Somebody to trust

Editor's comments

             If you make a careful and detailed observation of your thoughts and memories, you will possibly realise that you know only a few people that do not put impersonal and abstract things before their relationships with other human beings. There is a sentence that resounds effortlessly in all spheres of life which is not only generally accepted by society at large, but is often used interchangableably in various situations, and always generates admiration from others. Those who utter that sentence receive rounds of applause and are seen as objects of devotion, examples of chastity, altruism, and even loyalty.

             With some differences depending on the context, you can hear the same statement being uttered by a soccer player, a politician or a soldier. And, of couse, in the mouths of a nationalist or a priest of any religion, who lose the power of reason among the words in that sentence. However, I find such statements disturbing, worrying, abhorrent. It results in my automatic distrust of those who adopt that sentence as their motto, as the only valid anthem, whatever the application is. The sentence in question says that something that is usually nonexistent – or, at least, not tangible, amorphous, invisible – something that is “of a higher power and above all other things”, and of course, it is above people, whoever you are: God or the Church, Spain or Catalonia or the Basque Country, companies, political parties, the State, the Revolution, Comunism, Fascism, the capitalist system, the justice system, the law, language, this or that institution, this school, this newspaper, this bank, the Crown, the Republic, the Army, this or that TV channel, a brand, Barcelona FC or Real Madrid, my Latin people, this or that ideology. From the most bombastic idea to the most unsubstantial, everything can be “above the person”, and there is no problem in sacrificing or betraying people in order to preserve and venerate that “motto”, whatever it may be.

             There is hardly any difference between what a muslim terrorist shouts at the moment of commiting suicide (“Alah is the greatest”, I believe it is) and the first commandment of the Christians (“You will love God above everything else”, as I have studied it). All the other sentences are copies or versions of this absolutist assertion; sentences applied to whatever the devout follower thinks: from “Serving my nation” that you can read above the main entrance of all our police stations, to the “Socialist Bolivarian Revolution”, o whatever Hugo Chávez wants to call his totalitarian project in Venezuela. Take a look at the “ancestral Basque People and their pure race”, Rule Britannia, Deutschland über alles, the “Great Mother Russia”, the Treasury Department, The Times or Le Monde, Manchester United or Juventus, the Monarchy, the Constitution, BBC or RAI, the Papacy or the Cultural Revolution, and of course “the sovereign population”, and the name of any multinational or local company.

             The sentence we are talking about is, frequently, followed by another similar, additional and complementary sentence, but one that is even more explicit: “People come and go, but institutions remain”, as if all the institutions were not actually created by the people, who were working to serve us, but the other way around. What is true is that, century after century, people have been taught and trained to believe this: we all are here to serve every intangible ideology, to make it perpetual, to help that institution to last forever. So it isn't all that strange that such shallow assertions remain prevalent, given the formidable reputation of such statements. It is not uncommon for those who do not follow the movement, to be seen as a fool. What?! You are not ready to sacrifice your life for the sake of your company, Mr. X? A soldier that does not scramble for the opportunity to die for his country everytime that it's needed? A revolutionary man that doesn't denounce his former neighbours and friends? A religous man who hesitates to explode himself into thin air like a human bomb, if that's the way to kill the three infidels who are with him? A football player who doesn't reject a huge offer from a new team to betray his former, glorious club? These are examples of a selfish coward, a bastard, traitor, and renegade. Those who do not place certain priorities ahead of themselves, of others' feelings, only deserve reprimandment and disdain.

             The irony is that I feel so much safer and at ease when I am accompanied by those who have no “artificial and higher loyalties”, those who never consider certain priorities or preoccupations as more important than the affection of their friends. Those who will only judge me because of my acts and behaviour, and not because any ideology or belief. Even more important is that those are the only people that I can trust. I would never trust a devoutly religious person, a politician, a military man or a nationalist, maybe even not a Christian believer, because I know perfectly well that each one of them would be ready to betray me or sacrifice me because of their beliefs, if neccesary. If they had ever reached that point, they would become slaves of whatever they regard “above everything else”, unconditionally. And that is the reason why I trust only a very few number of people. So spread that belief. And if you look around you, you will see how few people you can trust unreservedly.

             To summarise, all the fanatic, extremist, obsessed... prophets, visionaries.. all them believe in a “I-cannot-describe-exactly-what” above all other people. Above everything... Fanaticism and obsession devour their inner beings, their geniune and natural feelings... until they have nothing left but their obsessive beliefs.