Not that of Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) but that of Petra Kelly (1947-1992) is quoted in the title. It is however not far-fetched for such a message to be attributed to Nelson Mandela (1918-2013) and the 3rd US President Jefferson. The German Green Party co-founder Kelly pushed on a grassroots democratic platform without violence, so she said in 1983: “… We are the potential victims, counted in mega-deaths… Even if these weapons aren’t used, their cost kills the world’s poor because it sentence them to death by starvation… We’re told that in order to protect peace we have to be prepared to destroy all human life. We stock atomic bunkers with band-aids and canned food although in a [nuclear] crisis we would never even be able to reach them. We have the choice between a sudden death in a nuclear Holocaust and a step-by-step ecological suicide. We have to finally break through this conspiracy of silence. When injustice becomes law, nonviolent resistance becomes duty.” (Langguth, 1984 as cited in Hockenos, 2008)
Kelly’s courage was spot on, and many women and disadvantaged communities have benefited from her political theory and action (Milder, 2024). Her heroic but diplomatic demeanor was far from the likes of the DDS’ petulant woman vice president intending to become their president in 2028. The former Davao City mayor beat a sheriff in front of her bodyguards in July 2011 and apologized in June 2012. She said it was her first time to make a public apology.
Twelve years thereafter, she had a lot of reasons to be sorry about, i.e., “My mother got angry at me… She said everybody knows you’re a daughter of Rodrigo, but you’re also a daughter of Elizabeth (Zimmerman)… My mother said, ‘You have to be kind first of all’” (“Mayor Sara Duterte, kumambyo sa pagbira kay VP Leni Robredo,” GMA News, 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzIIxMc_qAc). She needed to visit her in Naga City last month, but nobody knew if she had the guts to apologize for her “fake VP” remarks despite a unanimous Supreme Court decision, reconfirming Robredo’s victory in 2016 and junking Bongbong Marcos’ 60-million-peso electoral protest.
The quotation above is quite interesting because of this year’s well-settled return to power of Donald Trump, the 45th and 47th president of the United States of America. With 34 felony convictions, why is he not going to jail but instead coming back to the White House? What the world knew is that the twice-impeached president with brand-new fascistic tendencies could not accept his defeat in the November 2020 reelection and rallied thousands of supporters with roughshod speech, causing Capitol riots on January 6 and leaving five people dead. If it was not inciting violence, can they still produce those five lives? Sayang, Mr. Trump. Sayang, Americans. You should have done better than that.
Now, I never said, “Sayang, American voters.” It was a simple case of Americans wanting to make their country great again with Trump winning, losing, and winning again.
What is this country made of? The usually strong democratic institutions and justice system. The world’s oldest, longest federal republic. A union of 50 states. They have best people for over 200 years. The best peoples go there. The world almost always listens to America. When a basketball player wins in the NBA, he is considered a world champion.
The world, too, is watching the US vs… Name it. The US is rekindling ties with… Name it. Is it also getting better in championing the cause of justice in the entire human race? Trump and the rest of Americans are racing against time to reach nothing but world peace, order, and development; otherwise, the world will only watch it shoot the ball. Not much time to watch America dribble it as the shot clock of greatness expires fast if it knows where it is in the new normal.
I hope and pray that God will bless the seven continents, but we must confess that ours is an era when there is little dedication to reconciling and reshaping societies. Still, it was a great campaign, Kamala. Congrats, Trump.
DC Alviar
Professor DC Alviar serves as a member of the steering committee of the Philippine International Studies Organization (PHISO). He was part of National University’s community extension project that imparted the five disciplines of a learning organization (Senge, 1990) to communities in a local government unit. He writes and edits local reports for Mega Scene. He graduated with a master’s degree in development communication from the University of the Philippines Open University in Los Baños. He recently defended a dissertation proposal for his doctorate degree in communication at the same graduate school under a Philippine government scholarship grant. He was editor-in-chief of his high school paper Ang Ugat and the Adamson News.
