OPINION: Trump’s deportation post echoes colonial violence

BY GERRY CHIDIAC

Lessons in Learning

U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent social media post glorifying mass deportations offers a disturbing window into the mindset behind his MAGA movement. He posted an image of himself dressed like Lieutenant-Colonel Bill Kilgore from Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 film Apocalypse Now, with the caption: “I love the smell of deportations in the morning.”

Coppola’s film is about the depravity of America’s war in Vietnam. It is loosely based on Joseph Conrad’s 1899 novella Heart of Darkness. Conrad had been employed by the notoriously brutal Belgian King Leopold II’s Congo Free State and recounted what he had experienced as a piece of fiction. Leopold’s Congo is widely regarded by historians as the first genocide of the 20th century, with estimates that up to 10 million human lives were taken during the 25-year existence of the Congo Free State.

The tactics of dehumanization in genocidal regimes are well documented. Those who commit atrocities often project their own negative qualities onto their victims, accusing them of the very things they themselves are doing or plan to do. Genocide does not occur without this psychological sleight of hand, and Conrad captured its essence in four chilling words: “Exterminate all the brutes.”

Those directing the extermination view themselves not as monsters but as agents of a superior civilization. They use violence—including beatings, sexual assault and murder—to control people, steal land and extract immense wealth.

Leopold used the riches of the Congo to beautify Brussels and enrich himself. In the colonial mindset, Europeans were cultured and refined; the colonized were backward and corrupt. That worldview persisted among many foreigners I met while living in the Congo nearly a century after Leopold’s tyranny.

Maintaining this illusion of superiority requires constant effort. Until recently, history books were written by the victors and school curriculums perpetuated the colonial myth. Even today, much of the media continues to describe the global south—the non-white world—as riddled with terrorism, corruption and incompetence. Trump infamously labelled them “s—hole countries.”

Though much of Europe and the colonizing world considers itself Christian, there is one teaching of Jesus they’ve conveniently forgotten: “No one can serve two masters … You cannot serve God and be enslaved to money.” The colonizing world is enslaved by money. Trump acknowledged this dynamic in a moment of grovelling honesty when, in a speech before the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, he credited casino billionaire Miriam Adelson and her late husband Sheldon for influencing U.S. foreign policy toward Israel.

This devotion to wealth and power defines not just his policy but the worldview he promotes. Trump may not have intended it, but his post reflects a deeper ideological current in his movement. Much white supremacist discourse—the demand to deport immigrants—is built around the “Great Replacement” theory, a far-right conspiracy that claims white populations in Western countries are being deliberately replaced by non-white immigrants through government policy and social engineering. What’s ironic is that replacing other people is exactly what settler colonialism has always done.

Thanks to writers like Joseph Conrad—whose Heart of Darkness remains a powerful critique of imperialism—we can better understand the brutality of colonialism and the myths that sustain it.

As political rhetoric grows more extreme—even beyond the U.S.—recognizing how language is used to justify inhuman policies is essential for all democratic societies, including Canada. Those who embraced violence once dominated the narrative, but their books now gather dust.

Today, we have the tools to see these old patterns clearly—and reject them.

Gerry Chidiac specializes in languages and genocide studies and works with at-risk students. He received an award from the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre for excellence in teaching about the Holocaust.