We’re
watching “The Handmaid’s Tale” as the entire world seems to be shifting
steadily to the right.
At the time I read Margaret Atwood’s book – sometime in the late 1980’s – it struck me as sharp, exaggerated political commentary, but never as prophecy. When Ponczka read it, about fifteen years ago, she did interpret it as prophecy, as she’s annoyed me mightily over the years with her occasional taunts about my homeland, pointing to the idiocy of the gun lobby, or reacting to some random attack on homosexuals, as signs of a brewing right wing takeover.
Time and time again, I found myself downplaying these symptoms as
nothing more than the expressions of an isolated minority, slowly being
whittled down by the other America, the progressive country that embraces
diversity enough to send a Black American with a Muslim name to the White
House, and to almost back that up with a self-confessed Socialist. In truth, I
never truly dismissed the far right, and its efforts to drag America backward,
but I argued that way, in reaction to Ponczka’s sometimes dismissal of the US
as hopelessly backward.
Well, watching this powerful television adaptation, at the same time as there’s news coverage of credible and potentially successful efforts to re-criminalize abortion, after having already witnessed the rolling back of civil rights, determined attacks on social services and affirmative action, increased funding and privatization of prisons – many of these actions across Canada as well as the US, and more and more countries electing divisive, reactionary and even fascistic leaders, well… Atwood’s speculative novel seems increasingly and horrifyingly real.
What’s most powerful to me in the series are the flashbacks, showing how the reactionary takeover takes hold: progressives choosing to hide, back down or compromise rather than fight; dismissively accepting seemingly small role backs of rights, hoping they don’t become major ones. And it suggests how even reasonable and well-intentioned people can be seduced by power, or by simply being bypassed while others are persecuted.
Elections all over the world are signaling global shifts to the right, more often than not fueled by fear, of ‘others’, of the loss of economic security or status, loss of identity and culture. Reasonable concerns all – yes, even fear of others is reasonable, if not commendable, when one doesn’t know what otherness seeks or what it brings with it, or what it may change. It’s the reasonableness that makes is so damned dangerous!
The burning question to me remains: how do we communicate in a deep and real way with those who, even if they share many of the same values, prioritize, express and would uphold them differently?
At the time I read Margaret Atwood’s book – sometime in the late 1980’s – it struck me as sharp, exaggerated political commentary, but never as prophecy. When Ponczka read it, about fifteen years ago, she did interpret it as prophecy, as she’s annoyed me mightily over the years with her occasional taunts about my homeland, pointing to the idiocy of the gun lobby, or reacting to some random attack on homosexuals, as signs of a brewing right wing takeover.
Well, watching this powerful television adaptation, at the same time as there’s news coverage of credible and potentially successful efforts to re-criminalize abortion, after having already witnessed the rolling back of civil rights, determined attacks on social services and affirmative action, increased funding and privatization of prisons – many of these actions across Canada as well as the US, and more and more countries electing divisive, reactionary and even fascistic leaders, well… Atwood’s speculative novel seems increasingly and horrifyingly real.
What’s most powerful to me in the series are the flashbacks, showing how the reactionary takeover takes hold: progressives choosing to hide, back down or compromise rather than fight; dismissively accepting seemingly small role backs of rights, hoping they don’t become major ones. And it suggests how even reasonable and well-intentioned people can be seduced by power, or by simply being bypassed while others are persecuted.
Elections all over the world are signaling global shifts to the right, more often than not fueled by fear, of ‘others’, of the loss of economic security or status, loss of identity and culture. Reasonable concerns all – yes, even fear of others is reasonable, if not commendable, when one doesn’t know what otherness seeks or what it brings with it, or what it may change. It’s the reasonableness that makes is so damned dangerous!
The burning question to me remains: how do we communicate in a deep and real way with those who, even if they share many of the same values, prioritize, express and would uphold them differently?
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