Happy Birthday Henry Kissinger
:::More Memorial Day Mindfucks:::
Today marks the 100th birthday of one of the New Worlds most infamous architects of genocidal policy to date. Comparable only to someone as slitheringly vile as say, Dick Cheney, who similarly seemed to have more control as VP over the White House than the POTUS for which he was voted into to be but a hype guy for, he somehow managed to ooze his slimy viciousness through the hateful realms of the Pentagon and because of him hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians throughout Southeast Asia were needlessly murdered by the U.S. military during a historically unsuccessful effort to end the war in Vietnam in any “good” way. Kissinger’s policies and the chaos it caused is responsible for setting the stage for the rise of the ខ្មែរក្រហម, A.K.A. Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and the needless deaths of innumerable beings. All tell, nearly 2 million innocent people died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge during the years of 1975-1979. It is likely that this unthinkable travesty would have been avoided had Kissinger not decided to carpet bomb Cambodia (The U.S. dropped more than 257,000 tons of explosives throughout the Cambodian countryside in 1973, nearly half the total dropped on Japan during all of World War II), thus laying the countries infrastructure in ruins and paving the way for the rise of Pol Pot.
Bayo Akomolafe (Ph.D.), a widely celebrated public intellectual who helped birth such concepts as ‘postactivism’, ‘ontofugivity’, ‘transraciality’, etc regularly references “the middle passage”, that horrific transatlantic route whereby countless black humans were shipped from West Africa to the West Indies to become slaves for the founders of what was to become the United States of America, in an unlikely effort to re-enchant our overly-anxious-to-put-to-justice activist hearts by reviving lost stories from those nightmarish days. The Trickster, seemingly lost as s/he is in the crumbling realms of modernity is as much with us now as s/he was then. Esu, “the Yoruba errant god of the crossroads”, Bayo tells us, was present on that voyage and had the power to stop the mad effort by man to set forth on what would become a long, intergenerational onslaught of evil intent which would redefine humanities understanding of what it ultimately means to be human, what it means to live well, to be of a place, etc. And yet, Esu allowed the journey to commence. Why? The answer to this riddle is yet to be solved. It is likely not an answer that can be properly answered. There are events that take place at certain crossroads that hold within them mysteries only a body of knowing as immense as a canyon can begin to properly interpret.
I have been to កម្ពុជា (Cambodia) many times. Usually with privileged American students. Most Americans who lived through the 60’s have little understanding of what actually occurred in Southeast Asia during that time. This is even more true for younger generations. As humans, we tend to easily forget. Painful narratives are conveniently burned, labeled as “classified”, slid under the rug. Time passes and criminal masterminds responsible for unthinkable pains live out long, blissful lives. Yet those who lived through the carpet bombs dropped by today’s birthday boy continue to live daily through the strange nightmares set in motion under his immensely consequential reign of terror. Undetonated mines still explode throughout the paddy fields and forests of not only Cambodia, but so too Laos and other neighboring countries. The horror is felt immediately by seemingly unassociated peoples like me, the students who join me, random tourists who thought they were just going on holiday to see Angkor Wat, and stumble accidentally into S-21 (Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, a former school used as a killing field by the Khmer Rouges, secret police សន្តិបាល, or, santebal while in Phnom Penh and are haunted by the grotesque reminder of how many children, young mothers, young lovers, artists, teachers, doctors, etc. were tortured, sent to “killing fields”, etc. All because of unhealed traumas set in motion by an incompetent administration run from the presidential back seat occupied by Henry Kissinger.
I wonder if Esu managed to sneak on to one of those bomb-filled planes that roared over the tiniest of Cambodian villages, filled as they were with innocent people who had nothing to do with the American war on Vietnam. I wonder if it was in fact Esu himself who whispered strange seductive riddles into the White House’s echo chambers, setting in motion strange events that would eventually set humanity on another course altogether, for reasons of which are still unclear. I wonder if he is still here with us today, allowing mining to occur in Alaska, continuing hateful policies to pass that allow guns to flourish, that prevent certain books from being read, that ensure corporations prevail and the last of the worlds intact peoples to slowly fade into distant memory along with all the priceless wisdom they carry, wisdom that might keep us from entering finally into an artificial world so unrecognizable to the old gods that should Jesus ever return, he likely wouldn’t even recognize this place and thus keep passing on, not even able to notice any of his beloved followers.
Esu. The Trickster. I get chills even mentioning his name or the riddles he carries. Yet beyond our limited modern view are motivations and mycelial approaches that aren’t necessarily for human understanding. As a rational, emotional human, I detest the actions of Kissinger. I give zero fucks that he is 100 years old. One doesn’t merely earn the holy title of “elder” simply because one is old. If he is still alive, he can still be held accountable! This is what my American, justice driven, democratically-conditioned mind tells me anyway. And for that matter, let’s make sure we bring all those serving under George W. Bush to justice too. While we are at it, let’s lock up all oil execs. Unforgiveable the acts of ExxonMobil against humanity! It’s Memorial Day weekend for god’s sake! Let’s finally show our troops some respect and hold those responsible for their ongoing PTSD accountable! And then there is Esu, lurking on the hem of the deck, quietly allowing modernity to commence.
There are events that challenge further already confusing narratives, unplanned actions that instantly alter habitual response. We think one thing is right. We become convinced there are certain ways to do things, there is order in the world, justice, and that ultimately good prevails. Yet still today, dotting the most elegant parts of Cambodia, can be found wealthy estates filled with the architects of the Khmer Rouge. Those responsible for invading Iraq are enjoying a lovely life of luxury, publishing coffee table books filled with prints of pretty paintings they made of the soldiers who fought their wars for them. An entire generation of white-bodied liberals rises again to power, unaware that their ability to be well educated and carry progressive views is entirely the result of their forefathers’ owning slaves. And they, like the far right whom they claim to detest, will not let go of their power either. It wasn’t, after all, them who owned slaves. It wasn’t, after all, Kissinger, or Bush, or the CEO of Halliburton (who happens to be George W. Bush’s VP.) who actually did the evil deeds. An on the cycle goes…
Esu spins a curious web. Invasive species are seldom as invasive as we think. Rational thinking isn’t always so useful in the times in which we now find ourselves. Strange days indeed. In moments like these, we might reconsider which course we wish to be on, to redefine what justice looks like, what civilization is ultimately aiming for, and how we decide to interact with gods.
As an educator, after nearly 20 years of teaching, I know far less about what I share with students now than I did 20 years ago. As a father, I finally know a bit more about being a son. Sometimes, when we move forward far enough, we come to see that we have actually been treading backwards all the while. Could it be that when our ancestors fell into the hypnotic tunnel of modernity, we slipped into a peculiar way of cross-eyed thinking that enabled hellish scenarios to commence in order to offer birth to beings and spiritual pathways beyond which our techno-obsessed minds can now comprehend? Like a farmer who kills a seed in the killing fields of the garden, could it be that as we continue cascading into post-truth pandemonium that we are somehow churning soils as does violent exploding debris from erupting volcanos in a long game effort to birth new life?
As my pops like to say, “Hard tellin’, not knowin’.”
Martin Prechtel reveals to us that justice is but state sanctioned terrorism. “An eye for an eye makes the whole world go blind” said a wise man once. Wisdom like this makes me hesitant to wish pain on Mr. Kissinger today on his 100th birthday. Which is not to say I don’t think he should end his life without accountability. I do however sincerely wish that humans of diverse cultural skins collectively strive to not so much solve the riddles posed by the myriad merging streams of intergenerational, all-but-forgotten traumatic narratives but that we simply refrain from become cold and bitter, that we remain open, softly, to the possibility that there might still be bigger questions hidden within the cracks of the riddles themselves which offer reminders as to how vast this story really is and how grand, albeit oftentimes unfathomably tragic, it is to be a part of it all.
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May the spirits of all those beings, human and other than human, who were unceremoniously destroyed because of actions taken by the Nixon/Kissinger administration be remembered, freed and forever well fed.
May those who were forced to fight in needless wars for people not willing to fight them themselves be remembered today. We love you. We honor you. You are not forgotten.
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Please follow the links below for further details regarding Kissinger’s Secret War in Cambodia and the marvelous works of Bayo Akomolafe.
Survivors of Kissinger’s Secret War in Cambodia Reveal Unreported Mass Killings
#mayallbeingsbefree