Twenty four hours ago I sat with my college housemates and watched Leonardo DiCaprio’s documentary film
Before the Flood
on climate change. I was expecting to see picturesque shots of vast spaces around the world, learn one or two new facts to bring up in a lecture debate whilst subconsciously concerning myself with the attractive star himself and admire his proactive approach and passion for something beyond his career.
Ultimately, I became entirely immersed in the film’s visual purities and was left in awe at the severity of the situation and mentally exhausted at the factual bombardment from the film. The minor political spark in me was ignited and informed and I retired to my bedroom pondering the extremely worrying message and urgent advice the production rendered to stop the natural catastrophe before the damages reach biblical scale by the time I’m sixty.
Twelve months ago almost to the day, I was in the middle of my study-abroad semester in Oxford Mississippi when notifications from the Irish newspapers mobile apps stopped me in my tracks informing me of an occurring terrorist attack in Paris. I rushed home and sat in front of CNN for hours, staring through blurred eyes at live scenes of horror from my home continent, mirroring pictures I had previously only imagined during readings in my leaving cert history classes.
At the tender age of 21 witnessing these reports from America I was left with a hollow feeling of utter fear for the world I am existing in. This surreal event chilled me into a realisation of the historical display playing out in around me. A feeling I had never experienced in my short life.
Twenty seven years ago to the day, I was not here. However, the generation above me were around to witness a moment imprinted in the books of my history classes. After one man, with an amplified voice, impressive awareness of the effects public exposure and extreme ideas of 'all great all powerful’ society had orchestrated one of the most harrowing and defining eras of human history; a large wall dividing a small city in Germany was just one of the lasting legacies of his tyrannical ruling.
On the anniversary of the wall’s demolition I woke to discover the most powerful country in the world had elected a man who has similarly vowed to build a border wall and divide a people to become the 45th President of the supposed land of the free and home of the brave. The emotions and thoughts much larger than me that I experienced for the first time just this time last year were resurrected today and I find it difficult to articulate the relevance of this day.
I speak with a general assumption that most people my age, certainly the majority of my own peers, do not consider politics to be very high in their realm of everyday considerations and it is a topic we have never been encouraged to engage and participate in. Irish politics in comparison to American and British for example is mild and uninteresting and is something I am admittedly ignorant to.
I felt the effects of the economic recession mildly aged just fourteen to me it meant lesser trips to America in the summer holidays and the car registration remaining
unchanged for a little longer. In school our teachers tried to educate us on the election underway whereby an African American man may make history and I distinctly remember
watching Obama’s inauguration on a small aerial television on top of the kitchen fridge making a mental note that what I was witnessing was historical.
I did not know the process of his election, even the true significance of his election and only recently I became aware that his opposition at the time was Hillary Clinton. Democrats and Republicans meant as much to me as Man United and Man City, nothing. Eight years on, I’m a well travelled college student and I am tuned in now.
I have studied the American politics of the past in the deep south of America, I have learnt both the positive and negative global effects elected country leaders can potentially have, I have observed and challenged the attitudes and mindsets of lay people in various states in America and I have seen the indifferent attitudes people amongst me have to such occasions and I am left with so many questions and concerns for this grim horizon we face.
For the first time, I am of age where I could make an educated and active approach to follow an American presidential election and I adapted a ‘learn as I go’ approach, admittedly unaware of how lengthy the process actually is. Like many my age, I just watched the clips of speeches that appeared on my Facebook timeline, I screenshot the memes that went around for the entertainment of my group Whatsapps and I read the opinion articles with the most appealing headline or most likes.
Nothing too strenuous or time consuming. Only in the last few months did I start to really scrutinise the event and stare at the outcome with genuine consideration and
evaluation.
This summer I was on a J1 in California (an opportunity I imagine will now be a thing of the past) when my trusted news app informed me that England had voted to leave the EU. Another chapter in my imaginary history book of the future flashed in my mind's eye. Similarly, I had read the articles, watched the news clips but did not consider the bizarre outcome as I, like many others dwelled in ignorance and believed ‘that’ll never happen’. Well, it did. Another political and social moment of huge implications for the future occured in my lifetime.
This news again made me step into my adult boots and look at the path being paved for my generation. To assess the realistic prospects I face after I graduate this year and truly live in the real world. To question the journey to this point and the meanders it now faces. To acknowledge the connections and effects countries have on the international stage, and the way it can implicate the lives of my peers and I. These thoughts are smothering and truly frightening to fully comprehend.
Last night courtesy of
Before the Flood
I learnt about the Paris Agreement, a political action I had heard about in mutterings before. Only then could I fully absorb Trump’s stance on the issue and his notion that climate change was concocted by the Chinese. Mind Boggling. During the week I read about a Catholic priest in New York who placed an aborted fetus on an altar in an attempt to amplify Trump’s views against abortion a released a video of the service which was later removed for its content. An image so gorey Tarantino couldn’t compete with and an action so egregious it is hard to imagine occurred in the 21st century, in such a blashmaphatic manner.
A video circulated in the last few months of a montage compiled of footage from Trump rallies abusing mostly African Americans and various minorities and black and white film from the Civil Rights Movement in the sixties with echoing quotes of Trump praising the past and its violent actions of inequality. Furthermore, during the campaign infamous voice recordings of Trump degrading women became a global scandal and anyone in the right mind was disgusted by them whilst nonetheless surprised.
Only these small incidences for example prompted a common rational ‘yeah, but it’ll never happen’. Well, it has. Last night at 1am the polls were close yet Clinton lead, a trend one logically expected to continue. Swing states were flip flopping between democratic and republican, but I turned out my light and like many placed trust in the American people that they had done the right thing by us all and voted for realistically, the best of a bad bunch.
By 4am, I woke to see Trump in the lead by a relatively slim margin that was retrievable however the big red states on the map of OH, NC and FL glared as an indicator that this was accelerating in the wrong direction. I returned to slumber with a last hope of a prayer and the words of Obama resonated, ‘no matter what happens tomorrow the sun will rise’. By 7:30am, we this side of the Atlantic opened our eyes to a new world order, ‘Donald Trump won the presidency’; there is the new chapter in the book and here is that feeling again.
The media machine is in overdrive today and by 2pm my battery has died twice already from watching clips, reading opinion pieces and reports. I am not laughing at the memes today. I feel an immense pressure in my chest and the course of the day is playing out like a surreal slow motion movie, I am in static shock, I can’t accept what is happening. The views of people across the world saturate the internet in a war of words.
Marches are being held in the town where I J1’ed, ‘not my president’ ricochets the streets I walked contemplating the shock of Brexit. Verbal abuse on race already uprises on the streets of New York. There is a lot of anger in the world today. World leaders congratulate Trump in a motion of protocol; including our own Taoiseach who caused a backlash across the media with Irish people informing him and the world his statement does not reflect the people of Ireland, and that he holds his position by default not by the faith of this nation.
A stance I agree with. The media headlines today are hopefully hyperboled attention grabbers but lines like ‘hold your loved ones close’ and ‘the world has become a more dangerous place’ sound like those headlines from forties and cannot be ignored. Do we give these articles the ignorant treatment we gave Brexit and this election itself? Do we continue our national attitude of ‘it’ll be grand’? Or is this truly as severe as it sounds?
I am just a 22 year-old girl. I am just a student in a foreign country with no claim of expertise in the area. I have an idea of a the future I hope to have. Are the history books (or ebooks as the case will likely be) that my children and my friends children bring home from school going have a chapter of global dissemination and momentous sociological shift beginning on this day in our lives?
One of the most unsettling aspect of this all is the obvious support following this man.
That there are people on this planet so uneducated and so similarly fueled with hate, ideas of racial supremacy and accepting of such barbaric behaviour. It is a deflating result with suffocating thoughts to speculate and one would be tempted to just leave, or close the door or get up and move on and ignore it like so many things before. As in one of his final endorsement speeches Obama reminisced the story of his campaign slogan ‘fired up, ready to go’, after today’s result an alternative interpretation can be applied as I sure feel ready to go.
But as
Before the Flood
assures us there is no planet B. November 9th 2016, ever regret?
