There are no exceptional people nor exceptional states. There are only exceptional circumstances. And in these, all things become possible. Tonight, another far-right candidate has triumphed in another democratic polity. This is no longer exceptional, these are our times.
A generation of American & European reporters never quite bought the stories so many Bosnians & Yugoslavs told them; that even on the eve of war, no one believed it. Not here, not in Sarajevo, not in the Olympic city, not where a third of all marriages were mixed. Believe now.
Combine a few yrs of economic, social, and political crisis and every society will become ripe for sectarianism and, ultimately, fascism. Democracies last longer under pressure, and have more procedural and institutional fail-safes. But they are not immune. No society is.
The most important thing to understand is that whether they are polling at 1% or at 99%, when sectarian, nationalist, authoritarian, and fascist movements appear they must be confronted immediately & forcefully. There is no greater threat. They are world eaters.
I wish our friends in Brazil courage and perseverance. And I wish for each of us in the democratic world clarity; clarity about the darkness that threatens to consume us all, and from which there be no exit for generations unless we stand together. /xxx
