Thursday
As my church reading group discusses John Gatta’s Green Worlds of C.S. Lewis: The Ecology of Aslan’s Realm, I’ve been rereading the seven Narnia books, some for the first time in decades. The Horse and His Boy, one of my favorites, reads very differently in this era of DJT’s foreign policy.
At the same time that I was reading what “the Tisroc (may he live forever)” has to say about Narnia, I was hearing reports of DJT’s unhinged speech to the United Nations General Assembly. It included the following statements:
Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild, and create a far greater country than it ever was before? Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again? Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations?
Of his conquest of Venezuela and seizure of its oil, Trump said,
It was perhaps the biggest deal ever made. To the victor belong the spoils – you’ve all heard that…
Compare this now with the Tisroc and his son as they discuss Narnia. Rabadash is outraged that Narnia’s gorgeous Queen Susan, whom he wishes to marry, has escaped his clutches. He desires to invade Narnia and carry her off:
“But why, O my father,” said the Prince…, “why should we think twice about punishing Narnia any more than about hanging an idle slave or sending a worn-out horse to be made into dog’s-meat? It is not the fourth size of one of your least provinces. A thousand spears could conquer it in five weeks. It is an unseemly blot on the skirts of your empire.”
“Most undoubtedly,” said the Tisroc. “These little barbarian countries that call themselves free (which is as much as to say, idle, disordered, and unprofitable) are hateful to the gods and to all persons of discernment.”
And a little later:
“It is very grievous,” said the Tisroc in his deep, quiet voice. “Every morning the sun is darkened in my eyes, and every night my sleep is the less refreshing, because I remember that Narnia is still free.
It so happens, however, that Narnia—not unlike Iran–has an ace in the hole. The Tisroc points this out:
It is commonly reported that the High King of Narnia (whom may the gods utterly reject) is supported by a demon of hideous aspect and irresistible maleficence who appears in the shape of a Lion. Therefore the attacking of Narnia is a dark and doubtful enterprise, and I am determined not to put my hand out farther than I can draw it back.
Would that the Tisroc in the White House had the same foresight.
Rabadash has a follow-up proposal, however. He will capture neighboring Archenland—”They are at peace with us and unprepared and I shall take Anvard before they have bestirred themselves’’—from which point he can dart into Narnia and seize Susan while spilling minimal Narnian blood.
The plan is seconded by the Grand Vizier, who is a perfect stand-in for Trump’s sycophantic advisors in that he spends the entire time kneeling, head flat on the carpet. “O Tisroc, whose reign must and shall be interminable,” he says, “I think that with the aid of the gods it is very likely that Anvard will fall into the Prince’s hands. And if so, we have Narnia by the throat.”
Think of him as the late Senator Lindsey Graham, groveling before DJT while prodding him into war.
Thanks to Shasta, Aravis, and the two horses, the plan is thwarted as they warn Archenland’s King Lune of the impending attack. As a result, Rabadash finds Anvard’s castle gates barricaded upon his arrival. Before learning of this check, however, we hear him addressing his troops in language very similar to the threats Trump has used against Iran:
Attend, all of you. We are now within a furlong of the castle. Remember your orders. Once we are in Narnia, as we should be by sunrise, you are to kill as little as possible. On this venture you are to regard every drop of Narnian blood as more precious than a gallon of your own. On this venture, I say. The gods will send us a happier hour and then you must leave nothing alive between Cair Paravel and the Western Waste. But we are not yet in Narnia. Here in Archenland it is another thing. In the assault on this castle of King Lune’s, nothing matters but speed. Show your mettle. It must be mine within an hour. And if it is, I give it all to you. I reserve no booty for myself. Kill me every barbarian male within its walls, down to the child that was born yesterday, and everything else is yours to divide as you please—the women, the gold, the jewels, the weapons, and the wine. The man that I see hanging back when we come to the gates shall be burned alive. In the name of Tash the irresistible, the inexorable—forward!
In Lewis’s vision, Narnia is the “green and pleasant land” that William Blakes longs for in his poem “Jerusalem.” Bree describes it as follows:
“Narnia,” answered the Horse. “The happy land of Narnia—Narnia of the heathery mountains and the thymy downs, Narnia of the many rivers, the plashing glens, the mossy caverns and the deep forests ringing with the hammers of the Dwarfs. Oh the sweet air of Narnia! An hour’s life there is better than a thousand years in Calormen.” It ended with a whinny that sounded very like a sigh.
Having recently witnessed England’s plucky fight against the combined fascist forces of Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito, Lewis could imagine Narnia as an idealized version of his native land. So could I when I read Horse and His Boy as a child. Whatever its sins (and there have been many), the United States has always purported to be on the side of democracy and freedom. If I got myself arrested while protesting the Vietnam War, it was because I felt that my country wasn’t living up to its true self.
Trump, unfortunately, has gotten me to acknowledge that the U.S. also has a Calormen side, a tyrannical and imperialistic impulse that associates with dictators while looking with contempt at freedom-loving nations. In the eyes of many, he has turned blood-soaked Iran into Archenland, which is to say into a small nation fighting valiantly against a bully. Iran appears to earned the right to use King Lune’s words against Rabadash:
By attacking our castle of Anvard in time of peace without defiance sent, you have proved yourself no knight, but a traitor, and one rather to be whipped by the hangman than to be suffered to cross swords with any person of honor.
Later, Lune is prepared to be magnanimous in victory:
“Your royal Highness needs not to be told,” said King Lune, “that by the law of nations as well as by all reasons, of prudent policy, we have as good right to your head as ever one mortal man had against another. Nevertheless, in consideration of your youth and the ill nurture, devoid of all gentilesse and courtesy, which you have doubtless had in the land of slaves and tyrants, we are disposed to set you free, unharmed, on these conditions…
DJT, of course, doesn’t believe that the United States should be constrained by “the law of nations.” Indeed, he would be as outraged as Rabadash if forced to submit to conditions:
“I hear no conditions from barbarians and sorcerers,” said Rabadash. “Not one of you dare touch a hair of my head. Every insult you have heaped on me shall be paid with oceans of Narnian and Archenlandish blood. Terrible shall the vengeance of the Tisroc be: even now. But kill me, and the burnings and torturings in these northern lands shall become a tale to frighten the world a thousand years hence. Beware! Beware! Beware! The bolt of Tash falls from above!”
DJT and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are seeking to dismantle any international agencies that would hold America accountable. These include not only war crimes committed in Iran but bombing small boats off the coast of South America and threatening neighbors Greenland, Cuba, and Canada.
It’s doubly ironic to watch this reversal happen given Lewis’s attempt to turn Middle Easterners into bad guys. While Lewis assumes westerners will identify with “free Narnia and the north” rather than repressive Carlormen— “I’m a free Narnian, says Bree. “Why should I talk slaves’ and fools’ talk?”—suddenly Rabadash’s depiction of westerners as barbarians appears apt.
In the end, Rabadash (thanks to Aslan’s magic) is turned into a braying ass and becomes known in history as Rabadash the Ridiculous. Trump is well on his way there. With the “No Kings” march in October and the mid-term elections in November, we may begin restoring America to its place as the land of the free and the home of the brave.
My easy identification with free Narnia, however, has taken a gut check. Before looking abroad, we need to deal with our own Tisroc (who thankfully will not reign forever).
