There is a peculiar silence that tends to fall whenever billionaires are discussed in polite company. It’s the hush of discomfort, the slight shifting in seats, as if invoking their names might summon them or worse, their lawyers. But that hush is beginning to crack. In cafés, in classrooms, in union halls, in the churning noise of the digital public square, people are speaking more loudly and more clearly: the era of untouchable billionaires must end.
For decades, society has been taught to admire the billionaire class as a rarefied species of human achievement visionaries, innovators, risk-takers who propelled humanity forward with their restless genius. They were the pioneers of progress, the alchemists of modernity. But as the gilded towers have risen higher, so too has public scepticism. More and more, the sheen of “success” has dulled into the glint of greed. The question is no longer how did they do it? but at what cost, and to whom?
The push for accountability does not come from envy, as billionaire apologists so often claim. It comes from exhaustion. It comes from watching the same hands that hoard wealth also shape the rules of the game. The average citizen now understands, perhaps more clearly than ever, that billionaires do not simply exist within the economy, they actively design it. Their influence seeps into legislation, taxation, labour laws, housing policy, media narratives, and even the fabric of democracy itself.
When a billionaire buys a newspaper or a social media platform, it is rarely out of benevolence or curiosity. It’s about control of narratives, of dissent, of the digital square where public opinion is moulded. When they fund political candidates, it is an investment like any other one that promises returns in the form of favourable deregulations or subtle policy shifts. When they fund philanthropic foundations, it is often a reputational rinse, a way to polish the tarnish of exploitation under the shimmering language of “impact” and “innovation.”
This is not to say that all philanthropy is performative or that wealth itself is inherently corrupt. But we have reached a moral inversion when those with the most influence face the least scrutiny. A teacher, a nurse, or a civil servant is held to higher ethical standards than many who move billions in opaque transactions across borders. When was the last time a billionaire faced meaningful consequences for their role in economic collapse, environmental destruction, or political manipulation? Accountability, it seems, is for the powerless.
Something deeper and more unsettling underlies this imbalance: the quiet assumption that billionaires are simply too powerful to challenge. They have become our modern monarchs, cloaked not in crowns but in charisma and code. Their empires are woven into our daily lives, our phones, our feeds, our food systems, our dreams. To question them feels, at times, like questioning gravity itself.
But gravity can shift.
The growing chorus calling for billionaire accountability represents not just economic frustration but a cultural awakening. The myth of the benevolent billionaire is crumbling. People are connecting the dots between record profits and worker exploitation, between “philanthropy” and tax avoidance, between innovation and monopolization. The public mood is changing from admiration to interrogation.
One of the more uncomfortable truths is that many of the billionaires who champion “freedom” and “disruption” are, in fact, deeply allergic to both. They preach the gospel of free markets but spend fortunes ensuring they never truly face one. They invoke meritocracy while quietly erecting barriers to protect their dynasties. They fund political movements that promise smaller government except, of course, when the government can protect their patents, bail out their industries, or silence their critics.
And yet, the reckoning that’s emerging is not just political, it’s moral. The idea that anyone can ethically accumulate a billion dollars while others struggle to eat is a question that increasingly demands an answer. Can extreme wealth exist without extreme harm? Can philanthropy compensate for exploitation? Can democracy coexist with oligarchy? These are not radical questions. They are overdue ones.
Accountability, however, will not arrive through outrage alone. It will require imagination a collective rethinking of what fairness, contribution, and responsibility mean in a society where inequality has reached obscene proportions. It might mean stronger antitrust enforcement. It might mean higher taxation on extreme wealth. It might mean closing the loopholes that allow vast fortunes to hide offshore. But beyond policy, it demands a cultural recalibration: a refusal to confuse wealth with wisdom, or power with virtue.
The billionaire class, to their credit, senses this shift. They have begun to speak the language of humility and “stakeholder capitalism.” They nod gravely at the mention of inequality, sponsor glossy reports, and promise to “do better.” But it’s hard to take such gestures seriously when their business models remain fundamentally extractive, their workers underpaid, and their political donations strategically deployed to maintain the very systems they claim to reform.
Perhaps the most telling indicator of change is fear, the faint but rising unease among the super-rich. They see the pitchforks, metaphorical and otherwise, glinting at the edge of the horizon. Some retreat into gated compounds; others buy private islands, as if distance could insulate them from discontent. But the call for accountability is not a threat of vengeance. It is a plea for balance. It is the assertion that a society cannot remain stable when power is so grotesquely concentrated in so few hands.
The irony is that real accountability could ultimately save them, from themselves, from the corrosive isolation that absolute power breeds, from the social collapse that unchecked inequality inevitably invites. History has shown that when the gap between wealth and the public good becomes too vast, the ground beneath even the richest begins to tremble.
So perhaps this reckoning is not just about billionaires, but about us—about whether we still believe in the possibility of shared responsibility, of systems that reward ingenuity without excusing exploitation. The question hanging in the air is not whether the billionaires will be held accountable. It’s whether we, as a society, still have the courage to demand that they are.
Donald Trump’s political strategy, now more than ever, feels like a haunted carnival ride: dusty, creaking, yet insistently looping over the same tired attractions. Lately, the Trump-verse has shown an almost obsessive compulsion to resurrect figures once consigned to the political scrapheap, parading them as though the electorate had been waiting all along for their return. The latest cameo? Steve Bannon, a man who has been, depending on your vantage, a controversial strategist, a demagogue-in-chief, or simply a cautionary tale of hubris and hubris’s unfortunate persistence. And yet, here he is again, in the spotlight, as if the nation collectively forgot the chaos he catalyzed.
It is not merely the recycling of familiar personalities that defines this pattern, but the very audacity with which it is done. In the Trump-verse, the outdated, the irrelevant, and the scandal-stained are not buried or quietly ignored they are revived, polished in the artificial glow of nostalgia, and thrust back into the conversation with the same confidence one might reserve for a victorious general returning from conquest. The very act feels performative: an almost gleeful defiance of political decorum, history’s verdict, and the subtle laws of public taste.
The fascination with reviving figures like Bannon tells us more about Trump’s political sensibility than it does about the men themselves. It is a worldview that thrives not on innovation or fresh ideas, but on memory manipulation and the recycling of notoriety. In the Trump-verse, relevance is less a matter of accomplishment than of visibility, and scandal is often treated as a badge of authenticity. A career that has stumbled spectacularly is merely another dramatic arc to exploit, an opportunity to recast the fallen as misunderstood prophets or martyred geniuses.
Consider the logic or perhaps illogic, at play. Bannon, whose influence in the 2016 campaign was undeniable but whose post-election career has largely involved failed ventures, lawsuits, and public exclamations that veered between the conspiratorial and the incoherent, is now positioned once more as a voice that matters. It is a gamble rooted in the idea that the base will not scrutinize the past so long as the spectacle is compelling enough. In Trump-verse calculus, memory is malleable; facts are negotiable; what matters is the capacity to dominate the narrative. If a person once scandalous can be repackaged as essential, then the very concept of political “irrelevance” becomes fungible.
This resurrection strategy dovetails neatly with the looming specter of Trump 2028, a phrase now whispered, shouted, and debated in equal measure. Talk of a fourth presidential campaign is less a policy discussion than an exercise in theater. In this universe, past failures are irrelevant; political death is merely a hiatus. The resurrection of figures like Bannon is emblematic of the larger temporal fluidity at work: yesterday’s missteps are today’s talking points, and the present is a stage for reenacting history with a decidedly selective lens.
One might argue that this is merely politics as usual; every political movement elevates loyalists, recycles icons, or leans on nostalgia. Yet the Trump-verse carries this impulse to a peculiar extreme, one that blends the campy with the alarming. There is a deliberate absurdity here, a conscious embrace of figures that evoke embarrassment in any other context. It is as if the act of refusing to forget, of forcibly reanimating the politically moribund, is in itself a statement: relevance is not determined by achievement or ethics, but by the audacity to persist.
And persistence, of course, is something Trump and his inner circle have mastered. But it is not without consequence. Each resurrection invites scrutiny, skepticism, and ridicule. It reminds the public not of triumphs, but of controversies, miscalculations, and the odd theater of American politics run amok. And yet, the Trump-verse seems to interpret this scrutiny not as weakness, but as validation, a sign that their provocations continue to penetrate cultural consciousness, even if the audience’s reaction is more incredulous laughter than reverent attention.
The fixation on recycling political has-beens may, in some sense, be a reflection of the Trump-verse’s broader worldview: one in which disruption trumps convention, audacity trumps prudence, and memory is a tool to be wielded rather than a record to be respected. By bringing figures like Bannon back into the conversation, Trump signals not only loyalty to old allies but also an unsettling belief that the past is never really past. Every controversy can be revived, every scandal can be reinterpreted, and every “irrelevant” voice can be made to scream anew into the public sphere.
In the end, the resurrection of political relics is more than a quirk, it is a tactic, a spectacle, and a philosophical statement rolled into one. It declares that in the Trump-verse, relevance is performative, loyalty is currency, and the bottom of the barrel is merely another platform from which to address the nation. And as talk of Trump 2028 gains momentum, one can only wonder: what other ghosts might return, and which forgotten faces will be draped in the garish theater of political revival next?
Something has gone deeply wrong in the way the United States now conducts its diplomacy. The recent shipping talks in London made that uncomfortably clear. What should have been a technical, cooperative discussion about maritime regulations and trade logistics turned into a display of political muscle. Negotiators, civil servants, not politicians, were reportedly told that both they and their countries could face punishment if they didn’t align their votes with Washington.
Think about that for a moment. Punishment. Not persuasion. Not dialogue. Not even negotiation in the traditional sense. Threats. Coercion. The language of fear, not diplomacy. And what makes this more alarming is that it wasn’t whispered in dark corridors or implied between the lines of communiqués, it was said outright. The world’s self-proclaimed defender of freedom and democracy resorting to intimidation to secure votes at an international meeting about shipping.
The symbolism is almost poetic in its irony. Ships have always represented the flow of goods and ideas between nations, the spirit of cooperation that keeps the world connected. Yet here, in the heart of London, the conversation about those very vessels was hijacked by the heavy hand of geopolitical power. Instead of shared interest, there was suspicion. Instead of compromise, there was command.
The United States has long had influence over global policy. That’s not new. What is new is the tone the hostility, the assumption that disagreement equals disloyalty, and the readiness to treat allies as adversaries. European delegates left the talks not with solutions, but with a sense of being bullied. One European negotiator described the atmosphere as “combative” and “humiliating.” It wasn’t about finding a balanced agreement, it was about compliance.
This raises an essential question: what kind of partnership does the U.S. now want with Europe? For decades, transatlantic relations were built on a mix of shared values and pragmatic cooperation. There were tensions, yes, but they were tempered by respect. That respect now seems to be slipping away. When American officials threaten European civil servants, career professionals whose job is to represent national policy, not personal ambition it sends a chilling message, Washington no longer sees Europe as a partner, but as an obstacle.
It’s a dangerous shift. Coercion breeds resentment. Threats erode trust. And once trust is gone, the alliance begins to rot from the inside. What’s especially disturbing is that this bullying doesn’t only affect political elites. It trickles down. It sets a tone for how nations interact, for how global institutions function. If smaller countries see that even European states are strong-armed into compliance, what chance do they have to assert their own interests?
There’s also something profoundly undemocratic about it. International negotiations are meant to reflect the deliberative process, each nation speaking through its representatives, bringing its own perspective, balancing global needs with domestic realities. When a superpower corners others into submission, it undermines that very process. It turns global governance into theater, where outcomes are preordained by the loudest voice in the room.
Some in Washington may defend these tactics as necessary in an era of heightened competition, especially with rivals like China expanding influence in global trade. But if America must resort to threats to maintain its position, then its moral authority—the cornerstone of its global leadership, has already eroded. Leadership by intimidation is not leadership at all. It’s insecurity dressed up as strength.
Europe, for its part, cannot afford to play the victim. If the U.S. is shifting toward unilateralism cloaked in diplomacy, Europe must respond not with outrage alone, but with confidence and unity. Too often, European nations splinter when pressured by Washington, afraid of economic or political fallout. Yet it is precisely this fear that enables the cycle to continue. The more Europe bends, the more the U.S. pushes. The moment Europe stands firm—not out of defiance, but principle, is the moment real dialogue can resume.
The deeper issue, though, may be psychological. The U.S. still sees itself as the indispensable nation, the conductor of the global orchestra. But the world has changed. Multipolar realities demand conversation, not command. Many Americans may not realize how their country’s tone sounds abroad. What Washington calls “assertive leadership,” others increasingly describe as arrogance. The London shipping talks may seem small in scope, but they reveal a larger pattern, a creeping belief that American interests automatically define the common good.
This mindset risks alienating even the closest allies. It fosters an “us versus them” mentality that corrodes the foundation of cooperation painstakingly built over decades. And it’s worth asking, if America treats Europe this way, how will it behave toward regions with less leverage?
In the end, diplomacy is not a contest of threats but an exercise in mutual respect. The measure of power is not how loudly one can speak, but how effectively one can listen. The U.S. used to understand this. Its greatest diplomatic victories were achieved through persuasion and principle, not intimidation. The Marshall Plan rebuilt Europe through generosity, not coercion. The formation of the United Nations was a triumph of consensus, not dominance. Those moments made America admired, not feared.
If the reports from London are accurate, something fundamental has changed. The superpower that once prided itself on moral leadership now leans on fear to secure compliance. That is not just undiplomatic, it is self-defeating. Every threat breeds quiet resistance. Every act of bullying sows the seeds of future opposition.
Perhaps it’s time Washington remembered that influence is not the same as control. The more it tries to dictate, the more it risks isolation. And if the United States truly wants to lead, it must rediscover the diplomacy of respect, the kind that doesn’t punish difference, but learns from it.
Because in the end, no amount of pressure can make others follow a nation that has forgotten how to lead.
Emmanuel Macron once promised to be the new kind of leader France desperately needed the visionary centrist who would lift the country above the stagnant trenches of left and right, and steer it into a modern, united future. Seven years later, the sheen has worn off, the myth has collapsed, and the man who was supposed to embody competence and progress now looks more like the architect of disillusionment. France stands at a political precipice, and the question is no longer whether Macron has failed but what remains in the rubble of his ambition.
Macron’s tragedy isn’t merely political fatigue. It’s a crisis of faith. He came into power speaking the language of renewal and intelligence, appealing to the pragmatic middle ground that Europeans long for but rarely see. Yet somewhere between governing and sermonizing, he lost the pulse of the people he swore to lead. His presidency has become an exercise in aloofness an administration that listens with condescension, reforms without empathy, and governs as though France were a seminar, not a nation.
The “Jupiterian” style he once proudly embraced ruling from above, untouched by the noise of ordinary life has hardened into arrogance. Macron sees himself as the rational adult in a country of emotional children, yet it is precisely that posture that has eroded his authority. When people feel unseen, they don’t become more reasonable; they revolt. And in France, they take to the streets.
The Yellow Vest movement was the first great crack in the façade. What began as a protest over fuel taxes became a national scream a visceral rejection of a leader who seemed incapable of understanding what life feels like for the millions who don’t sip espresso in Paris cafés discussing the European project. Macron survived that storm not through renewal but through endurance, learning nothing except that chaos can be weathered. Then came the pension reforms, another technocratic hill to die on, framed as necessary, implemented as inevitable, and sold with the same patronizing detachment that has become his brand.
And now? France feels restless, leaderless, and brittle. The center Macron promised to stabilize has turned hollow. The French political spectrum resembles a cracked mirror, fragments reflecting frustration, distrust, and fatigue. The traditional right and left remain ghosts of their former selves, unable to articulate a vision that feels relevant. The far right, meanwhile, thrives in the vacuum.
Marine Le Pen’s National Rally has learned to bide its time, no longer snarling but smiling and that is more dangerous. Gone are the days of overtly toxic rhetoric and angry marches wrapped in the tricolour; now it’s the soft, insidious rebranding of nationalism as “protection,” xenophobia as “security,” and authoritarianism as “order.” Le Pen’s party thrives on Macron’s distance. Every time he seems too clever by half, too detached, too elitist, her movement gains another inch of legitimacy.
But here lies the French dilemma: if Macron has become intolerable, Le Pen remains unthinkable. France, a country that prides itself on enlightenment and liberty, cannot afford the moral corrosion of a government built on resentment and exclusion. Yet that’s the corner Macron has painted his nation into a binary between the unfeeling technocrat and the dangerous demagogue. The electorate has been forced into a grim calculus: competence without compassion, or passion without conscience.
There are other voices, but they struggle to pierce the noise. The left has ideas, yes, but too often wraps them in nostalgia and purity tests. Jean-Luc Mélenchon speaks of revolution, not reconstruction. The moderate Greens talk of transition but offer little in the way of cohesion or credibility. What France lacks is not energy or imagination it’s trust. Macron’s France has bred cynicism, and cynicism is political poison. It doesn’t drive people to new visions; it drives them to apathy or extremism.
So, what’s the alternative? Perhaps, for now, it isn’t a single person but a reawakening of what the French still quietly believe in: solidarity, intellect, and dissent that doesn’t destroy. France has a long tradition of reinventing itself through crisis, of finding the moral center when all else fails. The next chapter cannot be written by technocrats who speak in spreadsheets, nor by nationalists who speak in fears. It must come from a new generation of politicians who understand that leadership is not about being the smartest in the room, but about seeing the room, its anger, its exhaustion, its stubborn hope.
Macron once said he wanted to make France a “start-up nation.” Instead, he’s made it a case study in political burnout. He has surrounded himself with loyalists, drained the air from debate, and made compromise sound like surrender. His attempts to embody the reasonable middle have come to represent the sterile center where vision dies of overmanagement and empathy is treated as weakness. France, however, is not a corporation. It is a living, arguing, dreaming republic and it needs to feel that its leaders remember that.
There’s an irony here that feels uniquely French: a country famed for its revolutions is now trapped by inertia. Macron’s failure is not that he governed badly, though many would argue he did but that he governed without warmth, without narrative, without the poetry that binds a people to their institutions. In the vacuum, populism thrives, feeding on alienation like a parasite.
The task ahead is not to restore faith in Macron but to restore faith in democracy itself. France needs new voices who speak plainly and act boldly; who recognize that reform is not just about numbers but dignity. That alternative, still unseen, will not emerge from the gilded halls of the Élysée but from the grassroots, from those who’ve been dismissed for too long as impatient or idealistic.
Macron’s era will end, perhaps sooner than expected, leaving behind a warning. Competence without connection is a slow form of failure. Intelligence without humility curdles into contempt. And when the center collapses, the extremes wait patiently.
For France, the challenge now is to rebuild not another “movement” or “republican renaissance,” but a sense of shared belonging, one that refuses both the cold arrogance of technocracy and the dark seductions of nationalism. The question is no longer who will lead France next. It’s whether anyone can still lead her at all.
There are moments in diplomacy that tell you everything without saying much at all. The latest meeting between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in South Korea offered just that, a spectacle of smiles, handshakes, and the subtle choreography of global power. Trump emerged from the session proclaiming a “tremendous success,” as if the future of trade had been rewritten over an hour of polite exchanges and a well-timed photo op. But for those watching closely, it wasn’t the words Trump spoke that mattered; it was Xi’s quiet, almost casual response: “We’ll see.”
Two words that hold multitudes. In Mandarin, in English, or in the murky language of international relations, “we’ll see” is the ultimate diplomatic shrug. It sounds agreeable enough to avoid offense, but ambiguous enough to buy time. It’s the kind of response that suggests patience, strategy, and above all, control. For Trump, who thrives on immediate wins and clear victories, it was the worst kind of answer, a promise of nothing wrapped in a bow of politeness.
Yet, as Trump beamed before cameras, boasting of “new understandings” and “mutual respect,” Xi’s expression remained a masterclass in composure. To the casual observer, he seemed attentive; to those fluent in geopolitical theater, he seemed amused. There was a faint trace of indulgence in his gaze, the look one gives to someone eager to win a game that has already been decided.
For all of Trump’s bravado, it’s becoming increasingly clear that this time, China might be the one playing the long game. Trump’s first term caught Beijing off guard, a storm of tariffs, Twitter diplomacy, and erratic policy shifts. But the second act feels different. China has learned its lines, rehearsed its counters, and studied the script. While Trump has returned to the campaign trail with his trademark mix of confidence and chaos, Beijing has quietly recalibrated its strategy for an America that looks increasingly divided, impatient, and uncertain of its own power.
In the room, there were no grand deals, no bold signatures, no breakthrough moments. What there was, however, was posture two leaders performing for different audiences. Trump needed to look victorious; Xi needed only to look unbothered. The contrast could not have been starker. Trump spoke in the language of business, deals, numbers, and leverage. Xi spoke in the language of time. For China, trade isn’t a quarterly report, it’s a generational project. The Belt and Road Initiative wasn’t conceived to win an election cycle; it was designed to shape a century.
When Trump promised “new openings” for American goods and a “rebalanced relationship,” Xi’s faint nod said otherwise. China has no intention of renegotiating its rise. It doesn’t need to. The world has already adjusted to its gravitational pull. Supply chains, markets, and even currencies now bend subtly toward Beijing’s will. Trump can call it unfair, but it’s no longer a matter of fairness, it’s a matter of physics.
What’s more revealing is how both men interpret strength. For Trump, it’s measured in declarations, applause lines, and visible wins. For Xi, it’s endurance, the ability to absorb pressure, to outlast, to remain unmoved while the other side exhausts itself. Watching the two stand side by side, one could almost see the asymmetry of their power. Trump radiated urgency; Xi radiated patience. In international relations, patience is power.
It’s worth noting that China, in its quiet way, has been preparing for a more aggressive American presidency since Trump first descended that golden escalator. Trade realignments, regional alliances, and domestic manufacturing drives, all have been calibrated for a world where Washington’s word means less than it used to. While U.S. corporations debate reshoring, China has been securing resources, building ports, and writing rules in places most Americans couldn’t locate on a map. If the last few years have been a lesson, it’s that the U.S. can disrupt, but China can adapt and adaptation always wins the long war.
Trump’s performance in Seoul was classic him: self-assured, dramatic, and aimed squarely at the camera. He talked about bringing jobs back, about American steel, about “not being taken advantage of anymore.” But beneath the surface, the script felt stale. The rhetoric that once electrified his base now feels like a rerun comforting to some, predictable to most. Meanwhile, Beijing listens, takes notes, and quietly adjusts the variables. We’ll see, indeed.
There’s something almost tragic in how predictably this dance plays out. America, forever hungry for instant validation, mistakes performance for policy. China, ever the strategist, lets America’s impatience work to its advantage. Trump may see trade as a contest of willpower, but Xi sees it as a system of inevitabilities, a slow, deliberate accumulation of influence, built not through confrontation but through inevitability.
The irony, of course, is that Trump prides himself on being the world’s best negotiator, a self-made master of the “art of the deal.” But in the theater of geopolitics, negotiation isn’t about personality, it’s about patience. And Xi, with his unflinching calm, his refusal to be rushed or rattled, wields that patience like a weapon.
As the meeting ended, Trump declared that “a new chapter” had begun. Maybe so. But it might not be the chapter he imagines. In this story, the loudest voice doesn’t necessarily win. Sometimes the victor is the one who speaks least, waits longest, and smiles just enough to be underestimated.
When Xi said, “We’ll see,” he wasn’t offering hope. He was setting the tempo. It was a polite way of saying that time and leverage, are on his side. Trump may have left Seoul convinced he’d scored a win for American commerce, but somewhere in Beijing, aides were likely smiling at the irony. The former president walked out with headlines. Xi walked out with strategy.
And that’s the art of we’ll see: the quiet triumph of patience over pride, of silence over noise, of the long game over the quick win. The meeting may have ended, but the real negotiation, the one that plays out in the months and years to come has only just begun.
Donald Trump has never been shy about pointing fingers, but lately, his favourite target seems to be South Africa. In typical fashion, he’s launched verbal attacks claiming the country is plagued by “racism against white farmers” or “reverse apartheid,” attempting to paint himself as some crusader for fairness. Yet behind this blustering façade lies something far more transparent: projection. What Trump condemns in others is almost always a reflection of what festers within himself. His comments about South Africa don’t expose the nation’s supposed racism, they expose his own.
Let’s start with the obvious. Trump’s long record of racially charged statements could fill volumes. From his real estate company’s discriminatory practices in the 1970s to his birther conspiracy against Barack Obama, his Muslim bans, and his “very fine people on both sides” remark after Charlottesville, Trump has made one thing abundantly clear: his understanding of race is rooted in resentment and superiority, not empathy or equality. When such a man turns his gaze to another country and cries “racism,” it’s not moral concern, it’s deflection.
South Africa, for all its complex history and ongoing struggles, doesn’t need a lecture from Donald Trump about race relations. The country still bears the deep scars of apartheid—a system explicitly designed to privilege white citizens and crush the Black majority. Since 1994, it has worked, imperfectly and often painfully, toward something resembling reconciliation. There are inequalities, tensions, and injustices, yes. But to twist those realities into a narrative that white people are the “real victims” is not only factually wrong; it’s morally bankrupt. And that’s precisely what Trump does best: taking legitimate pain, distorting it, and weaponizing it for his own political theater.
Trump’s version of “concern” for South Africa is performative. It’s not rooted in compassion for anyone suffering under systemic issues; it’s designed to stoke fear in his base. His rhetoric on South Africa is part of a broader pattern, one where white grievance becomes a political tool. He invokes the idea of “white farmers under siege” not because he cares about farmers, but because it fits his favourite narrative: that white people everywhere are being unfairly marginalized. It’s the same narrative that fuels his domestic politics, the same one that has always lurked beneath his “Make America Great Again” slogan.
When Trump speaks about South Africa, he is really talking about America about himself. He sees in South Africa’s efforts to confront its colonial past a mirror to the United States’ own racial reckoning, and it terrifies him. The removal of racist symbols, the push for land reform, the calls for equity, these are movements that challenge entrenched privilege. For Trump, whose entire identity is built on the myth of inherited greatness, such movements are threats. So he lashes out, projecting his insecurity onto another nation.
It’s a tactic as old as politics itself: accuse others of what you’re guilty of. Trump has done it with corruption, with dishonesty, with authoritarianism, and now with racism. Every time he accuses a country, community, or critic of being “divisive,” he’s really describing himself. His obsession with framing the world in binaries, white versus Black, us versus them, betrays a worldview that cannot function without an enemy. To him, South Africa isn’t a real place with real people; it’s a symbol he can twist to serve his narrative of persecution and power.
What’s most disturbing is how easily this rhetoric finds an audience. Trump’s words resonate with those who feel threatened by changing demographics, by shifting cultural norms, by the mere idea of equality. He validates their fears and gives them language to mask prejudice as concern. By accusing South Africa of “racism,” Trump invites his followers to see themselves as victims of a global conspiracy against whiteness. It’s not just false, it’s dangerous. It fuels division, stirs resentment, and erases the actual suffering caused by centuries of white supremacy.
In truth, Trump’s commentary on South Africa says nothing new about the world but everything about him. It reveals a man incapable of introspection, a man who can’t distinguish between criticism and attack, between history and hysteria. It shows how his worldview reduces everything to a zero-sum game: if someone else gains justice, he assumes someone like him must be losing. He cannot comprehend equality without imagining persecution.
And yet, Trump’s behaviour also offers a strange kind of clarity. His inability to mask his prejudice makes visible the undercurrents of racism that polite society often prefers to ignore. When he rails against “racism against whites,” he isn’t inventing something entirely new—he’s amplifying the whispers that have long existed in certain corners of the Western world. He gives them volume, visibility, and, tragically, legitimacy.
But the mirror he holds up, unintentionally, is valuable. In his projection, we can see what many would rather not confront: that racism doesn’t disappear simply because it’s denied. It mutates. It shifts shape. It finds new ways to express itself, through self-pity, through deflection, through the claim of being the “real” victim. Trump’s commentary on South Africa is one of those mutations.
The irony is almost poetic. A man who built his career on othering people, on dividing by race and nationality, now accuses others of doing the same. His words are not moral outrage; they’re psychological confession. When he points to South Africa and shouts “racism,” what he’s really saying is, “Don’t look too closely at me.”
But we are looking. And what we see is a man trapped in his own reflection—desperate to escape it, yet unable to turn away. Trump’s comments about South Africa don’t indict that country; they indict him. They show that the real problem isn’t abroad; it’s in the heart of America’s political culture, where power still too often hides behind the mask of grievance.
In the end, South Africa doesn’t need Donald Trump’s concern. It needs understanding, solidarity, and respect for its struggle. The world doesn’t need his distortions, it needs truth. And the truth is simple: Trump’s war on imagined racism is nothing more than his own racism, dressed up and projected onto others. The mirror is in front of him, but he refuses to look.
Fika is a state of mind and an important part of Swedish culture. It means making time for friends and colleagues to share a cup of coffee and a little something to eat.
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Probably no modern-day atrocity can equal the Israeli Genocide of Gaza. Certainly, none was so heartless or so utterly sadistic. This was unique in many ways. The Germans, when they conveyed their Jewish victims to the extermination camps, took care that the trains carrying them were moved in the dead of night. Most Germans who were aware of the holocaust pretended that they were innocent of its knowledge. And when the German defeat in the war became a certainty, they bombed the camps to try and erase the evidence of genocide from the face of the earth.
But not so, the Israelis. For more than two years, they have recorded, advertised, and celebrated the event. Ninety two per cent of the Israeli population wants the Genocide to go on. The sixty-five thousand identifiable Gazans they have murdered, have been counted. And about four hundred thousand of them are buried under the rubble-- you may take the figures from the Lancet, or from a Harvard study. These are not included in the death count because they cannot be identified. This toll of death is not enough for the Israelis. They want every last Gazan to be murdered or driven out. To regale their wives and kids they have view-points set up from where they can watch the bombing of Gaza, or watch Israeli soldiers popping off the heads of Gazan kids for the sheer fun of it. Or, they can watch these kids being sniped at and killed when attempting to get food from aid trucks--a copy of the German innovation from Namibia when they drove off the locals from their villages, and then sited snipers to cover the water points where, raving with thirst, these locals would repair to get a drink of water to prolong their miserable existence.
But the one deprivation of such Israeli families of onlookers has been not being able to hear the screams of Gazan kids being amputated without anaesthesia, the supply of which has not been allowed into Gaza by the Israelis, for more than two years now.
These Israeli genocidal efforts have been supported and assisted by none other than the upholders of Western civilisation. Led shamelessly by the US, the " Leader of the Free World", [of whom Pakistan has elected to be the latest tout] followed closely by the Germans, the inventors of modern-day genocide, with the honourable exceptions of Ireland and Spain, all the governments of white Christian states have been guilty partners in this genocide-- the worst atrocity in history.
And what of the Muslims? Except for Iran, the Houthis, and Hizbullah, all have distinguished themselves by their cowardice and silence, and by looking the other way. Yet if some of them should be singled out to wear the crown of ultimate dishonour, these will have to be Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Turkiye.
In the mid-19th century the world was introduced to the phrase "Judeo-Christian Values." This term was first used to encourage Jews to convert to Christianity. In the 1930s, it began to be used to blunt the excesses of anti-semitism. And since the creation of Israel, it has been used to cover up Israeli excesses and to bless them with immunity.
At this point, one needs to ask one's Christian friends, which part of the Gaza genocide they find "Judeo", and which part "Christian"?
To determine this, one needs to find Jesus in the scriptures. Since the Jewish Bible, the Old Testament, was written well before the birth of Jesus, one must open the Talmud for references to him..
Here are some Talmudic quotes related to Jesus and Mary:
- Jesus' Execution and Punishment
- "On Passover Eve they hanged Jesus the Nazarene after they killed him by way of stoning. And a crier went out before him for forty days, proclaiming: Jesus the Nazarene is going out to be stoned because he practiced sorcery, incited people to idol worship, and led the Jewish people astray. Anyone who knows anything in defense may come and state it." (Sanhedrin 43a-b)
- "He was a mesit (someone who instigated Israel to idolatry), concerning whom the Merciful [God] says: Show him no compassion and do not shield him." (Sanhedrin 43a-b)
- Jesus' Mother and Background
- "She who was the descendant of princes and governors played the harlot with carpenters" (Sanhedrin 106a), referring to Jesus' mother, Mary.
- "Jesus was a bastard born of adultery" (Yevamoth 49b).
- Jesus' Punishment in the Afterlife
- "Boiling in excrement" (Gittin 57a), describing Jesus' punishment in the afterlife.
- Jesus' Actions and Character
- "Jesus practiced magic and incited Jews to engage in idolatry and led Israel astray" (Sanhedrin 107b, Sotah 47a).
- "He went and stood up a brick and worshipped it as an idol... he caused the masses to sin" (Sotah 47a, Sanhedrin 107b), describing Jesus' actions after being rejected by his rabbi.
- Jesus as a Torah Teacher and Miracle Worker
- "One of the disciples of Jesus the Nazarene found me" (Babylonian Abodah Zarah 17a), suggesting Jesus had disciples who spread his teachings.
- "Jacob... came to heal him in the name of Jesus son of Pandera" (Tosefta Hullin 2:22f), describing Jesus' name being invoked for healing ¹ ² ³.
According to the Talmud, therefore, Jesus can have no place among the prophets. Yet Jesus is absolutely central to Christianity. Without him there can be no Christianity. So when there can be no Christianity, how can there be "Judeo-Christian" values. Thus, this phrase is an obvious self-contradiction. It is an oxymoronic term meant to serve one type of Jewish interest or another. And as in the case of Gaza, used for a vile end at a terrible price paid by the people of Gaza.
And central to the personality of Jesus were charity, love, fellow-feeling and care of humanity. How does all this fit in with the Genocide of Gaza? These are questions which every Christian needs to think deeply over, instead of using the term "Judeo-Christian Values" in an ad hoc, unthinking manner.
While on this subject, it would also be worth the reader's time to explore Jesus in the second scripture, the Holy Quran.
Here are some exact quotes about Jesus Christ and Mary in the Quran ¹ ² ³:
- Jesus' Birth and Mission
- "And mention when the angels said, “O Mary, indeed Allah gives you glad tidings of a word from Him, whose name will be the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary – distinguished in this world and the Hereafter and among those brought near [to Allah].” (3:45)
- "She said, ‘My Lord, how will I have a child when no man has touched me?’ [The angel] said, ‘Such is Allah; He creates what He wills. When He decrees a matter, He only says to it, “Be,” and it is.’” (3:47)
- Jesus' Message and Miracles
- "Jesus, son of Mary, said, “O Allah, our Lord, send down to us a table [spread with food] from heaven to be for us a festival for the first of us and the last of us and a sign from You. And provide for us, and You are the best of providers.” (5:114)
- "And We gave Jesus, the son of Mary, clear proofs and supported him with the Pure Spirit." (2:253)
- Jesus' Divinity Rejected
- "They have certainly disbelieved who say, ‘Allah is the Messiah, the son of Mary.’ Say, ‘Then who could prevent Allah at all if He had intended to destroy the Christ, the son of Mary, or his mother or everyone on the earth?’" (5:17)
- Mary's Virtues
- "And [mention] when the angels said, "O Mary, indeed Allah has chosen you and purified you and chosen you above the women of the worlds." (3:42)
- "And she who guarded her chastity, so We breathed into her through Our angel, and We made her and her son a sign for the worlds." (21:91)
- Jesus' Prophethood
- "The Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, was no more than a messenger of Allah and His word which He bestowed on Mary and a spirit [created at a command] from Him." (4:171)
- "And We gave him the Gospel, in which was guidance and light and confirmation of the Torah." (5:46)
From the foregoing, perhaps "Islamo-Christian" values may be a term entirely more plausible than the "Judeo-Christian."
It may be worth the readers' while to send this piece to their Christian friends, wherever they may be. Shedding light on ignorance can sometimes change minds by enlightening them.
Let’s be blunt, Zohran Mamdani’s candidacy wasn’t supposed to happen. Not in a city where power has long been the playground of real estate magnates, billionaires with performative compassion, and career politicians who's boldest act of rebellion was switching committees. But Mamdani, born of Ugandan and Indian roots, raised in the pulse of Queens, and unapologetically socialist, didn’t ask permission. He walked straight into the establishment’s marble halls with sneakers, a sharp tongue, and an unshakable belief that the working class of New York deserves more than survival. His rise, and what his election as mayor would represent, is nothing short of a political insurrection wrapped in moral clarity.
Mamdani offered New Yorkers something they hadn’t seen in decades: authenticity without apology. He didn’t flirt with the progressive label for the sake of optics; he lived it. This was a man who didn’t just speak about housing crises from podiums but walked the streets where evictions were happening. He didn’t discuss “climate justice” as an academic theory; he stood with taxi drivers striking for survival against crushing debt. And when corporate giants threatened the city’s soul, Mamdani didn’t hide behind committees or consultants; he stood up and called their bluff.
His candidacy wasn’t a campaign. It was a mirror held up to a broken system, and New Yorkers looked into it and saw their anger, their exhaustion, their dormant hope staring back. Mamdani dared to tell them what no polished consultant would ever script: that the city wasn’t just mismanaged, it was betrayed. Betrayed by decades of hollow progress, by mayors who used empathy as a prop and reform as an afterthought, and by an economy that chews through workers while rewarding landlords for existing.
In Mamdani’s New York, the logic would flip. Housing is not a privilege; it’s a right. Public transit isn’t a punishment for the poor but the spine of a just city. Education isn’t a ladder for the lucky few; it’s the floor everyone stands on. He doesn’t propose incremental change or technocratic tinkering; he calls for a moral reordering. That’s what terrifies the old guard: his refusal to play by the polite rules of “reasonable reform.”
Because “reasonable,” in the mouths of the powerful, has always meant “comfortable for us.”
When Mamdani speaks, there’s no mistaking his target. He doesn’t soften his blows with euphemisms. He names names. The real estate cartels that hold the city hostage. The banks that profit from misery. The politicians who speak in circles while people sleep on subway benches. His message is as clear as a street protest chant: the time for begging is over; the time for taking back what belongs to the people has begun.
This is not idealism it’s defiance.
And it’s contagious.
Imagine, for a moment, Mamdani as mayor. Picture City Hall no longer as a fortress of privilege but as a command center for a moral insurgency. Budgets would become political weapons, aimed at justice instead of austerity. Rent control wouldn’t be a whisper of regulation; it would be a declaration of ownership by the people. And Wall Street’s smug confidence would shatter at the sight of a city finally standing up to its corporate puppeteers.
But Mamdani’s victory wouldn’t just belong to New York it would ripple far beyond it. For decades, the world has looked to the city as a reflection of where global capitalism struts next. A Mamdani administration would invert that mirror. New York, the city that exported greed as a virtue, could instead export courage.
Think of what that means globally. A New York run by a socialist mayor with an unflinching moral compass sends a message across continents: that the neoliberal gospel is not inevitable, that cities can defy the logic of billionaires, and that democracy still has a pulse strong enough to roar back.
Europe’s tired centrists, America’s cynical moderates, the bureaucrats who wear compassion as decoration they’d all have to look at New York and confront a terrifying thought: maybe the left can win without compromise. Maybe conviction, not calculation, is what people are starving for.
The international ripple would reach far corners. Activists in Nairobi, workers in Buenos Aires, climate strikers in Berlin they’d see New York’s mayor standing shoulder to shoulder with them, not behind a lectern feeding them platitudes. Mamdani’s election would be living proof that the moral arc of politics doesn’t have to bend toward pragmatism, it can, if seized, bend toward justice.
But let’s not be naïve. The establishment will treat him like a virus. Every headline will drip with alarm. “Markets uneasy under Mamdani.” “Developers flee city.” “Wall Street warns of chaos.” Translation: the parasites are panicking. When the powerful tremble, it’s usually because someone has finally found their spine. And Mamdani’s spine isn’t for sale.
His administration would be brutal not in cruelty, but in honesty. It would expose how every budget cut, every “fiscal discipline” measure; every delayed housing plan was never about efficiency it was about obedience. Obedience to capital, obedience to donors, obedience to the illusion that there’s no alternative. Mamdani’s greatest gift is that he doesn’t just see the alternative, he is the alternative.
And that, perhaps, is his most dangerous weapon.
When he stands at a podium, he doesn’t sound like a politician; he sounds like a movement wearing human form. He carries the cadence of a protest, the moral gravity of a preacher, and the strategic mind of a chess player who knows the establishment’s next ten moves. His leadership wouldn’t just be about policies, it would be about reawakening the collective moral imagination.
Under Mamdani, New York would once again teach the world something not about skyscrapers or finance, but about courage. About what happens when a city decides to fight for its soul instead of auctioning it off.
There’s a line that captures the moment: “The city that never sleeps has finally woken up.” That’s what Mamdani’s candidacy means. It’s not just another election it’s an uprising disguised as one.
And if the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn stand behind him, if the voices long silenced rise together, New York might just become the first truly post-capitalist metropolis, a beacon not of wealth, but of dignity.
Let the world take note. When Zohran Mamdani walks into City Hall, it won’t just be a political victory, it’ll be a declaration that the era of polite decay is over. The people are not just voting. They are reclaiming.
New York, the restless, the unbroken, the furious, has finally found its roar. And through Zohran Mamdani, the world will hear it.
The phone started up again. One…Two…Three rings. Not another conversation. His throat was dry. His ear felt like it was pressed flat against his skull. Four…Five. The still humid air, the sweat dripping down his back, the thought of standing up was painful. Nine-thirty. Through the open windows he heard the idle chattering from Market Square where couples walked in slow-motion under the glittering streetlamps. Six…Seven, screeching now. The teletype machines joined in, clattering bulletins from London and Paris. His notebook was full of shorthand transcripts of phone conversations. It had been one of those ‘nothing-is-ready-days’, panic to deadline, reporters lost in traffic. But they had managed to put the late edition to bed. There was the bus crash out on Highway 9, three passengers killed. A grim day. A councilman was forced to resign. A leap over the Joyceville Prison wall. How an inmate could have gotten up the energy to do such a thing in this heat is best explained by desperation. Eight…Nine… Dammit! Where the hell is everybody? “Everyone’s gone home,” a voice from the other side of the newsroom. Not yet.
“Hello, city desk!”
The telephone line sang with static. He heard a voice, soft and certain. “Hello, I’d like to speak to Wallace Lloyd-Craig, please.”
She sounded like a librarian.
“You got him. What can I do for you, ma’am?” Oh no, he thought. She wants a story on the wonders of libraries.
“I need to speak with you in confidence,” she said with a whisper.
“Every call with me is in confidence, ma’am.” Silence. He heard a deep breath. “Maybe you can start by telling me who you are.”
“Well, we met several years ago and you’re the only journalist I’ve ever known…….And I have to speak to a journalist.”
The singing on the line cracked. “Where are you calling from?”
“Montréal. We met in 1939 when you came to the Dominion Shipyards. You were doing an article about the navy frigates being built here for the war.”
“Oh yes,” he said, recalling it as the last time he visited Aunt Emma but the shipyard was a vague memory. “And you remember me?”
“As I said, I’ve never met a journalist, so yes, you were easy to remember.”
Another long pause. He waited her out. Finally, “I have some very important information that I want you to look at. No one’s been killed or anything.”
“That’s a relief, but you’ll have to tell me who you are.”
“Right.” More hesitation. “For now it’ll have to be Miss Smith.”
“How original. All right, Miss Smith, why don’t you go a reporter in Montréal. There are several good ones there.”
“As I said, you’re the only journalist I know.”
Wallace racked his weary brain, trying to remember this woman he might have spoken to seven years ago. An entire war had happened since. “How long did we talk to each other?”
“About two minutes.”
“Two minutes?” said Wallace opening the desk drawers and scrounging around for old notebooks.
“Mr. Craig, if all I have to base my trust on right now is a two minute conversation, that’s going to have to be good enough for you.”
Now Wallace was silent. There was certainty in her voice. He has moved on stories with less than this. “All right. But I can’t get to Montréal for a few days yet. I have…”
“No, I’ll come to Kingston. It’s better we meet there. I don’t want anyone to see me talking to you. I’m sorry, I don’t mean it like…
“It’s all right, Miss Smith. I understand.”
It was arranged that she would take the train to Kingston the next day and rendez-vous at Morrison’s Coffee Shop next door to the Kingston Chronicle building.
The following morning Wallace was sitting in his usual window booth in Morrison’s looking out at Market Square and the train station across the street from City Hall. He had finished reading his morning dose of the first editions: The Globe & Mail, New York Times, Washington Post, Montreal Gazette. He left the front page of The Gazette face-up and stared at the stark photograph, 3 columns wide, top of the fold - the caption: July 6, 1946: 50,000 feet of radioactive cloud: Hurling itself skyward after the atomic bomb burst over Bikini Atoll. Eyewitnesses some 18 miles from the burst said there was only a small, sharp shock after the explosion, not the mighty rushing wind that had been expected.
The morning was hot, humid, the sky glared through the steamed windows. The other Chronicle reporters had left, fanning out across the city for their stories. Kingston did not have the news intensity of Montréal or Toronto, and certainly not of New York, yet there was no shortage of stories to cover, between the nine prisons making Kingston the capital of incarcerations, and the councilmen who were forever lining their pockets by picking the pockets of others. Marge brought Wallace another cup of coffee and a smile. Journalists were always allowed to linger here, they were the clientele twenty-four hours a day, they paid the rent, giving Marge and the owner, Olivier, a sense of pride that their coffee shop was nicknamed Editorial Two. The remaining clientele, the students, the city hall staffers, were also allowed to linger but they would have to tolerate the arguments over proper lead-lines or the Prime Minister as a blockhead.
Nine years ago Simon O’Hara had lured Wallace away from The Sentinel, likely sensing its looming demise. Any dream that the newspaper would rise from the ashes had long since been dashed by the war. Simon had retired from The Chronicle and there was a new editor. Some things had changed but this place had not and Wallace feared that at the age of forty, something had passed him by, he just hadn’t figured out what. By his age his father had travelled the world, seeking out Henri Dunant in the Parisian underground, riding roughshod on a train through the Russian Revolution with a vainglorious Canadian. But his father was also dead, brought down by the work he loved. Wallace heard the whistle. The 10:30 was coming in.
He readied his notebook, writing left-handed the date, time and place, left the subject name blank and looked out the window. Out of the steam mist of the locomotive emerged Hoop Jr. walking alongside a tall woman. Hoop Jr. was a new Rupert’s Rogue hired on for the summer, thirteen years old, five feet tall but walked like he was six. The duo made their way past the vegetable stalls across Market Square. Miss Smith was in animated conversation with Hoop, her hands painting arcs in the air, her floral-patterned cotton dress swaying like a curtain in time with her steps. They dodged through traffic crossing the street to Morrison’s. Hoop Jr. led her to Wallace’s booth. He stood to greet her.
“This is Miss Smith, sir.”
Wallace shook her hand.
“Hoop Jr. tells me he’s named after a horse,” she said playfully.
Hoop Jr. shrugged.
“So he is. Winner of the Kentucky Derby last year,” said Wallace.
“So, you name children after a horse?”
“Everybody’s named after something, ma’am,” said Hoop Jr. “Now, is there anything you need, sir?”
“Yes, Hoop,” said Wallace handing Hoop Jr. a piece of paper. “I need you to get this book for me at the public library, please, and while you’re at it get one for yourself.”
“Yes, sir,” and he ran out.
“Shouldn’t he be in school?”
“He is in school,” said Wallace gesturing to the seat across from him, “Please,” he said, thinking: I haven’t known her one minute and already she’s asking me questions.
Once seated, she placed her briefcase gently at her side, her purse next to it. “So that’s how it is. A newspaper substitutes as school and running errands is job experience?”
This was going to be a long day. “Miss Smith, that boy has more vocabulary than most of the Queen’s University students down the street and more experience than someone twice his age. I assure you I’m not engaged in child labour, the boy is paid, he is in school, a real school, and it’s summer holidays. We have a whole slew of lads, a regular corral come to think of it. Now would you like some coffee or something to eat?”
“I wouldn’t mind some tea.”
“Fine, we’ll get you tea. Then you’ll tell me who you are and what you’ve got in that case which you’ve been holding onto like it was a bomb.”
Marge come to the booth and took her order for tea with lemon, no milk. Despite the humidity, not a bead of sweat showed on Miss Smith’s alabaster face. Her green eyes were bright and inquisitive, her hair short reddish-blonde, her lips narrow and moist, no wedding ring, mid-thirties. She possessed a formal reserve, a firmness of the chin as she leaned back. Marge brought the tea and left.
“So?” said Wallace.
She sighed. “My name is Lydia Beecher. When you saw me in ’39, I was working in the secretarial pool in administration at Dominion. I was promoted and eventually became the executive secretary to the president of the company.”
“Very impressive,” said Wallace, looking straight into her eyes.
She had never been looked at like that before with eyes so intense, almost glaring. He listened without nodding or tilting his head. She opened the briefcase on the table and took out a file folder. “I work exclusively for the president, Mr. William Larson. His office has its own budget, separate from the rest of the company, and he has sole signing authority. If he needs funds for travel expenses, or consulting fees, or office supplies, I arrange for the cheques to be written up by the comptroller and Mr. Larson signs them. He either cashes them himself or I send them out.”
Lydia opened the file folder and laid out ten cheques, spreading them open on the table like she was dealing a poker hand. She explained that at the end of the each month she renders the bank statement and balances the office account. Each of the cheques was made out to a numbered company with amounts from five thousand to twenty thousand dollars. “None of these companies exists except as a post office box in the village of Pointe-Fortune, Québec. Have you ever been there?”
“No, but I expect you have.”
“Indeed. Pointe-Fortune straddles the border with Ontario on the highway to Ottawa. It’s a lovely village, French colonial houses, charming waterfront restaurant. There’s a ferry that takes you across the Ottawa River. I wanted to confirm with the postmaster that this box was registered and if mail was ever picked up. He told me it was but he wasn’t permitted to tell me by whom.”
Lydia had figured out who it was. At the records office for corporate registrations she got the names of the owners of the numbered companies, a Mr. Paulson and a Mr. Lemieux. She knew both of these men. They were bureaucrats in the Defense Department in charge of procurements – government contracts for the production of materials by private companies. Paulson and Lemieux had been in the Larson’s office several times over the past two years. They had meetings but they also had dinners, rounds of golf, and more dinners all at very high-end restaurants. Lydia knew this because she had made the reservations. All this was happening when Dominion Shipyards was making bids to the Defense Department for the frigates and submarines.
“You’re suggesting these are bribes,” said Wallace. “But why would Dominion, with its expertise of building naval vessels, resort to that?”
“Fear of peace,” said Lydia with a bite. “A year before the war ended, military production started winding down. They had enough to finish the war. Dominion knew it was coming to an end along with the gravy train. Once the war was over, that would be it, no more frigates.”
“So why didn’t Dominion switch gears, start building other kinds of ships?”
“It’s a whole different thing to build a passenger liner and much more difficult to get contracts. No, the navy was always a sure thing until 1944. Even as it is, the contract we got was for only one frigate. And it was at double the cost of the competing shipbuilder in Quebec City.”
Wallace didn’t doubt her but he had to know her motivation and sometimes a single woman’s motives maybe more complicated than civil responsibility. “You realize if we publish this story it’ll go national. Other newspapers will follow-up. You may be putting yourself at considerable risk, you could lose your job.” He waited. He wasn’t satisfied yet. “I need to ask you a question. Are you having an affair with Mr. Larson?”
Lydia almost choked on her tea. “You think I’m a jilted mistress, out for revenge because he wouldn’t leave his wife,” she said sternly. “I assure, Mr. Lloyd-Craig, I’m not that stupid. I was never Mr. Larson’s mistress. The idea makes my skin crawl. No, my motive is exactly as you see it. Besides being illegal, it’s unethical to leverage taxpayers’ money to make instruments of war when there is no war. Yes, I may lose my job, I’m aware of that.”
“Well, I can tell you one thing Miss Beecher. If you want to be a journalist, you have all the makings of a good one. The work you’ve done here is quite something.”
“I don’t know if I’d be a good journalist. I’d get too emotionally involved. Objectivity is not one of my strong suits.”
“Nor mine. I come from a long line of non-objective reporting.”
“I know.”
“You do?”
“I didn’t come to you because you’re the only journalist I know. You were quite right in saying that there are many good reporters in Montréal. I’ve come to you because I read many of the articles your mother Emma Lloyd-Craig wrote about the Persons Case. I was very interested in her stories and interviews she did with Nellie McClung.”
“Emma is not my mother. She’s my aunt, my father’s sister.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Lloyd-Craig is not a very common surname and…”
“It’s all right. But why the Persons Case?”
She paused and shook her head, looking out the window. “It astounded me that women had to go to court to prove they were persons. That’s what your aunt was writing about. Everybody thought it was a great victory. Is it a victory to go to the Supreme Court to argue such an idea in the first place? Your aunt was angry and many other women were, too, including me. I think that’s why I got the promotion. I swore I would never again accept anything that was beneath my talents.” She ran her fingers over her mouth, considering her next words. “But given what I now know, I wonder how long that will last. Would you mind,” she said putting her hand out, touching his forearm. “I am absolutely starving and it smells so good in here.”
“Of course, Miss Beecher, anything you like.”
“Call me Lydia.”
Lydia suddenly reverted to an almost impish behavior, rubbing her hands together as she looked over the menu. She ordered a full course meal with vegetable soup, a plate of home fries, scrambled eggs and toast, coffee, apple pie with ice cream passing on any suggestion of bacon or sausage. A grimace passed over her face when Marge told her the sausage came with the meal but Lydia waved it away. When the food came, she dived in with the delight of a child opening presents on Christmas morning.
After lunch Wallace took Lydia up to The Chronicle newsroom on the second floor. Lydia harboured the illusion that because newspapers thrived on the written word a newsroom must be like the reading room of a library. Instead, the Chronicle newsroom was an anarchy of people in motion, either on their feet or at their desks. A bluish haze of cigarette smoke hung over the room. The Rogues ran down the stairs, hopped between the desks and two of them sat quietly on a bench at the door to the editor’s office, leaning forward, ready. The telephones, the rattle of the teletype machines – a cross between a sewing machine and a drill – the clattering of typewriters, the rumble of pneumatic tubes, shouts of “Copy!” Sunlight poured in through the large arched windows spanning two walls, all open to the Lake but offering scant relief from the heat. Wallace led the way through the maze of desks to one in a far corner. He removed his jacket and tossed it onto a cot next to the wall behind the desk. It looked like a comfort zone, the pillow and blanket had the ruffled valleys of recent use as well as books stacked on the floor and a curio lamp mounted into the wall. Wallace sat down in front of a typewriter, opened his notebook and began typing, all the while asking Lydia questions about the operations of the company, the prices on the other bids for the contract compared to Dominion’s bid; the golf course, the restaurants, the hotels.
Lydia interrupted, “How do you work in this racket?”
“What racket?” said Wallace, befuddled. He looked around the room. “Today’s a quiet day.”
“This seems like a busy town?”
“It’s going to get a hell of a lot busier soon,” he said returning to his typing. He had to bring in a Montréal reporter to follow-up on leads and to share the byline. He couldn’t be seen to be treading on another newspaper’s territory.
“Territory?” said Lydia. “You sound like the Mafia.”
“What do you know about the Mafia?”
Lydia laughed. “I live in Montreal.”
Given her exalted position with a large company, there was little doubt Lydia would know about the wide open city of Montréal: casinos, nightclubs, brothels, all paid for by protection money to the police and local politicians. It was also the centre of the most vibrant artistic activity in the entire country. The city never slept, the lights on Ste.Catherine Street were always on.
“I’m getting a reporter from Montreal anyway, help with the footwork. Regardless, The Chronicle will be the paper-of-record.”
Wallace telephoned Damien Chamberlan at the La Pressewho agreed to work on the story from there as long as La Presse could print follow-ups. Wallace had to type up the briefing notes for Damien.
“I know how to type,” said Lydia.
“I’m sure you can. Just sit back and relax. I’ll need you to write out some other things…contacts, names.”
Hoop Jr. came running in. “I got it, sir,” dropping a book on the desk.
“What did you get for yourself?”
“Gulliver’s Travels, sir.”
“Good, great book,” said Wallace writing on a piece of paper and handing it to Hoop Jr. “A Class B frigate. I want you to go over the Military College, find some naval officer and ask him for a picture of one of these. Or go to their library, there must be something in there. If you have to, make a drawing. You’re good at that.”
“Yes, sir!” he said with glee and ran out.
“Now I know why you name them after race horses,” said Lydia.
“Thoroughbreds. To be specific.”
Adding to the bedlam, Lydia felt thrumming coming up from the floor. Wallace sensed her concern: “The presses, late edition. Okay, we need a timeline.”
Over the next few hours, they reviewed the sequence of visits from Lemieux and Paulson to Dominion, timed out with the dates of the contract applications, records of phone calls, correspondence, the golf dates, the fine dining, and of course the dates of the cheques. As Wallace typed out the timeline, Lydia wandered over to the three teletype machines. Pages streamed out of the frenzied printer: bulletins from all over Europe. Lydia read one:
Dateline- Marseille, France. 6 July 1946. The Red Cross has established a camp for approximately 2,000 Jewish refugees released over a year ago from the death camp Treblinka in Poland. The refugees have walked through Germany, Belgium, France in an attempt to return to their homes that have been either destroyed or confiscated. These and several other European countries have refused to grant the Jews asylum. The Red Cross is working to secure a ship that will take them to Palestine.
“Those are wire services, Reuters, Hearst, Associated Press,” said Wallace. “We’re part of the network syndication. May I see that one?”
A copy boy tore off the other bulletins and hurried back to his desk. The Rogues ran in and out of the editorial room, their shoes clicking on the stairs, fanning out across Market Square. One remained sitting on a bench next to the editor’s office. A tall man came out of the office and looked around the newsroom. He saw Wallace, walked to his desk and picked up the copy pages next to the typewriter. He leaned against the wall next to the window and began to read. He was tall, somewhat aloof, wearing a vest over an open shirt and shining black cowboy boots covering the lower half of his suit pants. Lydia thought this odd mix of styles and the scowl on his face suggested that nothing in his life ever pleased him.
“This is our editor, John Winchester,” said Wallace.
Winchester did not look up from his reading.
“Hello,” said Lydia, “I’m….
Winchester raised his hand palm up: “I don’t want to know your name.”
Wallace glanced at Lydia, gesturing to say: it’s all right.
Winchester wrote several notes on the last page. “Make sure you corroborate those restaurants and the golf courses. We’ll need dates and times and whomever else was there.”
“And the anonymous source?”
Winchester said, “I’m fine with that,” and as he walked away he paused in front of her, said, “Thank you,” and stalked back to his office.
“What was that all about?” said Lydia.
“It’s a way of saying you were never here. He’s protecting you as a source.”
“From whom?”
“Well, if some lawyer were to ask him under oath if he ever saw you here, he’ll say, Who? It’s being rendered a nobody, like a Miss Smith and you’re obviously comfortable with that. There is one thing I want to know. All this work you’ve done…Why?”
“Shouldn’t a person have a social conscience?”
“Of course. But a story like this could close down Dominion, the workers lose their jobs.”
Lydia leaned back and stared at Wallace severely. “Where do you think that money went? Do you think if the contract came in at double the cost that the crews would get double the salary? The shareholders will make the money, not the crews. This is corruption and the house is playing with taxpayers’ money. That’s why I’m doing this.”
Night rolled in, the thrumming relentless under the floorboards, the telephones went quiet. Lydia looked over the newsroom as the reporters typed and the editors slashed through copy with red pencils. Hundreds of stories, each with meaning for hundreds of readers and hers was but one that could get lost under-the-fold on page ten. Abruptly through the open windows came the wail of a train whistle and the grinding of brakes. Lydia went to the window: “Damn! That’s my train. Can I make it!?”
She didn’t wait for an answer. She grabbed her briefcase and ran out with Wallace. They made it halfway across Market Square when the Montréal-bound train pulled out under a thick cloud of black smoke. The heat enveloped them. They had to catch their breaths and let the breeze from the lake cool them.
“I’ll have to… get…a hotel room,” said Lydia.
“There’s plenty of room in my house. I have a guest room. You’re welcome to stay.”
Lydia accepted his offer. She had been with enough men to know who was sincere - who had ulterior motives - and who was not. Some had been intelligent or good-looking or a brave soldier or even rich but none of them had it. There had been talk of marriage with one. He was a “solid man”, a banker and had purchased a bungalow in one of the new suburban developments in the west island of Montréal. Lydia wanted none of it. Work. That’s what she wanted more than anything – a purpose, a career. She didn’t have the nerve to tell Wallace that she hadn’t brought enough money with her and would likely have had to sleep on a bench in the station. After having dinner in a pub off Market Square they walked up Princess Street.
Walking with Wallace proved somewhat…extended. He was the slowest walker she had ever seen, trailing slightly behind while taking in the shop windows or a car driving by. Everything seemed to merit a slow steady gaze. She asked him why.
“I spend my whole day operating at the speed of light. This is me unwinding.”
He finally unwound himself at the front door of a modest two-storey red brick house on a quiet street off Princess. He turned on the lights, walked down the hallway to the kitchen, “I’ll make tea.”
Lydia found herself surrounded by framed paintings hanging on the walls of the dining room, hallway and living room, three or four high, and it seemed to her to be at least forty, maybe fifty, panoramic landscapes and portraits and street scenes, her eyes drinking in the vibrancy of the entire colour wheel. She knew what she was seeing. The museums and art galleries of Montréal were her frequents haunts. To Lydia a painting on a canvas was what an artist actually touched, looked at, spoke to and cursed.
There was sudden incongruity on the wall next to a bay window. These were photographs, black-and-whites of a village street, women in crinoline skirts, horse-and-buggies. Also sepia tones of rugged mountains. The lower right-hand corner of each photo was embossed with: H.C. Branch – Lenox, Québec. She moved on to a small landscape oil painting. Wallace came in carrying a tray, setting it on the table and poured the tea.
“This is a Pissarro,” said Lydia excitedly. “And over there is a Degas and a Renoir.”.
“Two Renoirs actually. And there’s a Cassatt in the hallway,” he said handing her a tea cup.
“Are you an art collector, too?”
Wallace chuckled. “No. I’m more of a…more of an art minder. These are all part of my mother’s collection. She was an art curator, had a gallery in London and in Montréal. She died a few years ago and I inherited the collection.” He sips tea and scans his eyes over the paintings.
“I’m so sorry. Do you still have the Montreal gallery?”
“No, I had to close it. My work is here. I have sold many of the works but only to reputable art galleries and museums. My mother taught me who to look for and who to avoid. It’s not hard. I had a guy come in here last year, pointed to the Degas over there and said, ‘I’ll give you five hundred bucks for it.’ Hah. It’s been appraised at a hundred thousand. I asked him what turnip truck he thought I’d fallen off of and showed him the door. The last thing I want is having this art buried in some rich guy’s bunker. So I wait, until the right people come along.”
“How did your mother acquire all this?”
“Easy,” he said, leaving the room. He returned with a large folio book and opened it to a painting printed over two pages. “This is the current Lesage Auction House catalogue. Do you know this painting?”
Lydia recognized it instantly. “It’s Bar aux Folies-Bergère by Manet.”
“Excellent. The barmaid? That’s my mother, Aline.”
Lydia leaned in closer to the print: in the centre, a barmaid dressed in a black velvet jacket trimmed tightly around her narrow waist, her large, melancholy eyes seemingly looking at the viewer; the marble-top bar stocked with champagne, beer, a glass tray of oranges and two roses in a glass; the palms of her hands pressed against the edge of the bar, her arms straight in a pose of rest; and behind her the mirror filling the background reflecting gaily dressed patrons and a woman swinging on a trapeze. Then the trick: in the mirror the back of the barmaid herself, facing away from the viewer. A subtle deception for the reflection reveals that the barmaid is not looking at the patrons, but into the eyes of a moustached man, likely Manet himself, staring back at her, studying her face. “That was your mother? She’s beautiful.”
“Yes, she was. She modeled for many of the artists. Sometimes she was paid with whatever painting she wanted. And my father, George, he was always bringing home art. Every time he went out on assignment he’d come back with a trunk load of sketches or drawings from all over Europe.”
Lydia wandered off to see more of the paintings in the hallway. Wallace stared at the barmaid. He realized it was the first time he had looked at the print since his mother had died in 1942. It wasn’t so much because he had shied away from all the memories it evoked. He simply hadn’t thought about it and now that he had, it physically hurt in his head and his chest. Maybe that’s why he hadn’t done it, knowing this would happen, made all the harder because another person was present. Looking at the barmaid made him think of the scores of galleries Aline had taken him to in New York, Boston and Québec City. With his mother it was like going to church, sitting in front of a painting and worshiping it silently for hours. “If you want to be a journalist like your father,” she said once, “be an art critic. It’s safer.” He remembered when she was dying that her eyes grew even sadder when she realized it would be impossible to take her body back to Paris for burial. There was the never ending war and the Nazis occupied Paris. So they buried her on the hillside in Lenox with Samuel and Leah and Emma and Peter. At least that made it easier for Wallace to visit her grave and tell her about the galleries he had toured. Lydia roused him from his reverie. “Are there more paintings?”
“Yes, several more. They’re stored in an old building in Lenox. Listen, you must be tired. Let’s get you settled in.”
Lydia could see that Wallace was tired, too, and pretty much all talked out. He set her up in a cozy guest room on the second floor with a connecting bathroom. The house was quiet during the night with only the sound of the curtain shifting in the breeze. She was always restless when sleeping in a strange bed and sleep was evasive. A few hours into the night she heard footsteps – slow ones- going down the stairs, perhaps up, she couldn’t tell. The front door opened and softly closed…footsteps fading into silence. She was alone.
At dawn, Hoop Jr. was at the front door ready to escort Lydia to the train station. They walked up Princess Street towards Market Square, passing the vendors opening their shops, aromas of coffee drifting out. The night’s wind had blown the humid air away. All of it made Lydia’s stomach rumble. “Can we stop at Morrison’s for a cup of coffee?”
“Don’t worry, ma’am. Mr. Lloyd-Craig has something for you at the station.”
“Wonderful. Did you find anything regarding the frigate?”
“Yes ma’am, got a photograph,” he said with certainty.
Lydia laughed; thirteen years old and he owns the world.
Wallace was waiting on the Kingston Station platform and holding a brown paper bag. Hoop Jr. dashed back across the square.
“There’s a Morrison breakfast in there,” he said handing the bag to Lydia. She could smell coffee, eggs and cinnamon, the bag was steamed moist. “Sorry I wasn’t around this morning.”
They turned their heads to the sounds of a whistle approaching.
“I figure it’s something you do every night.”
“Yes, rather than worry about bringing work home with me, I simply don’t go home.”
A hint of sadness passed over his face and in a moment was gone.
“Were you working on my story?”
“No, I wasn’t. I’m always working on others.” He paused to look out over the lake. “People think the war is over but it’s not. Europe is in shambles. No water, no food, no electricity, no trains. There are millions of refugees trying to get home but in most places, nothing is left, just mounds of rubble. I read the stories out of Germany, France, Hungary. I’ve been following that story about the Jewish refugees the one you were reading off the teletype. They escape Treblinka only to find themselves in another camp. Do you see the brutal irony of that? Hitler might be dead but Europe is not finished with the Jews. I hope they make it and I’m going to write about them until they do. They’ll set up their own country, Israel, far away from the Europeans who’ve been trying to kill them for two thousand years.”
The train blew past them and screeched to a stop. Lydia stepped onto the first step of the railcar. “So in the scheme of things, my story is small potatoes.”
“Not at all. It’s a very important story. It’ll get done. Just keep your head down.”
The train began its slow grind out of the station. Lydia stayed on the step as Wallace walked along with her.
“So you believe me?” she said.
“I wouldn’t have brought you breakfast if I didn’t.”
She smiled. The train slowly picked up speed and Wallace kept pace with it.
“I’ll be hearing from you?”
“Yes, you will,” he said, stopping abruptly as he ran out of platform.
She waved to him and entered the rail car. Another person leaving on a train. He loathed this. Every time it’s happened to him, they’ve never come back. He watched the train cross the Cataraqui Bridge and slip into the sunrise. This time he wasn’t going to let that happen.
Lydia looked out the train window wondering if she had made the right decision confiding in Wallace. Who did he think he was, asking if she was having an affair with Larson? It’s been the same with all the men she’s known: yes, women may be ‘persons’ now but men continue to assume women still get what they want by way of the bedroom. She would’ve walked out had she not already revealed so much. For this she was risking everything, perhaps even jail for stealing private documents. Maybe when she gets back to Montréal she will telephone him and call the whole thing off. But there was something about him, something she could not explain. The hot morning sun streamed through the window and she saw a young boy standing on a haystack waving at the train. She waved back.
