We have fallen in love, especially in the West, with the rebel. We think, even after films such as ‘Rebel without a Cause’ that they are protesting against the status quo and that the status quo always needs protessting against. We have been sold the idea of change while also trying to balance conservation, and the status quo represents conservative and no change. We are deeply confused.
James Dean in ‘Rebel Without a Cause‘ was gorgeous; the jeans, white t-shrit and leather jacket, the snarl, the motorbike, all of these became the symbol of rebellion. In truth, his character was a total dick, but such a good looking cool one.
‘Bullies without a Cause’ would be the more accurate title.
Johnny Depp as a Pirate is also cool. But most pirates were total bastards and you wouldn’t want to be involved with one. Let’s be honest; the Johnny Depp character is more appealing than the goody two shoes one. But the bad boy is, in reality, a narcassistic pain.
For years, the British Foreign Offices’ Middle East policy has run on what I call, ‘the TE Lawrence Effect’. If you have ever seen the beautiful film ‘Lawrence of Arabia‘ you might fall for it too. A romantic character, dressing in local (foreign, therefore exotic) clothing, played by the gorgoeous Peter O’Toole, who dies back in the UK in a motorcycle accident, has great appeal to men in pinstrips at the Foreign Office. A man of their dreams living their fantasy life. And then imagine a Sheik, played by Omar Shariff, coming out of the desert and whisking you off to his tent for wildly fantastic sex. Dishy, rebelious, romantic. So much more foreign, exotic and dangerous then a couple of weeks in the South of France and a quick holiday romance.
These men had the same appeal that generations earlier fell for Rudolph Valentino as the dashing Sheik in the desert in many a movie. Dreaming of desirous, distant cads.
The reality is sand in your anus and grit in your genitals. Sadly, when the head gear comes off it reveals a bald patch; he has, what the Americans would call ‘a tiny wiener’, the real cause of many a protest; his own method of delivery is terrible sex and he is waiting for mummy, or wifey, or both, to make his bed and wipe his bottom for him. Real reality, really, The vicious clowns of October 7th were phoning their mummies and daddies to boast of their evil and get their approval. Big butch boys.
This is the world of the bullied, bully; not the dashing dream, more the pyschopath as leader.
Most of these rebels are not radical. Radical is seeing things in a new, creative way, not merely blasting any opponent with any weapon to hand. Abraham Joshua Heschel talked about ‘Radical Amazement’, a state we should be in when awake, truly awake, and being truly awake is the only true form of wokeness.
We have seen many insurgencies against governments. If your media is anything like that in the UK, it rushes in to uphold and defend the rebel forces in some sort of romantic movie moment without any real knowledge of what is being fought for. Few people can, for example, even tell you who the Tamil Tigers were fighting against and what the problem was. For the media the Tamil Tigers looked like the oppressed victims, regardless of where or what they were from. The Sinhales (the other side) were the indigenous people of Sri Lanka. They, therefore, represented the status quo. They never stood a chance in the media.
In the media, being first with the story is more important then being right. Only after days and weeks of digging do we find out if the insurgent group are for the good or for the bad. Sometimes, they are a totalitarian, fascist, greedy group of thugs, a mafia on ketamine or captogen, the drug of choice in the Middle East, not an oppressed people rising against an oppressive regime. The insurgents are the oppressive regime who will victimise the ‘other’. The media, and many people, have a tough time working that out. People in their teens and 20s, when rebellion is deemed cool, have a big problem working out that the rebels may, in fact, be the oppressors, the fascist bullies. Many of us have been rebels in our youths. Rebellion, like sex, is seen as a teen activity. It can be creepy when older people are the rebels, the ‘Hell Grannies’ ! But usually teen uprisings are led by some old git with an axe to grind (and a small wiener). Grooming.
These rebels are seldom radical, merely Insurgents.
Currently, we are seeing people, often young people with a few old hangers-on, being ‘radicalised’ by a totalitarian regime that is not oppressed but is run by very old, very oppressive fascists. We are being mugged by the media and bullied by the dumb who do not understand real control and are seduced by costumes and exoticising the ‘other’ who become always believable and always oppressed, not because they are, but because we need them to be, because they look different from us and we are looking to be different from the crowd. This is so wrapped up in fetishising the ‘other’ that the Westerner dresses up (cos plays) as the people they deemed oppressed.
What happens to these Westerners in years to come? Do they become sad old people never fulfilling their potential as they are still wrapped up in exotic dream fantasies or do they become embarressed by their naivity, not using their critical faculties to see past the PR? However, what is seldom realised at the time is that this naivity, this fantasy, this influencer advertisement, kills. Make no mistake about that.
Democracy is not only about the rule by the majority, but the care of the minority. If 60% of people vote for one particular leader, 40% didn’t vote for them. Don’t be bad at maths. Decent democracies are not bullies that only take care of their own. That is when a rebellion starts. Most democracies care for all, that is what taxes do in sensible countries, they pay for the poor, the orphaned, the oppressed. We should be proud if we are lucky enought to live in one. Most of these current protestors have never been oppressed and muddle up being told NO (for their own safety) with being downtrodden. Freedom is not a riot.
Being a democracy does not dumb down differences. Being a totalitarian dictatorship does; it ends differences. You may think a Mao Tse Tung outfit is cute, but when a billion people wear it the appeal dissipates. The desire to be different and rebellious goes when everybody is claiming/appearing as different or rebellious.
So before deciding on which side to take and basing it merely on appearances, in your mind’s eye, strip the ‘rebels’ back to trackies and flip flops. Even more criticaly, picture your parents in the rebels’ outfits shouting the rebels’ slogans. Still exotic? Are they, in fact, fascist totalitarian thugs that would hang you by your goolies for being yourself, or people that would really allow you to be yourself and for all of us in all our differences to be ourselves, even if stay-pressed cotton pants and button down shirts may be your exotic look (it is exotic to someone, somewhere) ? Dressed up in a cool, rebelious look, are they really rebels of the oppressed or bullies of the oppressors?
Because Totalitarian Fascists don’t care about the real oppressed, but they always have the best outfits.
So suave, so chic, so shit
dr cedar 