Just Saying | The death of George H.W. Bush: making another genocidal American leader great again
- Yonden Lhatoo counters the mainstream narrative about the ‘greatness’ of former US president George H.W. Bush, arguing that it stems from a low base of comparison with and opposition to President Donald Trump
They delivered right on cue, condemning my “lack of humanity and decency” for speaking ill of the dead. Since I’m doing it again in this column, let me start with a pre-emptive defence by quoting Sigmund Freud’s Reflections on War and Death, in which he devotes one section to mulling over the rather curious human trait of suspending criticism and overlooking a man’s misdeeds when he dies.
“This consideration for the dead, which he really no longer needs, is more important to us than the truth and to most of us, certainly, it is more important than consideration for the living,” was how the father of psychoanalysis explained it.
In the same vein, I feel no compunction about objecting to the nauseating veneration of another undeserving American icon, George H.W. Bush, following the former US president’s death last month at the age of 94. The breathless mainstream media coverage of his funeral this week was as hyperbolic as it was hypocritical.
Family members, friends, political allies and foes alike, foreign governments and writers of repute fell over each other to pile on the accolades: “a man of the highest character”, “a thousand points of light to illuminating the greatness, hope and opportunity of America to the world”, “a tireless humanitarian”.
