Browsing
Twitter, one came across this interesting tweet. Some replies to this tweet too
are interesting. Further browsing led to this tweet
capturing screenshots of tweets by some handle. There is another tweet
that captures a screenshot of a Reddit post. All these tweets pertain to reactions to the ANTIFA
sponsored violence currently happening in different places in US. In their own
ways, they capture reactions that seek to bring the human behaviour when
confronted with separating equilibrium.
When one
observes the tweets or the posts on Reddit, there is certain pattern that
emerges. One of those tweets is virtually pleading to spare them because they
are progressive. It is apparently from an editor of news media outlet. The outlet
claims to be progressive or in other words, a supporter of the Antifa cause.
Yet it wonders why Antifa is attacking it. Implied is it would be understandable
if Antifa attacked a media outlet that was less progressive. The word
progressive in the context implies someone who supports Antifa cause or in the
Indian equivalence, the left liberal ecosystem. Another tweet apparently
indicates a sort of romanticism with attacking other’s households or buildings
but very different reaction when it comes attacking their own. What seems
romantic to the handle is a affordable housing quarters being attacked but
relatively higher end housing cannot be attacked since they live there. The Reddit
post virtually argues that being the recipient of violence is greater torture
than police reactions especially if it involves their own car. The post talks
about their contribution in supporting the Antifa cause and laments the reward
for the same after hours of tolerating police attacks was an Antifa attack on
their own car.
This is not
something new that has happened. Similar instances of attacks were observed in
the Shaheen Bagh stand-off and the Delhi riots. When Islamic terrorists
attacked the school in Peshawar in 2015, many parents were pleading mercy for
children on the grounds of them being Islamic. It would seem to many that
massacring non-Islamic children was okay. There was a post on social media on
anti-CAA protestors seeking to burn a train in West Bengal. The handle which
posted was naturally trembling in fear but till that date seem to have
vociferously supported the protestors. Similar such report came from a Tamil
student who was stoned in Kashmir. Incidentally his posts on Facebook were
found to be in strong sympathy with the Kashmiri separatists.
Despite this,
there are many who continue to support Antifa type naxal gangs or their
equivalents. Similar support is found for the Islamist terrorist groups. There seem
to attach a romanticism to these groups. The liberal ecosystem in India
continues to vociferously support and plead on behalf of the Tukde-Tukde gang
and their cousins. On every matter, there seems to be more than eager to support
them rather take a consistent stand on issues. This is something visible on
social reforms in Islam to naxal plots to eliminate top guns in the political
and social hierarchy. The answer to these lie in what one can term as ‘Bakasura’
phenomenon.
Bakasura was a
demon in the Indian epic Mahabharata. He used to terrorize people and eat them.
The people in the town had to devise a solution and came with an offer to
Bakasura. He would be offered one person every day for food with the rider that
he has stop killing others. The bargain was Faustian. Implied was to save
oneself for today, somebody else will be sacrificed. The hope was since he
would kill somebody else, one could be saved and not get killed. At the very
least, one could postpone their death to the last. What was missed is there is
only postponement of the inevitable but not an escape. In fact, many Germans
including the Communists supported Hitler on this very premise. In the story
however, Bhimsena goes as that day’s ‘sacrifical lamb’ and kills the demon. But
as the experience shows in the German case, when they came for ‘you’ there was
nobody else left to defend ‘you’ as all have been killed or imprisoned.
This precise
Bakasura syndrome drives people into a Faustian bargain with Islamic terror
groups or communist terror groups. Aside of the terror groups, the bargains are
executed even with the ‘relatively’ milder groups in the cause of various
shades of Islamism or Communism. Both Islamists and Communist-Fascists thrive
on two features. One is they are adept at claiming victimhood on the slightest
on the matters. Secondly, they are merciless towards those who do not belong to
them. Converts too face retribution without mercy. As a matter of fact, the
dominant groups practice merciless execution of the non-dominant groups amongst
the same cult. Aside of the few who tend to be naïve and believe their causes
to be genuine, many know the Faustian nature of the deal. Yet they seem to
persist with it. There are others who stand with them since they are so as to
speak enemy’s enemy. The coalitions might be uneasy but an unavoidable evil at
the given moment.
The reason is
the fear that these groups set in amongst others. Humans perform cost benefit
analysis taking short term into account. In the short term, the payoffs might
be high. They include the perks monetary and non-monetary besides demonstrating
woke culture to the rest of the society. It is sort of a signal that they are
not averse to standing with those fighting for alleged injustices even though
it puts them on the wrong side of the establishment. Yet as evidence shows,
these manifestations of various signals have hardly wooed the hardline cults following
the communist or Islamist denominations. At some level, it is the postponement of
the inevitable to some future date that drives the bargains. These bargains are
not unusual. They have been observed in society for long.
The reactions as
evident in the posts is short term. It can be safely deduced that instead of
calling the bluff of the Antifa gang, these woke progressives would perhaps
redouble their efforts to prove woke credentials. Evidence exists for the same
from similar instances in India including the recent Shaheen Bagh or incidents
that keep happening in Kashmir. To those involved in violence, the cost benefit
analysis is skewed in favour of them. No matter of their attacks on their
supporters, they know that the support will not dwindle. Unless these practitioners
of violent cults face a cost that is too high for their immediate benefits,
these actions would not stop neither would be the support of their ecosystem.
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