2 votes

An Ode to Betrayal

The traitor, the betrayer is the most wretched thing in mythos. Whether this mythos be religious or secular, from west or east, from north or south, this creature begets only the harshest response. Loyalty, it is said, is not to be trifled with. Even more importantly, it is not to be thrown away, or you will face our wrath.

In the current political landscape, this often means being loyal to your nation-state. However, nation-states are built on blood, genocide, and betrayal of justice. They are built on the mounds of the poor slain ones. Their souls yearn for justice, unable to achieve any peace, even in void—from beyond the grave their tortured spirits yearn for this villainy to be corrected. Why? Because this is not only the nation-state's legacy but also its present, for it carries the wind of that original sin. Like a ghost that still sees its killer continue to murder, they are unable to rest, and what was done to them still to this day haunt the nation-states. There is no single nation-state that doesn't guard this foundation, that doesn't dominate the unwanted ones. Being loyal to a nation-state means being part of this sin.

Most people embrace this, to varying degrees, but in the end all of them partake in the blood rituals. Even the few people who are aware of the original sin, they still hold onto that feeling of loyalty. After all, humans are social, and you grew up with these people. They are yours, are they not? These bloodthirsty lunatics—you see the human in them.

A piercing gaze reveals: what you feel is not compassion, not understanding that humans are complex -these are the excuses you tell yourself- but simply fear. You fear being rejected, being isolated, being an outcast, being an enemy. You fear being the traitor, that wretched one, the ultimate evil. Thus, the tyrants manage to bind you with fear and the yoke of morality, and you continue to escape confronting the evil of the land.

What is required is to forego any notion of loyalty to the bloodied soil's inhabitants. One should become a betrayer to their loved ones, for it is the only way to fight the original sin. Becoming that ultimate evil, that darkness, that splinter that won't go away, that fight-starter, that menace, that disgrace—it is the only path out of this pit, the only way to vanquish the thirsting gods of the nation-state.

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person's enemies will be those of his own household."

  • Matthew 10:34-36