Drive-bys with Dictators

Who will we be in these times?

How do I, do we, live in this destabilizing new world of a wannabe dictator/king at the helm of the United States?

It feels like a rip tide has swept us out of the old normal, however flawed. We feel disoriented, and are swimming madly for shore and while our feet frantically feel for bottom.

I’m finding my feet, now, and the places I choose to take responsibility for grounding myself and my community. However, each day that passes, each new shocking decree, each new shocking installation of loyalists, the shore seems to have moved. To continue the metaphor, where are the lifeguards?

When have I been here before?

I have three snapshots of dictatorships to help orient me.

Spain under Franco

At 19, in 1966, I got on a student ship to cross the ocean on my way to a year studying in Spain. I was assigned to a family that lived by the bull ring and attended classes at the University of Madrid. Jose Felix, a former revolutionary, worked in the official news agency, forced to translate news stories to the liking of the censors. He was a man of great intelligence and passion in a straitjacket. His wife, Amalia, also a highly intelligent revolutionary from the civil war, cooked, cleaned and took care of Jose Felix’s enfeebled mother. Their visible lives conformed, but around the dining table, with trusted friends and family, they debated politics. I was astonished by how politically literate they were, how many parties had formed, how many strategies and policies were discussed. I was an American political oaf, brought up in an invisible straight jacket of my own - the post WWll rise of middle class safety.

Jose Felix and Amalia told me this story: Word of the Spanish Civil War traveled slowly to the hinterlands. When people heard there was a Civil War, they got their guns and shot the neighbor’s they’d hated for years, maybe generations. They didn’t know which side they were on nationally, but they knew who their local enemies were. The lid came off the stable squabble between their version of the Hatfields and McCoys. The Civil War unleashes simmering hatreds.

I see this in the United States now, the simmering hatreds have surfaced and, from those resentments long nurtured in the dark of the mind, may come violence.

The USSR

At the end of that year in Spain I had a chance to go with my Mother to a psychological association meeting in Moscow, at that time shrouded in Communism I’d studied Russian for a year in college so knew the alphabet and had a bit of vocabulary so I could set off on my own when she was in meetings. It was risky, but I was 20 and unafraid. I couldn’t buy food - we only had meal tickets for approved restaurants - but I must have had some rubles. I wanted to see the famous palatial metro, so I’d sound out street and station names and go down. What a marvel. On the surface it was as bleak as you can imagine, with a few massive, black Stalin-era buildings dominating the otherwise low-to-the-ground city. Below, the peasants were rewarded with this beauty as they shuttled between work and home.

Somehow, I met some student radicals who wanted to meet an American and was invited to their home. The living room was the bedroom was the kitchen, with a big table by day in the middle. Vodka sloshed liberally. The food was simple and delicious. The conversation, as in Spain, was sophisticated and the people politically highly informed.

In times of repression, I saw, with the people rewarded for compliance with a palatial metro, the conversation goes into homes among people you can trust. Repression doesn’t stop the conversation. The pressure seems to sharpen the minds.

Chile

I happened to be in Santiago in 2019 when the protests triggered by a rise in subway ticket prices erupted, a manifestation of the much deeper issues of social, economic, political and environmental injustices that left the majority of Chileans with few options and little hope. In October 1.2 million people gathered around Plaza Baquedano in protest. Even when I got there in early December as part of the Regeneration International delegation to COP 25 (which had just been moved to Madrid because of the uprising), the protests were still in full swing. Every Friday between 100 and 500 people showed up to confront the police. Like a moth to a flame, I walked towards the plaza as workers poured out of buildings to go the other direction, to their homes. Young people on bicycles, blowing whistles, raced towards the plaza, taunting the carabineros who would eventually wade into the crowd. I stumbled on a massive women’s dance and chant organized by Las Tesis feminist group. I joined them, singing, marching, full of joy and the kind of courage when a movement starts to move politics. Here’s a post from that time.

My last day, I went to the Museum of Memory and Human Rights, documenting the decades under Pinochet from 1973 to 1990. It was chilling and nauseating, the disappearances, the squashing of protest, the cruelty. One hall replayed, with photos and narrative, the last day of Allende’s life and the military takeover, with US backing. I was reminded of that day when I recently saw Ainda Estou Aqui (I’m Still Here) about a man - who had a wife and 5 children - being taken by agents of the dictatorship in Brazil and ultimately killed.

I was even in China 25 years ago for a conference on consumerism hosted by one of the first NGOs in the country. At that time, there were some big black cabs and SUVs, but almost everyone was on bicycles. No more.

And before that, in 1999, I was privileged to spend 4 days in Dharamsala with His Holiness the Dalai Lama for the first Synthesis Dialogue between religious, spiritual and civil society leaders. On the last day, I asked the question that had always been with me and is very alive right now.

“We wonder how the German citizens could see the trains with Jews passing their homes and do nothing. What are the trains that are going by right now that we are ignoring?”

“The loss of spirituality” he said, which also meant, the loss of the social glue of a shared set of values that builds trust and binds people together.

I never thought I’d find out real time.

Lessons

1. Times of political repression are schools for political sophistication. It’s time to face our political ignorance sloth with grace, and the learn. Without that, we ping-pong as a society, subject to inflammatory stories. It’s time to find a range of sources, including those we don’t agree with, to hone our understanding. Try AllSides. Try TangleNews. We can use challenges from those who disagree with us - sometimes with an edge of nasty - to dig deeper. If I feel indignation rising, I’ll go over to FactCheck.org to modulate my response. I know I have a long way to go.

2. It’s time to join movements. In easier times, we can afford to go it alone, pursue our own dreams our own ways. Now, it’s time to join churches, join service organizations, join study groups, and join demonstrations. As my friend

   Douglas Rushkoff
   says in Team Human, Find the others. Glacier Kwong, who participated in the Hong Kong resistance to China’s take over, offers good advice from having her movement crushed and she expatriated. The very act of seeking a political home will bring you in contact with others.

3. Never stop talking in private even if it’s dangerous to talk in public. Conversations around the table hone your point of view and keep the faith. If there is repression in public, don’t let it infiltrate private spaces.

4. Dictatorships do not last forever, though as long as they last, they wreak havoc, to put it mildly. Whether through elections, defections of supporters or revolutions, they end.

Who will I choose to be in these times?

I need to be honest with myself. I want to be someone who would have hidden Ann Frank in my attic, but I don’t know whether or when I might cave. I am not necessarily courageous. I am curious and experimental, which can look like bravery, but I don’t really know how I will hold up under duress.

To know you don’t know, and to practice revolution through training and repetition and reading and role models, is crucial for those of us untested in times like these.

I have a pretty good “vibe” detector, though, having lived in a safe little village, I’m rusty. My long-time partner had been in a gang in Harlem in his youth and he trained me to be suspicious and on guard, though it didn’t come naturally. I’ve lost some of that - not all. Do I need to stop giving the benefit of the doubt so often? How does seeing “that of God in everyone” square with recognizing dark intentions in sheep’s clothing? And that doesn’t have a party signature.

I’ve been a hot head and allowed a superficial read of the news to kindle outrage. During Trump1 I did not recognize what happened. I did 2 years of therapy to root out my reactions to bullies throughout my life. I’m practicing peace as I read the news. And practicing fact checking. It’s too easy to blame one party or the other for everything.

I am learning to steer out of a sense of overwhelm and to rest when needed. I am learning to be a learner, to know that I don’t know. I am learning to listen broadly.

I feel confident that I will use my skill as a writer every day, to tell stories, to wrestle with complexity, to bring my heart and mind together to find something useful to share or wait until inspiration comes.

I have a lifelong “tend and befriend” habit. I lived in an intentional community for nearly 30 years. With Susan Partnow, I started Conversation Cafes after the 911 attack. I helped start Transition Whidbey when I learned about Peak Oil. Now, I’m on a team starting monthly community gatherings to learn, organize, plan and have fun. So I can count on myself for this.

To gather, to write - these are my strengths and that’s a foundation I can grow from.

What are your strengths and weaknesses? How will you respond to these times, whatever your political persuasion?