All language subtitles for Exterminate.All.the.Brutes.S01E03.

In kindergarten,
I realized that the world

was not what I
was told it would be.

The dogma, the theatrics,
were now transparent.

Killing
and enslaving other beings,

created a dilemma
for the Roman Catholic Church.

The compromise...

freedom for the savages,
the Indians.

Slavery for the barbarians,
the Africans.

Brought by force,
and pushed to death.

A state-sponsored genocide.

The 18th century was
called "The Age of Revolutions."

But one usually thinks
of the American Revolution,

not the Haitian Revolution,
which played a central role

in the collapse
of the entire system of slavery.

The silencing
of the Haitian Revolution

is part of a narrative
of global domination.

The debt owed to Haiti
still remains to be paid.

Since its first
appearance in East Africa,

the human species has been
on a long migration,

first to Asia,
and then to Central Europe.

This process, lasting
for multiple thousands of years,

can be considered
as the premise of globalization.

On these roads,

the circulation of the most
vital and decisive commodities

would permit the survival
of the human race

and its adaptation
on the planet.

And along these roads,
for better or worse,

silk, of course,
would circulate,

but also religion, language,
refugees, artists,

technology, and pandemics.

People create
families, tribes, nations.

Sometimes,
they need to protect the family,

defend the tribe,
increase the nation's resources.

Sometimes,
it's just about surviving.

Other times,
it's for the wrong reasons.

But whether for protection
or conquest,

for preservation or profit,

these acts
might require being armed.

And over the centuries,
we lost our purpose,

and then our bearings.

-Fire!

At the beginning,
the very powerful Moguls,

whose empire was founded
in 1526 in India,

were more developed
than any European state.

But they had no ships
able to withstand artillery fire

or carry heavy guns.

Instead of building up
their own fleet,

the Moguls chose to purchase
defense services

from these European states.

This extremely
lucrative commerce

would lead to the creation

of the first
multinational corporations ever,

the British East India Company

and The Dutch
East India Company.

Meanwhile,
the Chinese had already

discovered gunpowder

and had already cast
the first cannon

in the mid-13th century.

But they felt so safe
in their part of the world

that they refrained
from participating

in the naval arms race.

So the backward
and poorly resourced Europe

of the 16th century
would acquire a monopoly

on ocean-traveling ships,
with guns capable

of spreading death
and destruction

across huge distances.

Europeans
became the masters of cannons

that killed
long before the weapons

of their opponents
could reach them.

The art of killing at a distance

became a European specialty.

Meanwhile,
in the so-called Third World,

small arms were still able
to measure up

-to those in Europe.

The standard weapon
was a muzzle-loaded,

smooth-bored flintlock musket...

-...which was also manufactured

by village blacksmiths
in Africa.

But these weapons were slow
and difficult to handle.

They emitted puffs of smoke

that revealed
where the marksman was.

To say nothing of the fact

that he also had to stand up
while reloading.

The musket
was a frightening weapon

for those who heard it
for the first time.

But its range
was only 100 yards.

So the colonial wars

of the first half
of the 19th century

were lengthy and expensive.

Prussia replaced
its muzzle loaders

with a breech-loaded
Dreyse rifle.

This was tested
for the first time in 1866

in the Austro-Prussian war
over hegemony in Germany.

In 1884,
Hiram Stevens Maxim

who also invented
the mousetrap,

manufactured an automatic weapon
that was light to carry

and fired nine rounds
per second.

It was used by the Germans
in East Africa in 1888,

and by the British in 1893
during the First Matabele War.

At the same time,
steel had become so cheap,

it could be used
for the manufacture of arms

on a large scale.

In Africa and Asia,

local smiths could no longer
make copies of the new weapons

as they did not have access to
industrially manufactured steel.

-At the end of the 1890s,

the revolution of the rifle
was complete.

All European infantrymen
could now fire

lying down
without being spotted,

-in all weathers.

Fifteen shots in as many seconds

at targets up to a distance
of 1,000 yards,

confirming the myth

of the white man's
invincibility.

Unfortunately, their bullets

were not totally efficient
against "the savages

and fanatical tribesmen,"
as they called them,

for they often
continued their charges

even after being hit
four or five times.

The answer
was the dumdum bullet,

or expanding bullet,

named after the factory
in Dum Dum outside Calcutta.

The lead core
of the dumdum bullet

explodes the casing,

causing large, painful wounds
that do not heal well.

The use of dumdum bullets
between civilized states

would soon be prohibited.

They were to be reserved
for big game hunting

and non-white unarmed
populations in colonial wars.

At Omdurman, in 1898,

the whole new European arsenal
was tested

against a numerically superior
and very determined enemy.

One of the most cheerful
depicters of war,

Winston Churchill,

later winner of
the Nobel Prize for Literature,

was the war correspondent
of the Morning Post.

"Nothing like
the Battle of Omdurman

will ever be seen again,"
wrote Churchill in a book

published after the experience.

"It was the last link
in the long chain

of those spectacular conflicts

whose vivid
and majestic splendor

has done so much
to invest war with glamour.

This kind of war was full
of fascinating thrills,"

he wrote.

The morning of September 2nd,
1898, the following occurred.

"The White Flags
were nearly over the crest.

In another minute,

they would become visible
to the batteries."

"Did they realize
what would come to meet them?

They were in a dense mass,

2,800 yards
from the 32nd Field Battery

and the gunboats.

The ranges were known.
It was a matter of machinery.

The mind was fascinated
by the impending horror.

I could see it coming.
In a few seconds,

swift destruction
would rush on these brave men.

They topped the crest

and drew out into full view
of the whole army.

Their white banners made them
conspicuous above all.

As they saw the camp
of their enemies,

they discharged their rifles
with a great roar of musketry

and quickened their pace."

"It was a terrible sight,

for as yet
they had not hurt us at all,

and it seemed
an unfair advantage

to strike thus cruelly
when they could not reply."

Churchill found
the enemy's plan of attack

wise and well-thought-out,
except for one vital point.

It was based
on a fatal underestimation

of the effectiveness
of modern weapons.

"Within the space of five hours,

the strongest
and best-armed savage army

yet arrayed
against a modern European power

had been destroyed
and dispersed

with hardly any difficulty,
comparatively small risk,

and insignificant loss
to the victors.

Thus ended
the Battle of Omdurman,

the most striking triumph
ever gained

by the arms of science
over barbarians,"

wrote Churchill.

At Omdurman,

no British soldier
expected to be killed,

for this was only
a sporting element

in a splendid game.

The industrial development
of firearms

was playing an important role
in U.S. colonization as well.

As a war president,
George Washington

thought it unreasonable
to rely on foreign weapons.

With generous start-up funds,
lucrative long-term contracts,

and heavy tariffs
on foreign imports,

he literally jumpstarted
the U.S. arms industry

into becoming the world's
first arms manufacturer.

The very first corporation

established
by the United States

was the Springfield Armory
in Western Massachusetts,

founded in 1777.

It soon introduced standardized
interchangeable parts

and assembly line production,
key factors in the takeoff

of the Industrial Revolution
in the U.S.

and its establishment

as a capitalist,
imperialist state.

And having more arms
allows more expansion.

More expansion means more wars,

for which you then need
more arms.

A profitable
chicken-and-egg bonanza

in a totally
incestuous relationship

between military industry
and governments.

The so-called Monroe Doctrine

became the order of the day.

At its core, in 1850,
it was a mere commitment

to keep the Americas,
North and South,

safe from European
colonizing ambitions.

Over the years, from
President Theodore Roosevelt

to John F. Kennedy
and Ronald Reagan,

the doctrine came to cover
any perceived threat

to U.S. interests
around the world.

Overseas domination
became the goal.

As Reverend Josiah Strong
argued in 1885

in his best-selling book
Our Country,

"As a superior race,

the U.S.
had a divine responsibility

to control the world."

There is something
we need to talk about.

Something that keeps
bothering me,

and that we cannot leave out
of the present story...

especially
because it represents,

in a troublesome way,
the symbol of all evil.

It is something odd,
hidden deep behind two words.

Hiroshima. Nagasaki.

It was said that it was a war
against fascism.

It was said that it was to
prevent further American death.

But hundreds of thousands died.

The accounting is irrefutable.

In a chess game,
the objective is to checkmate

the opponent's king.

All other pieces
then become collateral.

Their respective value
depends on the strategic value

you assign to them.

In the present case,
the king is an emperor,

and Japanese deaths
will provide the collateral.

Shock and awe. A massacre
determined by an algorithm.

It came at eight o'clock
on August 6th, 1945.

Nobody was expecting it.

They were pawns
in a sordid game.

"Killing at a distance"
had just taken on a new meaning.

No explanation required.

No cries tolerated, nor pity.

Surrender or death at best.

An endless wasteland
of dead people.

For it is a massacre,
not a heroic act.

Why wasn't it ever called
a war crime?

Is it because
those who dropped the bombs

are those who got to name
the deed?

"Naming is power,"
said Trouillot.

Two days
after the bombing of Nagasaki,

President Truman said...

"The only language
they seem to understand

is the one we used to bomb them.

When dealing with an animal...

treat it like an animal.

It's totally unfortunate,
but it's still the truth."

Indeed, there is no more to say.

We know now
what the task truly is...

for Kurtz in Joseph Conrad's
Heart of Darkness,

as well
as at the Battle of Omdurman.

Exterminate all the brutes.

-Take the cup.

Okay, great.

Why don't you
take off your shirt?

No, not you, Henry.
The young man.

Can you translate for him?

Good.
Make him look more natural.

Yeah, native, blending in.
You know what I mean?

-Yeah, okay.

Change position.

Really? You want
to just lay down like this?

Well, at least take the cigar.

Take the cigar!

Okay, boy? Hey, you, boy!

Look at him.

Of course, I know
he doesn't speak Spanish.

Put a hand on your hip
like this.

-Yeah, you see? Perfect!

Change position.
Both of you stand up.

Okay. Pick up the rifles.

-Him, too. Yeah. One each.

Okay. And put the gun
on your shoulder.

Well, help him with it.

Henry-- Okay.
Don't tell him, show him.

No. You know what?

-Put it on the other side.

Yeah. Now, Henry,
look at the distance.

You are looking
at the Nile River over there.

Be inspired. Show some passion.

The whole world
has been waiting for you.

-That's it!

Awesome!

Yup. Classic Stanley.

He tends to overdramatize
every so often. Can't help it.

The man changed my name
from Ndugu M'hali

to Kalulu
because it sounded better.

I have never told him

how I enjoy
his company sometimes.

But occasionally,
he can be quite a bully too.

He brought me with him
to Europe and America,

as his butler, officially.

But when alone,
we were just friends.

Go figure.

The fearless explorer
and the noble savage.

That in the press, he called me
his "infant cannibal"

should have tipped me off.

I have been
a good soldier all my life.

The perfectly
well-educated pupil

of a Western
humanistic civilization.

I thought that to be mature
was to be knowledgeable,

smart, sophisticated,
and gracious.

I was educated to believe
that some types of behavior

were acceptable,
and others were not.

And that when I had done wrong,

I had to learn
from that experience.

My parents taught me that,
as a Black person,

I should never find myself
on the wrong side of the tracks.

I learned to behave.

I learned to be sociable,
presentable, congenial.

I had to negotiate daily
with an intimate, unnamed,

and vulgar enemy, infatuated
with a superiority complex.

Let's say,
like Frank T.J. Mackey.

I will not apologize
for what I need.

Or Jordan Belfort.

I have been a good soldier

and a good learner,

but I could never really fathom
what it actually means

to be superior,

logically degrading
everybody else as inferior.

A singular assumption,
to say the least.

Visiting Europe, I discovered
people who genuinely thought,

and were naively convinced,
that they embodied the world.

The whole world.
And in that world,

I was assigned
the role of a footnote.

Or at best,
like in most Hollywood movies,

a supporting role
with guarantied death

and careless disposal
by some wild beast,

sometimes before the third act.

-Go back!

Back across the log!
Get Jimmy outta here!

-No!
-Gotta run, Jimmy.

-Run!

Joseph Conrad's book,
Heart of Darkness,

was influenced
by the Battle of Omdurman.

Conrad starts the novel

with what has been called
"the toolbox of imperialism,"

which involves the ship's guns
that fire on a continent,

the railway that facilitates
the plundering of the continent,

the river steamer that carries
Europeans and their weapons

into the heart of the continent.

This new era
in the history of imperialism

also became a new era
in the history of racism.

Europeans started mistaking
military superiority

for intellectual
and even biological superiority.

That's when things turned nasty.

No one had to pretend anymore.

Okay. Please look over here. Mm.

Please, you there!

Could you move
a bit to the right?

And you! That's not you!
Don't move.

You, a little to the left. Yep.

Now, you give him a hand.

No! You give him a hand, I said.

Well, then,
you take another hand.

And you, it's this one.
It's a hand and hand.

Excellent. Okay.
So, the big guy,

with the towel head,
if you can just move back a bit.

Perfect.

Excellent. I think that's it.

I like that.

Can you just uncross your arms,
please?

-Why?
-You wanna know why?

It makes you look defiant,
that's why.

I'm just saying.

Okay. Keep it that way,
for all I care.

"Does the West
have the will to survive?"

asked a U.S. president.

The question itself
is perplexing.

Clearly, I am not included
in his concept of the West.

Unquestionably, to belong
to the right civilization

does bear some entitlements.

I might be wary
of white institutions in general

and of the religious ones
in particular,

but for some reason,

I was attracted to the idea
of joining the Boy Scouts.

My best friend and neighbor
in Leopoldville,

the son of a French doctor,
was a Boy Scout.

Robert knew
all the regulatory moves.

He even had a code name,
Red Raven,

because he had red hair.

He taught me the signs,
the knots,

and even tightly kept secrets.

The idea of a brotherhood of
the like-minded captivated me,

but not as much as the idea of
owning a multi-task pocketknife

and being allowed to dare make
unsafe fires in the woods.

Baden-Powell is the founder
of the Boy Scouts.

During the second Ashanti War
in 1896,

two days' march away
from the capital, Kumasi,

as the commander
of the advance troop,

he received an envoy offering
unconditional surrender.

To his disappointment,
he did not have to fire

a single shot at the natives.

To get hostilities going,

the British then planned
extreme provocations.

So they arrested
the king of Ashanti,

King Prempeh,
together with his whole family.

The king and his mother were
forced to crawl on all fours

up to the British officers

sitting on crates
of biscuit tins,

to demonstrate
their subjugation.

But still, this time as well,
the British unfortunately

found no use for their weapons.

Baden-Powell
writes to his mother...

"I thoroughly enjoyed
the outing,

except for the want of a fight

which I fear will preclude
our getting any medals

or decoration."

This is young
and ambitious Georges Cuvier.

On January 27th, 1796,

Georges has just arrived
in Paris

to hold his first lecture
at the newly opened

Institut National de France.
He is 26.

Cuvier was sensational.

He spoke of the mammoth
and the mastodon.

Remnants of these huge
elephantine animals

had recently been found
in Siberia and North America.

Cuvier demonstrated
that they did not belong

to the same species

as either the Indian
or the African elephant,

but constituted species
of their own, now extinct.

"Now extinct."

Those were the two words
that horrified the listeners.

Because in the 18th century,

people still believed
in a ready-made universe

to which nothing could be added.

And perhaps, even more important
to mankind's peace of mind,

nothing could be
subtracted from it.

All of God's creatures,
once created,

could not disappear
from His universe.

"What then was the explanation
for these gigantic bones

and strange animal-like stones
that had puzzled man

since antiquity?" asked Cuvier.

Cuvier's idea,
that there could be species

that had died out,
gave rise to such resistance

that it took over 100 years
to become accepted.

But how they had died out
and why, he did not explain.

In 1850,

the great liberal philosopher
Herbert Spencer--

yes, that Spencer--

wrote, "Imperialism
has served civilization

by clearing the inferior races
off the Earth."

"The forces
which are working out

the great scheme
of perfect happiness,

taking no account
of incidental suffering,

exterminate such sections
of mankind

as stand in their way.

Be he human or be he brute,

the hindrance
must be got rid of."

Here, the human being
was expressly placed

on an equal footing
with the animal

as an object for extermination.

One could take Spencer's
fantasies of annihilation

as personal eccentricities,

explained perhaps by the fact
that all Spencer's siblings

had died when he was a child.

A calm
and comforting conclusion.

Enter Robert Knox.

Knox had studied
comparative anatomy

with Cuvier in Paris.

He was a Scot, had served
as an army doctor

in South Africa, and had founded

a school of anatomy
in Edinburgh.

"Can the dark races
become civilized?

I should say not," says Knox.

All we know

is that since the beginning
of history,

the dark races
have been the slaves

of those lighter-skinned.

Of course, what he meant exactly
by "dark race"

is not easy to answer.

Are the Jews a dark race?
The Gypsies? The Chinese?

One could ask.

"I feel disposed to think
that there must be a physical

and, consequently,
a psychological

inferiority in the dark races,"

asserted Knox.

"The texture of the brain is,
I think, generally darker,

and the white part
more strongly fibrous.

But I speak from extremely
limited experience."

Indeed, Knox says
that he had done an autopsy

on only one colored person,

which somehow does demonstrate

the limitations
of his experiments.

Thomas Jefferson
found it inconceivable

that one single species
could disappear from nature.

But nevertheless,
more than 99 percent

of all species
have already died out...

...most of them
in a few catastrophes

that came close
to wiping out all life.

This is the scope of our story.

As a young student,
Charles Darwin,

regarded as the father
of evolutionary biology,

heard Knox's
controversial lectures.

In his book
On the Origins of the Species,

published in 1859,
he would demonstrate

that all species
adapt to their environment

through natural selection.

Darwin argued in favor
of a common origin

of all human races.

Although his thesis as such
neither confirmed nor denied

Knox's and others' ideas
regarding any hierarchy

within mankind,
his theory of evolution

was clearly useful
to the racists.

After Darwin, race became
the decisive explanation

in far wider circles.

Racism was accepted
and became a central element

in British imperial ideology.

After Darwin,
it also became accepted

to shrug your shoulders
at genocide.

If you were upset,

you were just showing
your lack of education.

Genocide began to be regarded

as the inevitable byproduct
of progress.

And prejudice
against alien peoples,

which had always existed,
was now given organized form

and apparent
scientific validation.

"Meanwhile," added Darwin,
"Regarding future life,

each person will have to
judge for himself."

In just a few years,

the surface of the earth
will be quite changed.

A new era is dawning

that will multiply
the undertakings of man.

Light is consuming the darkness.

Let me introduce to you now,
my dear colleague

Dr. Frederic Farrar,
who has been recently elected

a fellow at the Royal Society.

In his major book,
Systema Naturae,

the great Swedish botanist
Carl Linnaeus discriminates,

with his usual acuteness,

the intellectual
and moral characteristics

of four great human families.

The Homo americanus,
the Homo europeus,

the Homo asiaticus,
the Homo afer.

Yet we believe

that these and all other races

may be reduced to three
great classes or divisions.

Savage... semicivilized...

and civilized.

Only two races,
the Aryan and the Semitic,

were civilized.

The Chinese
belonged to the semicivilized,

as they had once been brilliant,

but suffered
from arrested development.

The savage races have always
lived in the same ignorance

and wretchedness.

They are without a past
and without a future...

doomed,

as races infinitely nobler
have been before them,

to a rapid
and inevitable extinction.

Out of all
their teeming myriads,

never have they produced
one single man

whose name
is of the slightest importance

to the history of our race.

History starts
when man starts to write.

Take a specimen from
the 100 million of Africans,

not one of the most degenerates,
such as the Hottentot,

but a real, pure-blooded Negro.

What hope was there
that he could be civilized?

The great majority of Negroes
will go under in a decline

from which only a few
can be saved.

Many races
have already disappeared.

Please, gentlemen.
Ladies, let's be civil.

Show some respect.
After all, it's just science.

Fuck you! Fuck you. Two times.

These races,
the lowest types of humanity

and presenting
its most hideous features

of moral
and intellectual degradation,

were doomed to go under.

And I call them
irreclaimable savages.

-Irreclaimable savages!

Irreclaimable savages!

What did actually happen

when knowledge,
industry, and enlightenment

exterminated the inferior races?

Darwin, who had traveled
to South America

in his younger years, knew.

He had seen General Rosas' men
in Argentina,

butchering Indians,
smothered in blood and vomit.

He knew how eyes
were gouged out

when an Indian
had sunk his teeth into a thumb

and refused to let go.

How women were killed,
and prisoners made to talk.

He had a name for it.

He called it
"the struggle for life."

-Last name?
-Trouillot.

-First name?
-Rolph-Michel.

-Ready?
-Sure.

Like Roxanne,
Michel-Rolph, and Sven,

I do have my nightmares
as well.

Churchill said after the war,

"We are in the presence
of a crime without a name."

But Raphael Lemkin, a lawyer
of Polish-Jewish descent,

had already created that name
in 1943.

Combining the ancient Greek
"genos,"

which means "race, tribe, clan,"

and the Latin "cide,"

which expresses
the notion of killing,

Lemkin invented the word
"genocide."

At the New York Public Library,

in the
Raphael Lemkin Collection,

in Reel 3, Box 2, Folder 1,

there is a list of the world's
genocides throughout history.

"Some things are so evil

that it's enough
that they simply happened,"

said the man.

"They don't need to be given
a second existence

by being retold."

He took a drag on his cigarette.

"That's what I think
on some days, anyway,"

he went on.

"Other days,
I think the opposite."

The past has a future
we never expect.

One of the fundamental ideas

of the 19th century

was that there are races,
peoples, nations, and tribes

that are in the process
of dying out.

Or, as the Prime Minister
of England, Lord Salisbury,

expressed it
in his famous speech

in Albert Hall
on May 4th, 1898...

"One can roughly divide
the nations of the world

into the living and the dying.

The weak nations
become increasingly weaker

and the strong, stronger."

It was in the nature of things
that the living nations

would fraudulently "encroach on
the territory of the dying."

He spoke the truth.

During the 19th century,
Europeans had encroached

on vast territories
around the world.

The word "genocide"
had not yet been invented,

but the matter existed.

Joseph Conrad may not have heard
Lord Salisbury's speech.

He had no need to.

Conrad could no more
avoid hearing

of the ceaseless genocide
that marked his century

than any
of his contemporaries could.

It is we who have suppressed it.

We do not want to remember.

We would prefer for genocide

to have begun
and ended with Nazism.

This would indeed
be most comforting.

For sure,
the nine-year-old Adolf Hitler

was not in Albert Hall either

when Lord Salisbury
was speaking.

He had no need to.

He knew it already.

The air Hitler
and all other Western people

in his childhood breathed

was soaked in the conviction

that imperialism is
a biologically necessary process

which,
according to the laws of nature,

leads to the inevitable
destruction of the lower races.

It was a conviction
that had already cost

millions of human lives

before Hitler provided
his highly personal application.

But in the mid-19th century,

the Germans had still
not exterminated any people.

So they were able

to look more critically
on the phenomenon

than other Europeans did.

In South West Africa, in 1904,

the Germans demonstrated that
they, too, could master an art

that Americans, British,
and other Europeans

had exercised all through
the 19th century.

The art of hastening
the extermination

of a people of inferior culture.

Following the North American
example,

the Herero people
were banished to reservations

and their grazing lands
were handed over

to German immigrants
and colonial companies.

For over two decades,
their leader, Samuel Maharero,

had signed one treaty
after another with the Germans,

and ceded large areas
of land to avoid war.

But just as the Americans
did not feel bound

by their treaties
with the Indians,

the Germans did not think that,
as a higher race,

they had any need to abide
by treaties

they made with the natives.

As in North America,
the German plans for immigration

presupposed that the natives
were to be relieved

of all land of any value.

When the Hereros resisted,

General
Adolf Lebrecht von Trotha

ordered their extermination.

Every Herero
found within the German borders,

with or without weapons,
was to be shot.

But most of them died
without direct violence.

The Germans simply drove them
into the desert

and sealed off the border.

One didn't yet talk
about the final solution,

but that was what one
had in mind.

In the official account
of the war,

the German officers wrote,

"The army earned the gratitude
of the whole fatherland.

The sentence
had been carried out,

and the Hereros had ceased
to be an independent people."

Eighty thousand human beings
died in the desert.

The few thousand left
were sentenced to hard labor

in concentration camps.

A new concept of incarceration,

invented in 1896
by the Spaniards in Cuba,

anglicized by the Americans,

entered German language
and politics.

Paul Rohrbach
wrote in his best seller,

German Thought in the World,
published in 1912,

that "existences,
be they of peoples

or individuals who do not
produce anything of value,

cannot make any claim
to the right to exist."

We believe that married people

who have transmissible diseases
should not have children.

No couple who has the disease
of feeble-mindedness,

or insanity,

or epilepsy
should have children.

The over-infatuation
with genetic purity.

An impressive amount of energy

put into the classification
of people.

A pathological obsession
for the concept of race

that scientifically
does not exist.

Despite the careful staging,

one gesture, an unexpected
gesture of irritation,

not foreseen by the director
of this strange display,

will betray the masquerade
and restore dignity.

What is sure

is that their way
of life is threatened.

Has he, indeed,
any right to exist?

Does she?

-Do they?

But after all we know now,

indeed, who is to judge?

I have seen these images before.

The same hatred of aliens.

The same violence.

The same roar
when the leader speaks.

The western world is panicking.

You will not replace us!

A delirious,
spiraling panic.

People are looking for saviors.

Any kind will do.

This is not immigration.
This is invasion.

But possibly,
one with easy-sounding solutions

that others will pay for.

Make America great again.

We have been there before,
without learning much.

The facts are staring us
in the face.