“…Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
When two evil empires turn on each other, the wise do not pick sides; they pick vantage points. Whether it’s Trump flailing like a drunk at closing time or Harvard getting its knickers in a knot and unleashing a small army of lawyers wielding very expensive briefs, the rest of us—the overlooked, the marginalised, and the perpetually patronised by both of these parties—should watch the carnage with quiet satisfaction.
It is not our fight. It never was. It will never be.
Like watching Dawood and Chhota Rajan settle scores, or China and the US argue over who’s the bigger threat to global decency, or Modi eye Yogi with suspicion and attempting to trim his wings in UP, the proper response is not outrage. It is popcorn.
There is no need to choose between poison and venom. When bloated regimes, brittle egos, and self-important institutions turn on each other, whether it’s al-Qaeda vs. ISIS grappling in the deserts of West Asia, the BJP vs. the RSS making weird noises and wrestling in the mud, or Musk vs. Zuck in an imaginary billionaire cage match, the only rational move is to step back, buy tickets, and get good seats.
The persecuted owe no allegiance to their former persecutors. Let the lumbering, overfed giants who crush us under their feet without thought swing at each other and bleed to death. And if their egos, monuments, and pedestals crumble in the violence, it is not tragedy; it is symmetry.
“Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
