Reclaiming civil liberties
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Dissidence has always been central to human society. Dissent is necessary to protect individual rights, says SHELLEY WALIA.
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Activist protest against the FTAA at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil.
HELEN CIXOUS, the French theoretician, is of the view that "there has to be some `other' — no master without a slave, no economic-political power without exploitation, no dominant class without cattle under the yoke, no `Frenchmen' without wogs, no Nazis without Jews, no property without exclusion". This Hegelian dialectic works in almost all areas of power and knowledge and in patriarchal structures apparent in the working of master narratives. The rise of fascism is underpinned by irrationality becoming part of reason and nudging it towards an involvement with tyranny and domination. But the long journey from Jehovah to Jesus, from the Old Testament to the New, is a journey that counsels all, as stated in the Book of Isaiah, to "seek justice, correct oppression, defend the fatherless, plead for the widow". More than a religious statement, it becomes a political axiom aspiring at liberation from tyranny, at non-violence, community and social justice.
Two notions of knowledge
This is the long journey from transcendent truth to relative truths. On the one end is the notion of knowledge as power; on the other is the notion of knowledge as liberating experience, a means to presenting numerous interpretations without the significance of the established `truth' ever restraining individual freedom. The procedures of knowing are constantly interceded by history and the very institutional framework in which we look for truth. The polemics between individual and society are as old as history. It is clear that this conflict is at the heart of any epistemic violence, or enhancement of knowledge that occurs in society. State intrusion always results in either resistance by the individual or submissive conformism that marks the bourgeois system. Society's methodical and systemic ideals stand challenged wherever individual freedom is put under any restraint. Disagreement with the meddling of the state embodies maverick tendencies that are often non-conformist and crucial to the extent of never stooping down to knowledge that emanates from the centre.
Dissidence has always been integral to human society. People partake in justifiable political protests against their government out of principle and out of allegiance to a cause and out of a conviction that the world can be made better and stronger through dissent. Dissent is essential for any organisation, and organisations with political cultures that stifle dissent cannot endure. Presumably, the same is true of countries.
An examination of the history of social and political dissent demonstrates that there have been "a number of otherwise loyal, upright, law-abiding citizens who believed that they had been driven by their conscience to break the law over certain specific issues". In fact, we are all dissidents at one time or another. Protest has to be allowed in society, as we live in a world that is constantly changing, and it is by protest that the laws are changed for a better future. A bad law cannot be allowed to exist; people have the right to have it abolished or changed. And if they do dissent, then they must be prepared to accept the consequences of their action.
As Vaclav Havel writes, "You do not become a `dissident' just because you decide one day to take up this most unusual career. You are thrown into it by your personal sense of responsibility, combined with a complex set of external circumstances. You are cast out of the existing structures and placed in a position of conflict with them. It begins as an attempt to do your work well, and ends with being branded an enemy of society". No wonder firebrands like Edward Said, Emma Goldman, Howard Zinn or Noam Chomsky are regarded as troublemakers. Military might or the stern control of the media cannot silence the few intellectuals in a society whose memory has to be constantly jogged about its lapses.
Suppressing dissent
Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union spoke on the FBI bulletin issued on the day of the Miami summit of FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas): "The FBI is dangerously targeting Americans who are engaged in nothing more than lawful protest and dissent. The line between terrorism and legitimate civil disobedience is blurred." The police violence outside the summit was of clear repression, even though the protest was "dispassionately small and almost embarrassingly obedient". Not only the U.S. military was called in to help the local police but a chunk from the money that was sanctioned for the Iraq war was used here to quench any dissent. As Naomi Klien argues: "We can expect much more of these tactics on the homeland front. Just as civil liberties violations escalated when Washington lost control over the FTAA process, so will repression increase as the Bush crew faces the ultimate threat: losing control over the White House. Already, Jim Wilkinson, director of strategic communications at U.S. Central Command in Doha, Qatar, (the operation that gave the world the Jessica Lynch rescue), has moved to New York to head media operations for the Republican National Convention. `We're looking at embedding reporters,' he told the New York Observer of his plans to use some of the Iraq tricks during the convention. `We're looking at new and interesting camera angles.' The war is coming home."
Lawyers help
This is clear from hundreds being arrested for exercising their constitutionally protected freedom. Many have lost their jobs. Censorship and surveillance, denial of due processes of law, excessive force, these are the high handed tactics used by the state machinery to counter dissent such as holding protests, rallies, vigils or putting up posters display protest messages. To help these protestors one outstanding body called the National Lawyers Guild, an organisation of attorneys that regularly provides "legal assistance to protesters that find themselves on the wrong side of the law has made substantial contribution to active opposition to authoritarianism. Guild volunteers move through protests in bright green hats, offering their assistance in the encounters with police. Guild volunteers regularly distribute fliers entitled `Know your rights!' and urge those arrested to retain an attorney (such as a volunteer from the Guild) and to use their right to remain silent."
But the FBI has an extended history of curbing anti-war protests through myriad means as was clear during the Vietnam War when the FBI conducted numerous searches and investigations into civil protests and made FBI files on dissenting leaders. Senator John Kerry, a war hero turned anti-war activist, ended up on President Nixon's rival record and was an object of FBI inquisition. All of this to smother opposition. All of this to disallow Americans their right under the First Amendment of the Constitution to appeal to the government for a redress of grievances. The recent USA Patriot Act takes away this right, posing serious dangers to the privacy of a citizen through its enhanced surveillance procedures. This follows the famous COINTELPRO, a secret political program that covertly spied on, and interfered with non-conformist political organisations that fought for civil rights and women's liberation.
Resistance to such an unjust practice or an unlawful war is loyal to the notion of liberty and free will. Independent thought and expression cannot be allowed to be smothered by any assault on one's constitutional freedoms.
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