RAYMUND FERNANDEZ
Cronus Devouring his Children,” is a painting by Francisco Goya y Lucientes.
He was official painter to the Spanish Royal Court of the late 1700s. Goya had seen the evils of unbridled power and its apocalyptic consequences in the events of his time.
He was witness to the excesses of Spanish royalty
He was witness as well to the carnage that resulted from the invasion of Spain by the French army under Napoleon Bonaparte.
This happened after the French Revolution and the “Reign of Terror” sparked by its main architects Jean-Paul Marat and Maximilien Robespierre.
“Cronus Devouring his Children,” is a reference to Greek mythology. Cronus a.k.a. Saturn was a Titan.
They were gigantic creatures who preceded humans on the planet.
It was predicted that he would be killed by his own son.
To forestall this fate, he ate every one of his children as soon as they were born.
Goya’s painting comes out as hideous as the narrative of ancient myth which is its bases. And yet, Goya meant this painting to be only as hideous as the events transpiring all about him. It was a troubled painting for troubled times.
With a moral lesson; a warning, if you will, about power and the inevitable corruption that dogs it. And you might have heard how power corrupts even as absolute power corrupts absolutely. And you might have heard as well that there are established formulas for the acquisition of absolute power.
The late dictator, Ferdinand Marcos, laid down a model for it, which model his “fans” still doggedly follow.
They dream of the power Marcos once had, how he made corrupt puppets of the Armed Forces, the Judiciary, the Legislature, and Media – those institutions of society to check and balance the powers of the state.
And so for almost 20 years, there was only Marcos and his claim that he would make the country great if only we went by the constructs of “discipline” he enforced. Do as you are told. Don’t question government.
Don’t question him, his family, or his agents. Be obedient. Be disciplined. If there was ever a chance such “troll-farm logic” could work, it would have. Almost 20 years is more than enough time.
But history follows a stricter logic than despots and troll farms could ever dream up. Instead of bringing the country to the dream of progress, the Utopia he called “Bagong Lipunan,” Marcos reign led instead to the raiding of the country’s coffers.
Unbridled corruption and Marcos’ unbridled power made the country poorer than it had ever been.
And those who questioned or opposed him, often the best and brightest, ended up jailed or murdered, lost to the machineries of oppression and repression of Marcos’ martial law regime. Cronus was Marcos and his martial law.
It became a monster that devoured its own children. For years going into longer years, we watched as it did so. We could only wait for the time when it would fall under its own weight.
It took almost 20 years.
Thus, if this year, 2018, we ever allow anyone to become as powerful as Marcos once was.
If we allow another reign of martial law, it will be almost 2038 before we see the light of freedom shine once again over this country.
In the meantime, our children will grow up absolutely ignorant of what freedom means, ignorant of their rights not only as citizens but as ordinary humans. And we have seen how easily despots make enemies of human rights
. They make enemies of them as easily as they would make enemies of Senators and other politicians who oppose them, even Supreme Court justices who are not in their pockets.
Many will fall like fodder to the monstrous appetites of those who are greedy for power.
They will fall like children devoured by the monster Cronus.
And if you would look at the painting itself, you would see there, something strangely familiar, a facial expression with asymmetrical eyes that seem quite impossible to fully interpret.
Are they laughing or crying? What are they mad at? What horrible troll-farm logic lies behind them?
They are monster eyes, the eyes of Cronus, both horrifying and horrified by what he has seen and done, and what he must keep doing, one child after another
Find hope in seeing how Cronus, himself, slowly dissolves as if swallowed by his own deep and limitless dark.