@georgeob1,
The cartoonists, Kountouris has employed the metaphors of the Adam & Eve mythos in a sloppy and hamfisted manner, but he probably considers himself an artist and had to make even a feeble attempt at allusion.
Each of the three major world religions that contain the tale of Adam & Eve in their sacred texts has different versions of the story, however, they generally agree that God created Adam & Eve and set them up in paradise. They were indulged by their creator in most ways but he forbid them to eat the fruit of the
Tree of Knowledge or
The Tree of The Knowledge of Good & Evil. A serpent in paradise leads them to violate God's order, and as a result:
1. Their view of the world and life changed dramatically and
2. They were cast out of paradise and made to know suffering (pretty quickly) and eventually death.
The cartoon depicts Adam & Eve cowering naked in the Garden of Eden while a gang of right-wing serpents approaches them menacingly from above. It appears that at least Adam is attempting to cover his nakedness which suggests the scene takes place after the couple ate the forbidden fruit. I suppose the cartoonist must be granted some artistic license and so I won't quibble too much over the fact that his depiction is inconsistent with every version of the tale (and not simply as regards the number of serpents on the scene). None of the versions tell of the serpent using the threat of violence to coerce Eve to take that first bite, and none include the serpent attacking or threatening to attack the couple after they have sinned, but maybe Kountouris wants to provide progressives with a ray of hope:
Take heart! Adam & Eve having tasted the fruit are now well aware of the evil nature of the serpents who deceived them (Considering how recently some of these
serpents have risen to power, such a view wouldn't exactly hold up.)
The cartoonist, however, chose the Adam & Eve tale for a reason. He could have drawn a cartoon depicting werewolves (labeled "Le Pen," "Trump" etc) attacking crippled children if his only message was "These people are evil monsters!" So, despite his incongruent scene, it seems safe to assume that he intended to incorporate the notion of seduction in his message. The serpents certainly don't look seductive, but they wouldn't have to if the scene is post-sin. His readers would be expected to know enough about the myth to understand how the scene developed...if they bothered to give it any more thought beyond,
"These people are evil monsters!"
Taking the scene as drawn, the obvious message is that these right-wing populist snakes seduced Adam & Eve (i.e. their millions of followers), caused them to sin against God (i.e. progressivism? secular humanism? Barrack Obama?), and now realize or are coming to realize that they are in a real mess as a result. However, leftist and modern progressive ideology across the globe consistently holds to notions of a Utopian society; a Garden of Eden in which the State makes sure everyone is treated fairly and the riches of the earth are shared equally. Kountouris implies with his cartoon that the places in which these various serpents reside and (in some cases) rule were utopian before the right-wing populists slithered in. It’s a preposterous notion.
First of all, each of the serpents is quite different as respects the extent of their power and the stage of their
despoiling, but Kountouris forces them into a homogeneous group intended to represent the serpent on the basis of two superficial commonalities:
1. They each have a populist appeal in their countries, which is to say they are supported by their nation’s
Great Unwashed
2. They each are despised and feared by leftists and elites
Le Pen is not the French President, nor in a position to be held responsible for the conditions and policies of France. Similarly, the AfD is not Germany's largest political party; it's not even its second largest. The AfD is third in size and
has only been so since 2017 when it won 12.6% of the votes in the Bundestag as compared to the 53% held by the CDU/CSU, and SPD parties. Matteo Salvini holds more power in Italy than Le Pen does in France, but he is neither the President nor the Prime Minister. He is the Deputy PM and Minister of the Interior and
didn't assume these offices until June of this year. Jair Bolsonaro only just won his election and
won't be taking office until January of 2019.
Of the six serpents in the garden, Viktor Orban, the Prime Minister of Hungary has been in power the longest. He was PM for four years beginning in 1998 during which time Hungary became a member of NATO. The voters turned his party, Fidesz, and him out of power in 2002 (without requiring a revolution BTW) and after the Socialist Party mucked up the country for eight years Fidesz and Orban were returned to power in 2010 and retaining a supermajority in the 2014 and 2018 elections.
Rather than using power to destroy leftwing utopias, each of these individuals, and the AfD, have gained what power they have by virtue of the fact that a sufficient number of the voters in their countries believed that while their leftwing opponents were in power, the Garden began to wither.
As for the American serpent, Donald Trump, the cartoonist and his admirers obviously wish to deny or ignore that he has made good on more campaign promises than any American president in a very long time and that there are a great many indicators that the US is in better shape on a number of fronts than it was while Obama was president. There's no indication that any Americans who might have been
seduced by the reptilian Trump feel as though they have been played. Those who voted for him are pretty happy with his performance thus far and if he speaks with a forked tongue now and again, it hasn't led to widespread disenchantment among his supporters. Despite hyperbolic claims that he is an autocrat and even a fascist, his hysterical critics are unable to point to any evidence that this is actually the case other than the fact that they despise him.
I listen to and read the opinions and harangues of progressives in this forum and elsewhere and I hear and see people engaged in a religious war. Why are these rightwing populists vile serpents?
Because they do not abide by progressive dogma!
Take immigration for example. Generally speaking, the six serpents share a common position on this matter (One, BTW, that has been a major reason for why they have their power). They want less immigration, they want more cultural assimilation, and they want immigrants to abide by the laws of their nation. It’s perfectly reasonable to have differing views on the value of immigration and assimilation and on the limits and restrictions placed on legal immigration, but it should go without saying that it’s not reasonable to define those who disagree with you on these matters as evil. For a great many progressives there is only one permissible position on immigration… theirs. If you disagree you are not simply misinformed or wrong, you are bad. It doesn’t matter how well you defend your position, you are lying when you say that immigration can be problematic and even, in some cases, harmful to the nation and its people. Your real reason is that you hate brown people or Muslims, or those who wear different clothes than you or speak a different language.
To progressives, the facts that each of these
serpents has gained power through fair and democratic elections only means that a) The elections were somehow rigged in the serpents’ favor and/or b) These nations are filled with deplorable people as evil as the serpents they support. There are times though when a progressive is not comfortable calling huge swathes of people evil and then they switch to a characterization of them as ignorant suckers, seduced and duped by the serpents. You might think that an ideology that holds that a utopian society is possible would have more faith in the basic goodness of people, but you would be wrong. Progressives believe utopia can only be created in spite of the base nature and stupidity of so many of a nation’s citizens, and only if those they deem elite enough are allowed to construct it according to their very detailed and rigid blueprint and plans. Like wayward children, the citizenry is not capable of building a just and prosperous society without firm parental direction. Without the firm hand of those who, alone, truly understand what is good and what is evil to govern them, the ignorance and/ or propensity for evil of the people will inevitably lead instead to the dystopias they see in Hungary and the US and predict for Italy and Brazil. The progressives, having gorged themselves on the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil must hold the original serpent in high esteem for blessing them with the knowledge that the people can neither understand nor accept on their own.
It truly is ironic that the people who can only build their utopias with tyranny both soft and hard, instantly resort to condemning those who oppose them as autocratic.
If you believe your opponents are evil then you are not engaged in a conflict of ideas, you are fighting a Holy War. No sane or decent person tries to reason with monsters. You can’t debate them, you can only destroy them, and inevitably those who are being defined as evil monsters realize that there is nothing they can do to establish their decency or humanity in the eyes of the jihadi except recant and abandon their positions and beliefs; getting in step with the progressive dogma. This, of course, leads to even more animus and tension.
Thankfully, we are not yet at the point of no return, and there remain a great many people with progressive ideals who refuse to accept that those on the other side of the spectrum from them are evil enemies, but we are very close and, sadly, our march towards it is accelerating. When every tragedy, natural or manmade, is used to demonstrate the evil in the hearts of political opponents, and every event and circumstance in our society is weaponized for use against the Enemy we are all sitting on a keg of black powder attached to which is a burning fuse.
One could take a different approach to the cartoon and suggest that the serpents are providing Adam & Eve with a gift from the Tree of Knowledge; revealing the sinister nature of their failing Utopias. It should be clear though that regardless of what the people in these countries want, the Progressive Elite is not about to sit back and let them simply have it.
