One question remains that no one has asked under that dome: When the tumor bursts, who pays the price first? The body that has carried it for so long, or the world that has clapped for it as it grows up?.."The Writer"
Afrasianet, - Roni Alpha - Where is the First Lady? I don't see her, said the man who, minutes before, had seen one hundred and fifty-nine Iranian ships at the bottom of the sea.
He saw the shipwrecked ships. He saw a billion barrels crossing Hormuz under his guard. He saw American poverty descend to its historic base. Then he turned to the hall, and he didn't see his wife.
That's how the symptoms begin. The eye widens farther away, blinded by what sits in the front row.
Medicine knows a fine difference between a muscle and a tumor. They both get bigger. They both fill the mirror. The muscle grows with work and serves the body. The tumor grows at the expense of the body and calls itself strength.
On the podium of the United Nations General Assembly, Donald Trump stood to celebrate 250 years of independence. The first minute he said America is back. The second minute he said it was the strongest in history. Then the numbers followed like a frantic pulse: the lowest poverty, the highest income, the biggest tax cuts, $21 trillion in investments, 80 stock market records. A swollen body loves the scale.
Then came the passage that fits into a clinical report of the situation: "While others spoke, I did. As they talked about peace, I made it. As they ignored the threats, I faced them." The speaker's pronoun repeats like a knock on a closed door. The ego that needs so much confirmation I am afraid of silence.
In the middle of the speech, the president did what a president before him had not done. He read the letters of thanks he received on the podium of nations. The prime minister of Pakistan says he has saved 30 million people. The president of Azerbaijan calls what he did a miracle. The president of Cambodia praises his "visionary" diplomacy. He read it like a student reads certificates of appreciation to his family at an end-of-year ceremony.
Eight wars that he said he had stopped. No one in the room asked about the ninth war he had started.
A relationship, any relationship, needs two parties. When the other person becomes a mirror, the relationship dies and the image remains.
Venezuela: an operation in the heart of Caracas in January, followed by the sixty-five billion barrel deal. The president uttered the old wisdom unequivocally: the victor has the spoils.
Greenland: "Permanent control" of an island in an allied European kingdom, with two large military bases.
ICC: 'Evil group'. Member states must resign from it "immediately".
The United Nations itself: a budget cut by fifteen percent, and more than 4,000 jobs canceled. The president stands at her house and thanks her.
Imagine a dog biting a man in a market. The policeman arrives to judge. His only question is: Whose dog is the dog? If it belongs to a general, the bite is due. If it is a stray, let him be killed. The judgment changes with each answer, and the policeman takes off his coat and puts it on according to the temperature of the answer.
This is international law in its final version. The crime is known by its owner. And justice asks about the identity of the dog before you look at the wound.
And there's one last show, funny and scary. The president decided to change the name of AI. It became "superintelligence." He said that the word "artificial" made it look fake. And then he laughed, "Let's see if I have any power."
Whoever calls things thinks he created them. Adam did it once, with permission. Empires repeat them every century, without permission.
In the theater is an old rule: the gun hanging on the wall in the first act will fire before the curtain falls. In the same speech, eighteen munitions factories are under construction. Iran is between a deal and a "hell without survival." Cuba will "fall." Mexico is called upon to reclaim its land "from the enemies of humanity." This is a whole wall of guns.
In Beirut, we know this scene very well. A man on a pulpit counts what he destroyed. Counts ships, planes, radars. He says it's all over. And then morning comes.
This region learned that sunken ships do not drown in memory, and that the numbers announced from the pulpits age faster than the people they count. The South saw many pulpits. It saw it being built, it saw it folded. And the earth knew the names of its people.
In the hall, the senior staff would clapp. They would applaud and then apologize. They would apologize and then send thank you letters. They would go back to their hotels in their uniforms, and they would lie on the beds without taking them off. Fear also exhausts the body.
One question remains that no one has asked under that dome: When the tumor bursts, who pays the price first? The body that carried it for so long, or the world that clapped for it as it grew up?
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