melancholy and feeling suppressed.
“They always have looked down upon our great land and culture.”
The huge Russia has a minority complex. The Russians have been invaded by people seeking to take the huge country out. Sometimes because they feared what the country could become. Invaders and foreign influence are feared. Hence nationalists always seek to find enough poor Russians who want to follow them to save their nation from outside threats. What is their solution? The solution is control for them over their own people and through intelligence agencies interfering abroad. Whether it’s a tsar, communist dictator or whatever Putin is, the result is the same. They bombard their own people with propaganda and suppression, beating them into submission, or inviting them to join the elite in return for access to luxuries, power and liberation from living a bleak Russian life. Oh, the songs about bleak Russian lives.
“Here you’re only accepted if you think and do like you ought to.”*
This led to the second trauma of the Russians. They had to endure centuries of mighty elites and poor peasants getting by, being used to be bullied. Long rows of people standing in line seems to be normal. The one huge revolution led to a new arguably worse regime. One that is carried by some as still the best option in the world, when they believe the propaganda. Many other wonder. Especially those who travelled to people in the West, or suffer too much from harsh winters and justice will show some resistance. Putin and his cronies keep that down with lies, lots of propaganda and suppression. Putin also forces his average folk into the army, or even use prisoners, mentally unstable people and or intellectuals that dared to have other opinions. Well, expect more war crimes, desertion, and more mutinies. It starts to look like the Russian army in WWI. A new revolution is possible.
*) literally from a song by Severnyi Flot
USA
“Washington has become our Versailles. We are ruled, entertained, and informed by courtiers — and the media has evolved into a class of courtiers… We are captivated by the hollow stagecraft of political theater as we are ruthlessly stripped of power. It is smoke and mirrors, tricks and con games, and the purpose behind it is deception.” ~ Chris Hedges, Manufacturing the Illusion of Democracy
Many US citizens (‘Americans’ forgetting there’s two whole continents named America) are convinced they are the best people in the world. The traumas of the USA are a result of the painful birth of the nation, to the current power of the wealthy elite over everyone else. On how the expansion thought is still present in everything, and how the success of that has started deeply hurting everything else.
“If you want to get somewhere, keep pushing further.”
The USA has a fighters complex. The first trauma is that the nation is build by generations of people who always kept pushing the boundaries further. They had to conquer ‘their’ land. They have the hidden shame of never acknowledging fully their land is build upon committing genocide. And they still keep pushing boundaries to expand. Just check the thousands of Youtube videos pushing for (quick and easy) success. Check the push for new tech, new businesses, and pushing targets. Making a profit is central to all corporate action. The US even supports corporate intervening in foreign countries in ways that support their access to natural resources. They keep pushing (each other) for more, bigger, better all the time. And who doesn’t ‘win’ is a loser.
They never seem to acknowledge that some boundaries shouldn’t be crossed. They often don’t respect other cultures that seek to protect centuries old balances, like with nature, that work in their own territories. Because of this trauma the elite can convince the people to keep voting for mighty rich dudes, because “Hey, my success is the way to yours.” The result of the election somehow always makes the rich richer. And the disappointed people will have to wait for the next election offering new (false) hope. Or vote the same tribal colour, because “the other side will take what you have when they win.” Hence we see ‘taking at the cost of’ lies at the core of what they think leads to survival. ‘They’re out to get us, thus we must weaken them before they can’. Sadly this survival anxiety currently leads to global suicide, through ever increasing pollution and depletion of natural resources.
“We are the best, hence everyone else is jealous and out to get us.”
The second is a similar paranoia to the Russian one. This one is actually based upon propaganda, for the USA is sinking on many global rankings such as happiness, safety, press freedom, quality of education, access to healthcare, etc. But by believing the “We’re the best” meme many never consider they are being robbed by those they vote for. And it gives the big businesses and elites confirmation that them interfering all over the world is to improve their lives by making it more American. You know, much like Spain when they brought Christianity when they came to steal all the gold. Or when the ‘civilised’ Romans subjucated other peoples and then took many away into slavery. This ‘we’re the best’ solves the first trauma. We are the best possible, so being a murderous suppressive empire just can’t be true. It seems many nations didn’t get that message. They call the US Empire the most dangerous nation in the world. And US citizens who hear that are too often nonplussed by that.
Note: This keeping pushing even led to the war in Ukraine. US business and interest groups kept pushing militia’s, some nazi’s even, to fight the proxy war in East Ukraine with Russian backed separatists. This would give better access and more control over gas pipelines running through the country. This aspect of Putin’s aggression has become ‘unmentionable’ because we need to help the poor Ukrainians. We do, but perhaps helping towards peace is more important for the people, than this ongoing masculine pushing to humiliate Putin’s Russia even more. Millions don’t want this war, but now they must live with it. The US with lots of EU help pushed Putin over the cliff. They triggered his traumas, so he felt he had no choice but defend Russia through an American invention: First Strike. He misjudged how rotten it looked, how bent on being a free nation the Ukraine is, and how his own corrupt elites had undressed the Russian military capability for decades.
Meanwhile you work very hard to prove yourself. If you succeed it’s all because of you. If you fail it must be you. Thus US citizens push themselves to work harder to achieve more. How the system as a whole may suppress certain minorities, cheat many out of access to education, voting, and locks them up for years over minor charges then becomes not discussable. Where the ordinary Russians and Chinese are battered down peoples, the US citizens are convinced only they themselves can be blamed if things don’t work out. Hence they are blind to their own suppression.
CHINA
“We must realise that people from different localities and social strata who have different backgrounds and occupations think differently. We must therefore consider: where can we find consensus? Where can we allow differences to persist?[4]” ~ general secretary Xi Jinping
“We’re the highest moral civilisation in the world.”
Like the Russians, US citizens, and many other peoples, many Chinese are convinced they are the best people in the world. China’s traumatic invasions are that of the Mongols, European meddling, and the Japanese Empire. The Chinese often felt like being the higher and older civilisation trampled upon by barbarians, while they were minding their own business. These barbarians always lacked the class, nuance and wisdom of the Chinese. The huge disparities between Chinese elites and the millions of small farmers and other poor are somehow forgotten in this.
This sentiment ‘being the most proud civilisation’ lately plays a big role in modern Chinese action movies. Like in American movies their heroes intervene around the world to stop crime and corruption. Somehow many of the criminals are rich white men, with little sense of culture or sensitivity. Luckily, some noble Chinese arrive to save the day. All with ‘good intentions’, something the West sorely lacks. It seems the Chinese people are being primed for world domination.
“A peaceful family will prosper (jiahe wanshi xing, 家和万事兴)”
The Chinese common people have been shaped by centuries of Confucianism. For the ruling elites this meant that the people should be educated into an obedience to an higher order. Follow the principles to get an orderly life, orderly family and orderly state. Watch any heroic Chinese movie and the heroes shout principles as statements that must be obeyed.
Yet currently being of a more indigenous tribe, or culture within the Chinese border is less fun. The Han Chinese seem to treat all others as lesser. Being any Chinese seems not enough any more. Tribes that perform colourfully for tourists are allowed, but any independent mindset gets suppressed. The world knows about the Uyghurs, the Tibetans, the people of Hong Kong, but there are many more being wrenched out of their identity into loyalty to Beijing.
The Overlap in these Traumas
I notice how the first often is the national driver to action towards other peoples. And the second often one that helps to suppress the people. This may be the result of state propaganda, state bullying, or traditional beliefs. And each conviction leads to many other choices. The US traumas make strong patriarchic fathers logical. The Chinese second trauma makes for the dominance of the elderly over the next generations.
The traumas also lead to questions. How come a simple farmer deep within a huge nation would care about invading an other country? Why would a female librarian care about her government intervening in foreign nations? We must assume this only happens when her leaders put that inclination there. ‘My nation helps bring civilisation, the right belief, democracy, freedom’ Because rarely do ordinary citizens benefit from attacking other nations. It is always the elites that benefit. Russian soldiers die for their nation, Putin gets rich. US citizens serve their nation and get discarded as veteran, but the corporations get rich.
I think I could write find similar stories for many other people, with most often the same first line. Many Indians are convinced they are the best people in the world. Many French are convinced they are the best people in the world. Many Iranians are convinced they are the best people in the world. Many Saudis are convinced they are the best people in the world. Many Brazilians are convinced they are the best people in the world. Many Germans, Swedish, Australians, Indonesians, Thai, Spanish, Mongolians, Nepalese, Egyptians, Dutch, tribes within nations, etc, are convinced they are the best people in the world. And they all have very similar traumas, and stories like those above.
The lessons we learn from seeing the overlap in these stories/traumas.
- Historic trauma often leads to ideologies that justify policies against certain others.
- Those who only remember what has been done to them, and conveniently ignore what they did to others, will commit many crimes.
- They may deny, justify, or worse, may even glorify these crimes*.
- Those who suppress diversity of opinions, invoke blindness to reality°.
- When explored deeper, all cases of perspectives that will get you persecuted, show an elite clinging to power, hiding behind a story that justifies it.
- Those who lead using suppression need collaborators and a group of people to take from. Buying loyalty from the collaborators with (financial or status) advantages always leads to corruption and cruelty.
Don’t project your past upon your present for a new future.
- Firstly accept your story is the same story everywhere. Learn to laugh at these stories. Don’t take them so effing seriously.
- Consider what your nations trauma’s are, and how they influence you. Consider how you are suppressed or suppress yourself with some convictions that are not your own, when you think about it. Question the logic in your reasoning, when you think you’re right and other nations are wrong.
- Questions the stories by speaking to a lot of foreigners, by reading about other cultures and their sufferings. Watch a movie in which your people are ‘the bad guys’.
- Understand that everyone is a human first. Include those you see as lesser. Invite them for dinner. Offer them a job. Learn from their perspectives and seek the overlap.
- As a nation, dare to make excuses, ask for forgiveness for your nations crimes. If you don’t want to pay reparations, find symbolic ways to ‘pay’ anyway. Have a ‘National bad page history day’ where your own national crimes are remembered, so such histories can be learned from en prevented in the future.
- Distinct who benefits from your nations stories and who pay the price.
- Avoid double standards. Dare to arrest your own war criminals. When blaming other countries for their terrible behaviour of their own people, also scrutinise your own. The Chinese have awful adjustment camps, the Russians waste their people as cannon fodder and the US has by far the most prisoners in the world and still isn’t getting safer.
- Question your elites harder and louder. Question the propaganda. Question the stories about your nation that make you feel good and feel sorry for other peoples. Be especially suspicious when you start shouting for actions against a people that have not one bit of influence on your life.
- Understand that almost all invasions are about access to resources. Success will almost always benefit your elites and their cronies, and make their people and your poor veterans suffer. And you may pay for it with your taxes.
- When you wave your nations flag, wave another random nations flag next to it.
- And just when you think it’s only nations or peoples that determine such stories, regard the new oppressors, the giant corporations and their owners. Consider how they are ruling you with a new feudalism coming from their power.
- Consider what would have real meaning for everyone, while allowing them a very different culture with different convictions.
- Come up with three more steps for yourself. Make sure they liberate you and others from stories that determine their behavior in less desirable ways.
- Enjoy life with others.
Notes from the list of overlaps.
*) On overcoming glorifying crimes, start with the Westerns were the Natives were automatically the bad guys. See for example the US still not officially acknowledging the hurt (still being) done to Indigenous & Black Americans, South Americans, Middle Eastern countries. Other global well known cases include, Turkey denying the Armenian genocide, China seeking to blind the world to what happens in Tibet or with the Uyghurs. The Israeli state denying their suppression of Palestinians and calling all criticism anti-Semitism. Indonesia forgetting their atrocities when murdering anyone suspected of communist sentiments. Australians, Brazilians, and other South American nations thinking they’ve done enough settlement for indigenous peoples, while still discriminating or even persecute them.
- Perhaps one exception could be the Germans, that teach their own people about their crimes and where many youth still feel shame over their nazi history. And even then many look with guarded eyes at Germany, for all the victims still celebrate yearly liberation from the Nazi’s.
° ) Consider anti-science sentiments in the USA or climate deniers. Consider that many Chinese feel it’s them against the CCP. Meanwhile the CCP pretends they defend the stability of China against false perspectives. The Iranian Mulla’s can’t seem to acknowledge that truths outside their dogma’s exist. etc.
