Just like those who incited genocide in Rwanda, woke Democrats are employing extreme rhetoric to demonise their political opponents, stirring up the flames of fear and hatred. Will we see violence like the riots which followed the election of President Trump?

At closer inspection, what’s emerging in the United States and beyond is worse than just Woke Leftists trying to trigger a civil war.

The ramped-up rhetoric from the far Left has all the earmarks of creating a potential genocide.

There is a pseudo-religious determination at work in the political mindset of this hard-hearted activist authoritarianism. It is a woke jihad masquerading as love, tolerance, and democracy.

Bureaucracy

This new authoritarianism, Salvator Babones declared in 2018, ‘is a tyranny of experts.’

He explained that ‘governance is increasingly being conducted by standing bureaucracies and independent agencies.’

This is because the complexities of today’s society have made politicians dependent on ‘expert staffers to formulate and implement “their” policies.’

We are, Babones said, ‘ruled by an expert class, who are insulated from public opinion. Worse, they only ever have to answer to other experts,’ never to the people.

As a result, the Left’s political elite ‘do not necessarily have to win at the polls to have the power to make policy. It is often sufficient for them to set the rules of the policy debate.’

In other words, in a “truth is relative” world, by abusing words and terms, the Left knows that they can control the emotional argument, and therefore not even have to engage in a reasoned one.

This means, by default, they can also control anyone not paying close enough attention.

Conformity

The most obvious example of the abuse and redefinition of language was identified ten years ago by D.A Carson, who called out an emergent “neo-tolerance” as a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Discussing the Left’s re-defining of tolerance, Carson pointed to the example of student unions enforcing inclusion by excluding groups from representation.

Carson concluded that the neo-tolerant ‘appeal to tolerance selectively in order to promote their own selective values.’ (The Intolerance of Tolerance, p. 84)

This is not ‘merely accidental inconsistency,’ Carson adds, ‘it is inconsistency with an agenda.’ (ibid.)

Tolerance was no longer the allowing of an opposing viewpoint, it was the exclusion of all viewpoints opposed to the collective whim.

Lessons from Rwanda

The Rwandan genocide in 1994 still exists as a tragic reminder of how those lusting after power and political advantage use the abuse of language to groom the masses.

‘Years of cultivated hatred led to death on a horrifying scale,’ wrote Kennedy Ndahiro, editor of Rwanda’s New Times in a 2019 article for The Atlantic.

‘Rwandans,’ he said, ‘know what can happen when political leaders and media outlets single out certain groups of people as less than human.’

Media, ‘allied with leaders of the government, had been inciting Hutus against Tutsis, repeatedly describing the latter as inyenzi, or “cockroaches,” and as inzoka, or “snakes.”

These ‘promoters of genocide’ weaponised language ‘to turn people against their neighbours,’ calling for their extermination.

‘Anti-Tutsi incitement came to the fore in November 1992,’ Ndahiro adds, ‘when an official in the ruling party, Léon Mugesera, openly called for the mass killings of Tutsis, and for their bodies to be dumped in a river.’

Ndahiro said, ‘the government’s propaganda machinery had carried out its task meticulously.’

In order to stay in power, the Hutu leadership ramped up the rhetoric; ‘four weeks later, all the demons descended on Rwanda.’

‘Blood was flowing on the streets,’ he recounted, noting that ‘the Tutsi were hunted down without mercy; they were killed in schools, churches, hospitals, and even prisons.’

This is War

There is no doubt in my mind Rwanda’s history offers the West a dire warning.

Mid-term electioneering by Democrats and far-left wing militants in the United States confirms the conclusions of Babones and Carson.

The ramped-up reckless rhetoric, slogans, and weaponised lawfare also share a chilling correlation with the events in Rwanda, as Ndahiro remembers them.

The deliberate Democrat demonisation of “MAGA Republicans” as “domestic terrorists” is a red flag, warning us that no country is beyond following Rwanda down the same mad road to genocide.

Note actorvist Kathy Griffin’s recent declaration on Twitter:

It’s this ideological fanaticism that compromises the integrity of tried and true law and order.

It’s this ideological fanaticism that presents a clear and present danger to the citizens who have loved, lived, sought refuge, and prospered peaceably in countries long guided by Bible-backed Burkean classical liberalism.

It’s this ideological fanaticism, not patriotic mums and dads, who present a threat to democracy.

As Kari Lake, Republican Candidate for Arizona pointed out:

“Us vs. Them” cognitive distortions are the base mental mechanics of both communist and fascist imperialism — historically, two wings on the same vicious bird.

For those caught in the firing line, as hard as it is to pray for our enemies, Christians must lobby both God and Government on behalf of the wronged, and their wrong-doers.

As Chuck Colson’s Breakpoint asserted, first, we lobby governments to ‘take more decisive action’ in bringing us back from the brink of unnecessary bloodshed.

Second, we ‘lobby Heaven, for both the persecuted, and persecutors, praying that God’s kingdom would advance and win’ these “woke jihadis” to Jesus.

___

Photo: BigStock