The Addictive Art of Creating Monsters

Drawn by Fernando Travis

If you rummage through literature, you’ll be quite amazed by the striking similarities existing in both realms; that expansive fictional world and our vapid real one. A remarkable example would be Frankenstein’s monster; the eternally memorable character portrayed in Mary Shelly’s masterpiece, “Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus”, which now has an ideal counterpart in this decaying world of ours; namely, ISIL.

Politics can sometimes mimic literary prose astonishingly, yet many seem to let such occurrences go by unnoticed, but not me; I don’t, especially when the same, exact, abominable occurrence is repeated twice.

In the novel, for those who are not that fond of reading literature, Victor Frankenstein is an excessively dreamy scientist who is determined to create live matter out of lifelessness by exploiting his outstanding scientific knowledge and sheer aspirations. He accomplishes his objective but not very successfully; as the final “product” turns out to be a monster, or a “fiend” as the brilliant author herself refers to it later in the novel. The miscreation, which is uncontrollable and disobedient, would eventually be the cause of all the misfortune that befalls upon the people in Victor’s life, who would then expectedly blame himself.

America has already imitated Victor’s ambitious attempt of creating life, but Uncle Sam’s intentions were less virtuous and more ungodly. It all started during the Soviet war in Afghanistan, which lasted from 1979 until 1989, when America decided to vivify the “Mujahedeen”; the name that was given to the multinational rebel groups. It was a simple – but quite misjudged– implementation of the basic principle: my enemy’s enemy is a friend of mine. That once barely noticeable entity led by a reckless young man called “Osama”, who was driven by a purely religious ideology – regardless whether it was flawed or not – became the cynosure; thanks to the massive logistic and tactical support Osama received from his sudden friend. The final result was the creation of a monster that wasn't less hideous than Frankenstein’s – Al-Qaeda.

The U.S. simply saw a man who was willing to fight one of their most hated adversaries – The Soviet Union, but they had failed to have a future view through which they would have prophesied the tragedy they fed themselves twenty years later. That monstrous entity; Al-Qaeda, has sabotaged the world order and is still doing so, despite the demise of its leader by the hands of his own creator.

As if one wasn't enough, America idiotically did it again. In a malicious attempt to, first; sustain the deadly conflict taking place in Syria as part of America’s covert endeavors to help Assad stay in power safeguarding the Israeli borders, and second; distort the true peaceful image of Islam, America gave life to an even more unsightly, barbaric, dreadful monster called “ISIL”. However, history (and maybe literature) always repeats itself; as the U.S. will most likely lose control of its repulsive demon quite soon, and I’m afraid they’ll pay an exceedingly high price that would surpass that of 9/11.

I believe the only major difference between Uncle Sam and Victor is that the latter eventually held himself ethically responsible and showed bona fide remorse for his unwise action; unlike the former, whose haughtiness is way too grand to let him admit his fatal mistake.