FAMOUS WOMEN IN HISTORY: Casandra of Troy and Mary Trump

     Literary history gave us the story of Casandra, daughter to King Prium of Troy. Most people know that she had the gift of seeing into the future. What few of us know is that, because she had rebuffed the attention of a young God, Apollo I think, her gift was never to be believed by others, though she could never decieve people with her predictions.  Consequently, when she warned her famous father, to, "beware of Greeks bearing gifts" he ignored her warning and accepted a Trojan Horse from the army of Greek islanders mobilized to recapture Helen, her brother Paris' wife and return her to King Meneleis harem. Women's independence was not valued in the thirteenth century BCE, so we can only speculate that Helen fled the Island of Sparta, and Menaleus harem willingly, preferring the handsome Paris, who had offered her a home in Ilium, to the attentions of a warrior king and a place in his harem. There is more to this story of her short life, but I will save that for later.

    Mary Trump is niece to the former president that most of us hate for good reason. She is not a psychic, but a psychologist. She does not see into the future, but is able to see the mental instability of her uncle, and the role his kids play in carrying on the questionable legality of the family business. Unlike Cassandra, who adored her father Priam, Mary Trump, who appears to be the only Trump worthy of a capitalized surname and not a capital sentence, is a burr in the saddle-blanket of the trump crime family. 

     Mary Trump, like her uncle has written a few books. Unlike her uncle she had no need for a ghostwriter. In them she has pointed out several examples of her uncles mental instabilities. Yes they are multiple. Cassandra warned us of Greeks bearing gifts, Mary Trump warned us of geeks bearing grift. And yet we ignored both of them. Even some 3500 years later, women have to work harder to be taken seriously and men with too much power and no internal controls are treated as gods. But there is good news. Mary Trump lives quite comfortably on the royalties of her books, though she no doubt has a coterie of security guards protecting her and her family from over-zealous trump acolytes. Cassandra, on the other hand, was captured by Ajax the lesser as Ilium was being reduced to ashes. She was praying at the alter of Athena, and  brutally raped, by Ajax. He was the younger of two Ajaxes, thus never to be greater. History does not draw a link to subsequent Ajaxes, but many of us have a memory of Ajax the cleanser, and all that that entails. She was turned over to Menaleis' brother Agememnon as battlefield spoils. She warned him that if he took her back to his island, he would be killed by his wife and her lover. What she also knew was that she too would be killed, but what could she do? As the legend continues, all of this comes to pass as predicted, including Cassandra's death. 

     We don't know what lies ahead of us. Historical precedence as well as political norms have been destroyed by those who attacked our Capital Jan. 6, and have been besieging American democracy for longer than the siege of Troy. We will soon find out what will become of our great political experiment. Perhaps Some will flee to safety, like Aneius, some will remain and bear the indignities of occupation by people who have no understanding of even our own small span of history, a mere 225 years or so. What we do know is that the desire to be free of oppression is strong in people and they will do anything to escape their beleaguered state, however long that may take. Some, like Helen will flee with the first person to take her to a better place, not knowing that she will be the face that launches a hundred ships of oppression. Some, like Cassandra will attempt to warn, knowing how futile that may be. Meanwhile the oppressor will continue oppressing, unaware that the resistance is continuing to grow because oppressors do not, by nature, know the meaning of self control. 

     There has been a slow change, in the US, since the beginning of the twentieth century toward more self-autonomy for the sisters of Cassandra. It comes in fits and starts, with Ajax and his successors resisting strenuously. We are witnessing it in other nations as well. The Syrians and Turks are learning that there are some fierce female fighters who are not just resisting domination from a religious patriarchy, but also seeking a Kurdish homeland. That fight continues.  There are female fighters in the Ukraine army who are fighting alongside men to preserve their homeland from Russian domination. When, or if those battles are settled you may be certain they will not want to go back to their former station.

     In Iran there is a building resistance to the Mullahs and their religious patrimony. It is being led by young women who have ripped the hijabs and crumpled them to the floor. The final act of their resistance is to extend the middle finger to the obligatory pictures of Mullah Ali Kohmanei. They are being supported by their parents. Here in this country women are quickly reaching the militant stage. If Republicans were smart, always a questionable condition, they would loosen some of their authoritarian controls being re-imposed by the Supreme Court. But we know how that will turn out because every one of the conservative judges see themselves as a Meneleius or Agememnon, or in one case the favored wife. Mary Trump represents not just the opposition to her vile uncle, but the opposition to the authoritarian despotism of men. It is too soon to predict the success of their efforts, but it will not be ended, no matter what happens in the November mid-terms.