The U.S. has now chosen its new president: Joe Biden. But despite a united front against Donald Trump, Democrat’s victory was on a razor’s edge. In the U.S., many pessimists claim that Donald Trump lost but Trumpism reigns regardless of the election outcome. Nihan Duran interviewed Human Rights Advocate and the former Vice President of World Council of Indigenous Peoples (WCIP) Poka Laenui (Hayden F. Burgess) on the future of the U.S. democracy after the Trump administration, rights of the indigenous people, and finally the root causes of Trumpism as another form of populism in the Western world.

When we compare the 2020 U.S. election with the one in 2016 when Donald Trump was running against Hillary Clinton, back then, people were associating Trump’s victory with a reaction to something called “the establishment.” Yet this issue was never raised during the current election. Why do you think it is so?

It is so because, after four years in the White House, Trump’s finger-pointing at the “Establishment” would be a self-critique. Biden did not make an issue about the “Establishment” because he had much bigger fish to fry, Trump’s absolute failure in the Corona Virus war!

Was the debate on “the establishment” baseless?

Yes, as promoted by Trump. His “draining the swamp” of those establishment crooks during Trump’s administration showed that he brought in the dredges into his administration, directly counteracting his accusations against “the establishment.”

So, what did happen to “the establishment”? Simply evaporated?

It is a matter of whose establishment we are trying to address. Trump’s new Republican establishment will evaporate. The Democratic establishment will assert itself, especially in areas where the Republicans will have abandoned as a result of the loss of the White House, the loss of the House of Representatives in 2018, and the loss of its strength in the Senate, still undetermined the extent of their Senate loss.

There have been efforts to recognize the rights of indigenous people both locally and internationally. This paved the way for what you refer to as decolonization. What makes “Trumpism” so peculiar and worrisome for the future of the U.S. democracy and the rights of indigenous people?

I see Trumpism over the last four years as an aberrational swing of the political pendulum to the extreme right, almost to the extent of the early days of Adolph Hitler, who is also elected to lead his country. In the case of the U.S., the election process was able to hold strong and finally oust Trump. But the swing to the Right has left its mark. The pendulum will now swing to the Left.

How extreme will that swing go is questionable, but the center of that question is the character of Joe Biden and the administration he puts together, as well as the team of Pelosi Schumer, as well as the influence of Kamala Harris.

If you ask whether there will be a greater movement to the decolonization of Hawaii to the extent of Independence, I will say, not immediately. But under the Democratic administrations, there has been a loosening up of the present colonization. In 1979, the formation of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs in Hawaii, in 1993 the public confession in the form of the U.S. Apology Resolution, and in 2016, the adoption of Federal Rules for the recognition of a Native Hawaiian nation. All of this falls short of the call for decolonization, but it shows that under Democratic control, this progress has occurred.

Under Trumpism and his “America First” mantra, the rights of indigenous peoples throughout the world and within the current borders of the United States had no room in the Trumpist master plan.

What were the root causes of Trumpism to reign over the last years?

Power! The office of the Presidency, but a fluke of U.S. structure which allows the “electoral college” to select not the most popular but one who managed to collect a majority of the college. Once Trump possessed this power of office, he was able to threaten the weak-kneed Republicans to go along and violate long-established norms in American political life. Those Republicans did so and continued to do so as long as Trump held the power.

How do you connect Trumpism with the overall rise of populism in the Western world?

It is part of the pendulum swing from the threat of non-Western populations and countries. It is a fear of the rise of China especially, as well as Vietnam, India, and North Korea in the East. As Europe looks to the Middle East, they see those countries and peoples whom Europe had reigned over, now bursting forth and not willing to kowtow to European/American influence.

While these events are occurring, the Western world is seeing the decline of their economy, culture, and unity. Trump’s call for “America First” has many pessimists claim sound to the United Kingdom, as well as many other European countries.

Instead of embracing the changing face of the world, the European/American approach is to “circle the wagons” and take a defensive posture against the “barbarians”. They turn to build walls to keep them out, such as Trump’s wall along the U.S. Southern border which never materialized, or his immigration policies which will soon be reversed. European countries have also followed the same approach.

What would embracing the changing world mean? It could mean shared prosperity for all, through the enrichment of peoples’ cultures, religions, economy, and humanity. It could mean denuclearization among a more trusting community of nations, of decolonization allowing all peoples to guide their own futures which would allow for wiser governance and use of resources, and a wider and deeper appreciation of the peoples of the world and all of the treasures they can offer the world.

Although the term “diaspora” was widely confined to the Jewish diaspora and experience, with the onset of the 20^th century, which saw influxes of various diasporas from different parts of the world, the term started to be used to represent the different experiences of different peoples. These peoples include but are not limited to the Lebanese, Syrian, and Palestinian diasporas in South America, North America, and Europe; the Indian and Chinese diasporas in Malaysia; the Greek and Japanese diasporas in the United States; and the Turkish diaspora in Europe. The meaning the term holds today has shifted emphasis with the advance of international relations, and has taken a new turn in which sophisticated networks of identity-oriented people play a greater role in global politics.

The relationship between different nations today can’t be understood without understanding the identity and diaspora politics that bind them together. The relationship between the United States, on the one hand, and Greece, Mexico, and Ireland, on the other, can’t be viewed in isolation from the existence of the diaspora communities of these countries in the U.S. who hold a considerable economic, political, and cultural weight.

An example of the level of this interconnectedness is the solidarity the Irish hunger strikers received in the U.S. back in the 1980s. The state capital of Connecticut, Hartford, hosts the only monument in the U.S. honoring Bobby Sands, an Irish hunger striker who passed away in 1981 as a result of a 66-day-long hunger strike in a prison in Northern Ireland.

In the Middle East, immigration waves to the Americas and Europe increased in the beginning of the 19^th century. Starting in the 1880s, Palestinian, Syrian, and Lebanese immigrants arrived in South America and the United States. These immigrants built political and economic capital that would shape the history of the countries where they had settled.

Arriving in South America with Ottoman passports, these immigrants were referred to as “Turcos” or Turks, a term that speaks of the passports they held but also of a racist attitude towards immigrants at the time. These immigrants started businesses in the textile sector and trade.

Today, many of these migrants belong to the middle class and have become members of political parties with some of them becoming presidents, ministers, and members of parliament. The traditional wisdom that the first generation of immigrants goes to work, the second generation goes to education, and the third generation goes to action perfectly applies to the Levantine immigrants in South America.

It is estimated that there are 17-30 million South Americans of Middle Eastern origin. In addition to contributing to the cultural fabric of South America, over the years, these immigrants have helped forge good relationships between South America and the Middle East. The involvement of South American governments in Middle Eastern politics today can’t be viewed in isolation from the existence of large numbers of South Americans of Palestinian, Syrian, and Lebanese origins. This joint history can also be witnessed in the existence of Arabic words in South American languages and in culinary traditions that became part of the culture of these countries, such as the popular dish hummus.

South America is also home to a considerable Jewish diaspora, estimated at 250,000, which explains the strong relationship certain countries have with Israel. The rise of right-wing politicians in a number of South American countries also speaks of the centrality of Israel to this trend of right-wing tendencies globally.

…that many had the plague in their very blood, and preying upon their spirits, and were in themselves but walking putrefied carcasses whose breath was infectious and their sweat poison, and yet were as well to look on as other people, and even knew it not themselves…

From A Journal of the Plague Year (1722) by Daniel Defoe

A pandemic has hit the world and it is profoundly changing the political, economic, social and spiritual aspects of life in the 21^st century. Across the political spectrum, this is a period of the unknown; the ‘neo-liberal’ or ‘leftist’ perspective that has clamored for change away from an over-industrialized, air-polluting and ultra-capitalist world has remained largely ambivalent about the radical developments and grounding of global capitalism. On the other hand, the ‘nationalist right’ has been forced to open the money-box and pour it on the welfare state while simultaneously nationalizing railways (in the U.K.) or getting car manufacturers to produce health care equipment and beer companies to produce hand sanitizer (in the U.S.).

The solution to ‘defeating’ this pandemic is slow, methodical and inexact- everything that is the opposite of post-modern life and what it is built upon. One could argue that isolation is not the biggest obstacle (society already does much of its work and leisure online) but rather the leap into the great unknown. People have become so used to planning and preparing every detail of life that to not do so has created a crisis of the mind. Doing things fast, exact and in a precise manner has suddenly changed to an approach that is slow, inexact and without a timeline that countries, businesses, or society can control.

Politics

The immediate impulse to revert to late 19^th and early 20^th century ideas of rigidly defined borders and petty protectionist nationalism has been disastrous. Closed borders and blocked shipments of goods such as key medical supplies within the EU and over the U.S.-Canada border are just a few examples of surprising non-cooperation between allies and political trading blocks. The World Health Organization (WHO) has been largely ignored by the very countries that were instrumental in setting it up, and shockingly there is little trans-national coordination compared with previous viral situations such as Polio (the 1950s onwards), SARS (2002-2004) and Ebola (2017-2019).

In many ways, this is symptomatic of the last three decades of global politics. Tighter security and borders were a hallmark of the late 1990s and early 2000s and there has been a severe backlash against the concept of an interconnected and multi-cultural world. A revival of neo-fascist movements has become increasingly mainstream in the last decade and the conflict of the early 1990s in the Balkans has proven to be less an aberration and more a template of what can happen when extreme nationalists mix a mono-cultural mythical history with populist politics. Recent news stories of cruise ships unable to dock; slurs directed at people of Far-East Asian descent in North America; foreign nationals unable to secure any kind of accommodation in India; and people from large urban areas being met with hostility in rural areas of France are just a handful of examples of pre-existing instincts laid bare. In this context, the domino effect of locking down borders (however necessary this may have been to stop the spread of coronavirus) and being wary of foreigners seems less of a shock and more of a disjointed continuum of the last few decades that has reached pre-WWII levels of paranoia and prejudice.

Economy

One of the many things made evident in the last months has been the amount of money Western governments can pump into the citizenry – hundreds of billions of dollars, pounds, and euros have been injected into the employers, employees and anonymous workers in these nations, seemingly from nowhere. The stigma and social-Darwinist approach to a kind of hyper-capitalism has been removed overnight. Physical work is still needed (obviously, health care workers but also jobs such as delivery drivers and grocery store workers) but much of the ‘office’ work that involves a pyramid of people has quickly proven to be unnecessary. Working from home has long been accepted in certain segments of the American work culture but now other European and Asian nations are being forced to re-examine an office culture that often places showing up and ‘looking busy’ over actually doing the work needed.

Poverty is rampant with post-industrial cities and smaller regions dealing with unemployment and wages that cannot keep up with a high cost of living as well as housing that is often substandard.

All of this has not happened in a vacuum – in the U.K. the homeless population has been on the rise for the last decade. Poverty is rampant with post-industrial cities and smaller regions dealing with unemployment and wages that cannot keep up with a high cost of living as well as housing that is often substandard. In the U.S., the divide between rich and poor has been growing for the last half-century at alarming rates and an informal economy of freelance, temporary work and ‘under-the-table’ jobs is integral to a system that is now broken.

Society

Innovation often comes out of calamity and a need to resolve a problem. For instance, New York City at the turn of the century is a potentially thriving metropolis that is burdened by the hundreds of thousands of horse and buggies (and subsequent manure-waste problem that leads to disease and blocks growth). Within a few years technological and business innovations make the car an affordable option for the masses (Ford’s Model T) and the previous problems are eliminated almost instantly.

Faith

Social distancing, washing regularly and the use of a mask were all things recommended during the black plague of Europe and the ‘Spanish’ Flu or 1918 pandemic. During the medieval plagues a segment of Christian society took to beating and punishing themselves (self-flagellation) as well as others in cruel and barbaric ways. During the 1918 pandemic, there was much resistance to the disbanding of Church gatherings (in the U.S. many clandestinely got together in fields) and the Hajj went ahead as normal.

In comparison the current closure of Mosques, Churches, Synagogues and Temples has largely been followed without incident around the entire world. Religious and community leaders have been among the most rational in the balance of faith and science (keeping one’s prayers while following social distancing to avoid the virus spreading) Rather than adversely affecting the frequent, spiritual minded visitor, the closure of places of worship may strengthen the transcendental and moral resolve that already exists. In comparison, the more secular-minded may have difficulty in not being able to visit a place of worship in a time of immense socio-political and economic change. In other words, those that are looking for some spiritual meaning to make sense of this are lamenting not being able to go (such as the closure of Easter Mass throughout the world), even though they usually would not care or pay attention to a place of worship and its function in society.

A subtle yet distinct change of tone concerning words and actions of faith can be observed over the last few weeks in the U.K. and other European states. People are ‘praying’ for others (something that in my years of living in the U.K. I have never heard before) and expressing humanitarian solidarity. The doomsday, end-of-world scenario is a view on the fringes of society – in contrast to the people of every major faith around the world where the message has been fairly consistent and clear: this is a test that we have to deal with and come out stronger and more humane as a tribal group, country, religion or ummah.