THE GREAT DIVIDE

As I see it there will be no coming together, no reset, no dialogue to engender agreement, no detente to foster friendship. The USA and its allies will draw closer and create a wall of hatred toward all others.

What will they call the others, those beyond the pale, the excluded, the unwanted, the villains and enemies of freedom? They will surely coin some phrase to suit.

They will certainly be ‘THE FREE WORLD’, pure, sanctified by perennial self-praise, aloof and above, ever the judges and police force over our world.

Perhaps the others will be called ‘THE ENEMIES OF FREEDOM’ or suchlike, something suitably vilifiable.

We will move inexorably toward the great divide and behind the walls on its perimeter will be vast armies, weapons and cascades of vitriol. We will enter a living book named ‘1984‘ with an enemy ‘over there’ constantly plotting to destroy democratic values and enslave the free souls of the free world.

Mainstream news will broadcast views minute by minute concerning the latest plots discovered by nameless intelligence agents of the nefarious foreign agents who have formed sleeper cells and of the 'possible’ major campaigns of cyberwar they have thwarted. Fear will stalk every corridor and hallway. ‘The Russians’, 'The Chinese’, 'The Iranians’, 'The Cubans’ and all the other black-hearted monsters used to warn children to be good and read their anti-dictatorship pamphlets or be delivered over to be tortured by those fiends.

The war of words will be sloganized in every train, tram and underground carriage. Airports will be given special procedures with which to search for 'sleepers’, 'puppets’, 'bots’ and 'agents’. Neighbor will fear neighbor. Special offices will take calls on suspicious characters seen by the public acting strangely. No one will be safe or feel safe.

Dissent to be eliminated. No news that not reflecting state news is fake news and to be banned so it cannot infect the morale of the people. Only one narrative to be allowed to prevail. Too many lives would be lost if people are allowed to spread lies that aid the 'Sleepers’ in their cells. The message? Total war against the evil dictators who hate us. This following on from the war on terror and a now renewed war on drugs. All must obey to be safe. To refuse is to risk all. All dissidence now crushed for the freedom of all.

The USA, UK and Europe link in unbreakable bonds of self-protection against the enemy who seeks at every moment to create division between them, resolute, on guard, ever-suspicious, ever-vigilant, ready to repulse the malignant, ever-active enemy with ultra-punitive force.

Meanwhile in China life goes on much as normal. Infrastructure connecting remote vastnesses is built. Trade with nations nearby increases and good relations are supported by growing trust and inter-dependency. Now and then a glance is cast at the growing wall of words being erected in the West. Shrugs are shrugged before attention turns once more to creating better lives for all around.

In Russia the plan to spread the better lives of the cities to the remotest districts is ongoing. Areas in Siberia and the largely uninhabited eastern regions are slowly coming to life with better transport links, offers of free land and increasing funds from Moscow. Trade with China is booming and with Vietnam, Cambodia and others within Eurasia. Little heed is paid to the constant drumbeat from the West. What can be done to alleviate their self-created suffering? Nothing. Every offer of the hand of friendship is rejected with wild eyed paranoia suspecting a trap, a ruse, a fiendish ploy. Finally the offers end and the West is left to its slow decline into self-inflicted madness.

The West indeed declines. Lost in a myopia, of near blindness to reality, convinced of its own lies, it increasingly buries its head in its misery and throws an angry fist toward those it deems responsible. THEY did it! THEY did this to us! While the whole while they did it to themselves of course, ever deepening the divide and destroying their own societies by dint of lies, disinformation and endlessly pervasive propaganda rotting the very core of themselves from within.

In a decade or too little more is heard in the east from the walls the West has built around itself. The quiet too is disquieting. It is like a lid has been placed upon it making a vacuum flask of it. What has become of them?

Within those walls now remain only sheep, hardly able to see in front of them, scared to do unless they saw some terrible visage of an enemy waiting for them, terrified to speak in case it was the wrong thing, glancing about always thinking danger is near, minds full of giant enemies bearing terrible weapons with intent to bring them screaming to the slaughterhouse. Black-clad police stand over them whether protecting or ready to prosecute them no one knows. And always, everywhere that ubiquitous feeling of mind-numbing dread...

All were divided from one another within walls of fear and mistrust. Westerners and their access to sanity had been separated. Freedom had been destroyed from within, the walls of blind delusion had swallowed all sense of the real world that was now totally shut out.

A land of schizophrenia and paranoia had finally frightened itself to silence.

THE GREAT DIVIDE WAS NOW COMPLETE