In no way do I mean any malice to any individuals related to mentioned countries. Please contact me if you feel offended in any way.
Just this past week I saw a post by the blog Barking Up the Wrong Tree. After a quick look around the site, it seemed to be articles mainly about interesting facts and tidbits of information that you probably didn’t know beforehand. I had a great time jumping from articles on Eric Barker’s blog, but one piece really caught my eye. It asked, which countries best embody each deadly sin. The post was a few sentences telling the reader that he had found a study on which countries’ populations best embodied each sin of the seven deadly sins. This inspired me to then adapt the same question to my blog; which foreign powers best politically represent the seven deadly sins of Dante’s Inferno?
Before I get into all of the countries, I must unpack what the seven sins truly mean to me first. To sin is frowned upon by Christianity and many other religions, but we must understand that it does not root in bad intent. The sins of envy, wrath, greed, gluttony, lust, sloth, and pride are all sinful, however, I mean this in the sense that nobody is sinful without the proper background, especially in politics. Take for instance somebody who embodies the sin of greed. What causes people to be greedy? Somebody born rich would not kill to obtain more money. They might work for more money to buy more things but their lifestyle would not change much. Now take a man born poor that has become rich over time. This man has experienced what it’s like to be poor and will do whatever to never become poor again. These sins are not rooted in pure evil, but more in backgrounds and the past. The argument can be made that some people are just bad, and I agree. However, politics is an extremely volatile act in which proper motives must be given for mass approval.
First, let’s take a look at the sin of Sloth. Sloth is described by Dante as spiritual laziness. In my opinion, Mexico’s domestic policy, or lack thereof, best fits the sin of the lazy tree-dwelling creature. I would look at Mexico’s foreign activities, but they really aren’t that interesting considering their main foreign policy objective is just strengthening ties with the US. Mexico’s main issue is clear as day to insiders and outsiders alike, drugs. Mexico’s drug problem is infamous at the border and the US continually pushes for Mexico to take further action and funds billions of dollars. Funnily enough, back in 2019, President López Obrador declared that the war on drugs was finally over. That same year the amount of drug-related homicides increased by 15%. With billions of extra American dollars in Obrador’s pockets, you must wonder what he does with it. Well, unsurprisingly, his administration spends hundreds of millions of dollars over their allotted spending budget to silence critical news outlets instead of investing in the state. Obrador's laziness is understandable, as it is much easier to let it "just happen", but as President, his administration should really step it up with all the foreign aid they receive.
Next comes envy. Dante defines envy as having an insatiable desire, something similar to jealousy. My pick for envy is the US. You might be wondering, how could the US, the number one global power, possibly envy anyone. The answer is simple, look to the middle east. The US has always tried to be a beacon of democracy since the inception of the Marshall Plan. We try to superimpose democracy onto different governments by playing the peacemaker or through economic support but we have consistently failed. We tried to create a better situation in Iran in 1953 by eradicating the prime minister and transferring all the power to the Shah. This eventually led to the Islamic Revolution and we have been on poor terms with Iran ever since. In addition, we have vowed time and time again that our increased diplomacy would end the Yemeni conflict. China on the other hand, with very little prior engagement in the middle east compared to the US, ended the Yemeni conflict diplomatically almost instantaneously and even obtained economic benefits through BRI. China’s foreign success is everything the US ever wanted but never could achieve and is symbolized by our distaste for the CCP. Our envy of China’s leverage over the middle east and Africa will always hang over our foreign policy no matter which president comes to power.
After envy is wrath, which is uncontrolled anger: violence. To me, this one is pretty clear: Russia. Since 1994 Russia has been directly involved in six different non-proxy military conflicts, the most substantial being in Ukraine. Some forget that the Ukrainian War started back in 2014 with the annexation of Crimea. Many people also overlook the Russo-Georgian War in which almost 200,000 civilians were displaced from their homes. As I said, no sin is completely done out of the blue, especially in something as complex as foreign politics. So what was Russia’s reason? The easy way out would be to say that they wanted to return the land that used to belong to them, but this is completely bonkers. If you look back enough, the idea of Russia did not even exist: nothing belongs to Russia. Then we can ask ourselves who is in control of all of this; Putin, of course. Prior to the 2014 annexation of Crimea, Putin’s approval ratings were at an all-time low. Right after his success, they skyrocketed to an all-time high at the time. (I used Statista.com to see these numbers). Now we can see again that before his heightened campaign in Ukraine, Putin’s ratings had been whittled down by Covid, so of course, he pushed for more emphasis on Ukraine, pumping his ratings up briefly. Putin’s first resort is always violence instead of reason.
Unfortunately, I believe that if I fully finish all seven sins, this post would become much too long. Fortunately, I have enough content to make a second part of this blog completing the other 4 sins that will be released soon after this one. In the meantime, you can look at my previous post detailing the US’ true envy of China in depth.
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