The limits of tolerance

Today I am coming to you much later than usual because we have spent the last few hours glued to the TV, watching the outrageous events developing on Capitol Hill. I will always defend the freedom of speech, but these actions clearly exceed that right and shall not be tolerated. This reminded me immediately of the paradox of tolerance as formulated by philosopher Karl Popper in his 1945 masterpiece "The Open Society and Its Enemies": if a society is tolerant without limits the intolerant will eventually seize the control and destroy the tolerance itself. Today's actions go way beyond the dissent and cross the line of attempted coup: senate has already announced that they will resume the session, but for many hours the normal function of one the branches of government was directly prevented by the actions of the rioters.

One of the most repeated questions among newscasters was "How is it possible that the police response is so mild?". We heard this question first in Qatar-based Al-Jazeera and then on CNN: during the demonstrations this summer about the brutal arrest and subsequent death of George Floyd, the whole District of Columbia was under a heavy siege by police forces in riot gear, but today's response lacked any intent of stopping the demonstrators. Was it because these people are "patriots" as opposed to the "communists" that were demonstrating in the summer? Or does it have to do with the color of the skin? I can only hope that the waters calm down and outgoing president Trump stops sending his hounds after democratic institutions because these developments are tantamount to overthrowing democracy.

Photo: PxHere

In spite of several individual actions across the country, recurring domestic terrorism has not been a big issue in the US since the times of the Jewish Defense League in the mid 1980s, but other western countries such as Ireland and Spain were plagued by repeated attacks by the IRA and ETA respectively for many years. Contrary to other groups purely linked to organized crime, like the Italian mafia, these were politically motivated by strongly repressive governments in their respective countries: Spain was under the iron fist of dictator Francisco Franco, which actively suppressed any nationalist activity, and Northern Ireland was brutally controlled by the Royal Ulster Constabulary, which exerted a very strong discrimination against the Catholic majority. These days both the North Irish and the Basque movements have dissolved and been replaced with political counterparts with representation and voice in their respective national governments. How is it possible that citizens of a country like the US, where your Congressman, your Senator or your District Attorney are literally one phone call away, have resorted to armed violence against their government?

The fractious rhetoric of "us vs. them" is very dangerous because it can completely dehumanize the adversary, leading down the spiral of tribalism that ends up in considering the others, without any reason,  "dumb", "evil" or "barely human", while the people in our camp are always "wonderful" and "great people" regardless of any evidence presented to the contrary. Sadly, it is very difficult to purge this line of thought unless our politicians change their argumentation. As long as the division lines are partisan and not ideological there is little room for the political discourse and a useful cooperation. Let us hope that the obvious disrespect that the Trumpism has showed for democracy manages to rock some boats and wake up the conscience of some long-asleep politicians that should have known better than allowing such a poisonous individual among their ranks and into the White House.