The Time Has Come To Talk of Many Things: Of Ducklings and Kings
In 2001, not long after the terrorist attacks of September 11th, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said that people “need to watch what they say, watch what they do…” It was an unfortunate comment that was rightly criticized for its implicit threat against anyone who did not say the “right” things. It was also a good example of the growing politicization of national security and what constitutes a threat to that security.
For a while, language like this was spoken with impunity, as those who adopted a “tough-on-terrorism” posture flexed their political muscles by setting French fries free of their nominal burden, among other priorities. If those same people hadn’t been proven horribly wrong in the execution of many of their tough-on-terrorism strategies (Iraq), their rhetoric might have hardened into something more explicitly sinister. For an example of such rhetoric in the extreme, we need only look at a figure currently in the news, Aleksandr Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, re-elected today in what is characterized as an unfree, unfair election. Those who oppose Lukashenko (who won with something like 83 percent of the vote; Aleksandr Milinkevich, the opposition candidate, came in a close second with 6 percent) announced that they would protest the results in a peaceful gathering in the capital, Minsk, in October Square. In response, Lukashenko “vowed to crush any protests, warning Belarussians not to participate and foreign governments not to encourage them,” according to Steven Lee Myers of the New York Times. Furthermore:
“We know where they met, whom they met with and what discussions they had,” Mr. Lukashenko said during remarks made at an auto factory in Zhodino on Friday, according to the Interfax news agency. “God forbid that they should try to perpetrate something in the country. We will twist off their heads as though they are ducklings.”
We will twist off their heads as though they are ducklings. Is this a sign of Lukashenko’s power—that he could make such an explicit and mean-spirited threat? Or is it the product of a culture that values strength and decisiveness (but not ducklings)? One in which opponents don’t stand a chance. Is there a cultural or political driver behind that statement? Or is it just something clever that Mr. Lukashenko thought up on the spot? Whatever the case, the United States would have to be paralyzed by fear before President Bush could compare opponents to ducklings, if only because some would say he was making terrorists look sympathetic. The closest acceptable animal metaphors we employ have to do with taking advantage of defenseless animals to demonstrate the ease of victory (fish in a barrel, ducks in a row), which I guess is not so far from Lukashenko’s point. Instead, Bush compares terrorists to criminals—which they are—wanted dead or alive, to be “smoked out” of their caves. Unless you bring up the Crusades analogy.
No, for an American politician, twisting the heads off of ducklings won’t work as a metaphor for easy triumph. It would be like proclaiming that dispatching of your enemies is as easy as drowning kittens in a sack, or stepping on puppies. Big mistake. Politicians don’t have the grip on this country that Lukashenko has on his—he controls the media, got Parliament to make organizing protests or making statements against the state punishable by years in prison, even resurrected the KGB. Lukashenko can make the line work, but decapitated ducklings are out of our rhetorical bounds.
American politicians only make aggressive, extreme, or interesting statements if they don’t care about the repercussions, are desperate or confused, or are just bad politicians. Examples? Mike Bloomberg has recently sharpened his tongue, wandering off-script to claim, among other things, that junior high students were better reporters than the City Hall press corps, a habit attributed to his lack of grander political ambitions. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin’s sad and satisfying call for help after Katrina:”Now get off your asses and do something, and let’s fix the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this country.” George Bush’s attempt to describe what happens when you fool me once. Even Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill was sort of puzzling and refreshing in his impolitic bluntness. On the other hand, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s famous labeling of Democrats in the state legislature as “girlie men” made for great copy, but would only invite ridicule now that he is in more dire political straits.
If, eventually, Belarussia has its own revolution, as the opposition wishes, one in the tradition of the Orange Revolution or the Rose Revolution, Lukashenko may become the unfortunate duckling. In the meantime, he’s the one in charge, and he’ll twist the heads off of as many ducklings as he likes, thank you very much. “L’etat c’est moi,” said Louis XIV—apocryphal, quite likely, but close enough. It’s a nice position to be in. Remember Tom DeLay, who tried to smoke a cigar at a federal building and, when told that federal law prohibits smoking in such facilities, replied, “I am the federal government.”
Louis died, eventually, and DeLay fell, and continues to fall, but Lukashenko hangs on. It’s good to be the king, or something close—I know it, you know it, Louis XIV knew it, Aleksandr Lukashenko and DeLay know it, Mel Brooks knows it. Even George W. Bush knows it. He told us as much as president-elect in December 2000 (and continues to make the point): “If this were a dictatorship, it’d be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I’m the dictator.” That’s a funny thing for an American president to repeatedly bring up. Fair’s fair, I guess. He’s the guy running the country. It’s not like he should have to watch what he says.
