By Alex P. Vidal
“There is no dignity in wickedness, whether in purple or rags; and hell is a democracy of devils, where all are equals.” –Herman Melville
POLITICIANS have not been popular in history even if some of them were good (we didn’t say honest).
Either they were considered as liabilities or merchants of graft and corruption in any government.
More people are having negative thoughts about politicians, especially in the Philippines where corruption is prevalent since time immemorial.
From local executives to members of congress, people think they do a somewhat or very bad job at listening to their concerns in their district and are interested more on their personal whims and caprices.
Constituents doubt if politicians keep their personal financial interests separate from their work in congress, or if they are working with members of the opposing party, like what one presidential sister has been doing, and taking responsibility for their actions.
The public is especially negative when it comes to whether members of congress take responsibility for their actions. Nearly majority are saying congressional members under the speakership of a presidential cousin do a bad job taking responsibility and do a very bad job at this.
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In Dante’s Inferno, figures of political significance, both those who were alive during his time and those who were historical figures, were portrayed as part of the damned.
That’s why veteran and neophyte politicians who will win in the May 12, 2025 Philippine elections can also be considered as “candidates” in Dante’s Inferno if they allow themselves to be swallowed by the prevailing system.
Hell is the state of the soul after death, but it is also the state of the world as seen by an exile whose experience has taught him no longer to trust the world’s values.
We’re referring to the would-be thieves and the thieves–those involved in multi-million scams and think they were able to get away with them.
They think reelection or being elected into public office is enough for their trespasses or crimes to be forgotten and forgiven.
It’s not surprising that politicians and figures of political importance were featured prominently in this work of political commentary and criticism.
Using the Inferno, Dante condemned the actions and beliefs of political figures, including their involvement in factional disputes and their corrupt practices.
For example, Ciacco, a soul in the Inferno, reportedly makes political predictions about the future of Florence, including the expulsion of Dante’s political faction (the White Guelphs) from the city.
Dante also criticized Pope Boniface VIII, who was an opponent of the White Guelphs.
Additionally, many of the historical figures included in Dante’s Inferno were involved in political power struggles and conflicts during Dante’s lifetime or in the past.
Dante critiques their actions and beliefs and highlights their failures in moral and political terms by including them in his depiction of Hell.
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Dante’s Inferno is a vision of the City of Man in the afterlife, which is why it contains no glimmer of forgiveness.
At the same time, it may also be thought of a radical representation of the world in which we live, stripped of all temporizing and all hope.
There is no sign of Christian forgiveness for thieves in Dante’s Inferno.
The dominant theme is not mercy but justice, dispensed with severity of the ancient law of retribution.
Every reader was amazed by Dante’s Inferno, by the frights, the obscenities, the filth and effluvia of a vision in which execration was often the central act of perception, and suffering the central spectacle of desire.
The sinners–the lustful, gluttonous, treacherous–are caught forever.
Politicians had remind themselves of that.
In the passage set in the Eight Circle, serpents surround and tear at thieves, who catch fire, burn, and are then reconstituted, like the phoenix. But when they are reborn out of their own ashes, they only suffer again.
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In Robert Pinsky’s bilingual edition, The Inferno of Dante’s new verse translation, this was how the thieves are punished in Canto XXIV, 91-120:
Among this cruel and depressing swarm,
ran people who were naked, terrified,
with no hope of a hole or heliotrope.
Their hands were tied behind by serpents; these had thrust their head and tail right through the loins,
And then were knotted on the other side.
And–there!–a serpent sprang with force at one who stood upon our shore, transfixing him just where the neck and shoulders form a knot.
No o or i has ever been transcribed
So quickly as that soul caught fire and burned
and, as he fell, completely turned to ashes;
and when he lay, undone, upon the ground,
the dust of him collected by itself
and instantly returned to what it was:
just so, it is asserted by great sages,
that, when it reaches its five-hundredth year,
the phoenix dies and is reborn again;
lifelong it never feeds on grass or grain,
only on drops of incense or amomum;
its final winding sheets are nard and myrrh.
And just as he who falls, and knows not how–
by demon’s force that drags him to the ground
or by some other hindrance that binds man–
who, when he rises, stares about him, all
bewildered by the heavy anguish he
has suffered, sighing as he looks around;
so did this sinner stare when he arose.
Oh, how severe it is, the power of God
that, as its vengeance, showers down such blows!
(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor-in-chief of two leading daily newspapers in Iloilo, Philippines.—Ed)
