Sephiroths of the World

The year 2015 has a bumpy start in terms of world peace. The Charlie Hebdo incident that left 17 dead shocked the world and triggered the “Je suis Charlie” movement in France and around the world. Also a number of world leaders untied at the march after the incident to show solidarity and a united stand against extreme Islamist activities and for the protection of freedom of speech. These are all good if people actually live what they preach.

The fact is that it is not a universal trait for the human species to be peaceful and live in harmony. People were trained to identify differences and when they are in power some just want to force others to be the same as them. The whole attitude of “If you are not with us you are against us” is not unique to the Islamic extremists. Looking at what is happening around the world, in nearly every single political system, democratic or not we can see that trait. From George Bush to the Chinese Government to our very own Coalition government in Australia now, they are all the same. They persecute or suppress people under different banner and languages of their only political orientation to achieve the same results – to purge the differences they identified as threatening their own existence, with grounds or not – and sometimes exploit the notion of freedom of speech to achieve their own political agenda.

Living in a western democratic society we seemed to have provided a lot of options for how we want our country to be governed but is that so? Looking at Australia now we have a very incapable extreme white and right-wing government that cares about nobody else but themselves and their multi-million / billion friends. Projects that are not sustainable will be green lit, continued loud dismissal of climate change despite 2014 had became the hottest year since records were preserved, culling of marine lives to facilitate irresponsible fishing, dredging of sea beds and dumping of pollutants into the reef, the deforestation of lands because they were “just laid there not being unutilized for the lumber industry” and the list goes on. The whole gang of the Coalition government cannot look pass their own current and future interests but then repeatedly claiming they are for the better of the country while making people paying more for healthcare, paying more for education, paying more for goods and services, and triggering job lost by unnecessary cuts while fattening their own pockets with pay rises at 7% per annum while the defense force gets a less than inflation rate increase.

But for me the more disturbing thing is the concerted efforts of these “right-wing elitists” trying to purge the world of diversity unless they are good for their own publicity. There is no secret that establishments such as Fox News have extremist right wing agenda through and through in their programs. They have been mocked but they continued to push their agenda loud and crazy in the media, presenting fictions as facts. The recent “No-go zone” fiasco they started is one of the epitomes of irresponsible “journalism” that establishment exhibits. The fact is that I do not believe Rupert Murdoch and his outlets will stop in any sense (consider Rupert hailed his newspaper for reporting the bloody outcomes of the Sydney Siege instead of expressing condolences for the victims and thinks that all Egyptians are white – and strangely “tanned” in his Exodus themed movie) and they will continue to yell and shout until they drown out oppositions views (just look at how “interviews” were carried out against people who don’t agree with Fox News’ views).

In the acclaimed video game Final Fantasy VII there is a much-loved villain called Sephiroth. He was a good man until the point he found out his true identity and decided to purge the world of “evil” by summoning a meteor to crush the world. Anyone who did not agree with him or in his way will be removed. He was dubbed as the One Wing Angel because of his iconic single wing stance in his fighting form. Strangely when I looked at his picture again the other day, Sephiroth’s single wing was on the right hand side. This let me starting thinking about was the whole right wing design a reflection of the designing artist’s expression of what Sephiroth did resembled to what right ring politicians do? It is originally a Japanese video game so probably it has a lot more reference to the right wing Japanese politics, which we all knew led to a lot of pain and bloodshed in World War Two in many countries across Asia. The right wing politics is still strong and loud in Japan and it seems they haven’t forgot about the good old “world domination” agenda in the politics when they wanted to rebrand their World War Two invasions in textbooks and to simply “entering” those countries.

But when we consider this kind of approach, a lot of right wing governments are just doing exactly what Sephiroth was trying to do – changing the world with a limited vision and remove all entities they considered being in their way. The Abbott government’s attack on ABC and SBS because they were not producing pro-government materials, the motion to dismantle the renewable energy industry, the funding cut to CSIRO and the motion to pull down the renewal energy funding organization are all clear examples of this. The act of George Brandis to cut the Australia Council funding by 30% after they returned the sponsorship of a company that runs detention centre for the government is also suspiciously coincidental.

Artists are known to be more freethinking and not conforming to establishments. It is through their critical views of the world that we continue to question and improve our society. Politics, which hugely affects people’s lives, should be in no exemption when it comes to artistic scrutiny and critique. So it could be under such circumstance that Sephiroth was created as a “right wing” One Wing Angel when fulfilling his role in Final Fantasy.

It could be me just over-thinking about Sephiroth because of the world that I am living it or maybe not. But then on further thoughts, I think equating Sephiroth with our right wing politicians, power holders and establishments in this world is in fact an insult to Sephiroth, whom was a much loved character in Final Fantasy VII. For this I apologise to all gamers around the world who loves Sephiroth.