Dystopia is no longer the imaginative tool it used to be. It is a reality that is growing stronger everyday. Totalitarianism has become the nature of the state. However it is no longer in its tangible form. In fact, in its tangible form it can hardly be called totalitarianism. It is authoritarianism or fascism at the best. Totalitarianism occurs on the level of ideas.The left and right being garbs, the state is necessarily totalitarian. Time and again it has assaulted ideas and planted manufactured narratives. In doing so they have availed what was our best defence against them - history. Far right governments be it in India, Israel or Italy use history as a justification for atrocities against communities. They use history as a justification for fueling war. They use it to make you think that war is a necessity. Israel, a racist state and an illegitimate state(though all states are) based on Zionism, has cited the atrocities of Holocaust as justification for a Jewish state using whatever means necessary to keep their grasp on a territory at the cost of displacing,ostracizing and killing other communities. A recent Knesset law sanctioned the creation of exclusively Jewish settlements. In India, the Babri Masjid was demolished citing that in history it used to be the birthplace of Ram, a Hindu God. This polarisation within the body politic is what allows the elites to keep their grasp on society.The state dabbles in this business of hatred generating at every moment, an antipathy towards and a demonisation of the Muslim, the native, the immigrant, the minorities, the writers and other people under other states. In every moment of our existence we are feeling the repurcussions. The recent attack at the Christchurch Mosque by a right-wing, anti-immigrant terrorist is the manifestation of deep-seated socio-political ferment capitalized on by organized war-mongers. If religion was opium, the state is a thriving peddler.The state has moved from a monopoly over violence to a monopoly over the mind, because more than violence it is necessary to make people feel that violence is necessary or to a greater extent make people obedient in such a manner that violence is seldom required. At every move of yours, you're being surveyed. They have your retina. They have your biometrics. They have your UIDAI number. The market is monitoring you. It notes down each of you purchases, each of your searches, each of your clicks. It steals your data for the convenience of corporations. With big data now at their fingertips, the corporations feeds to everyone a culture of consumption which is by its very nature a culture of overconsumption. They show you how buying their commodities gets you marked as a success. They tell you how your brand of shirt defines you as a person. This locomotive of consumerism is what helps draw attention away from the crimes of the state and the market and their unholy alliance. The cosmetic industry banks on your insecurity just like the state banks on your insecurity of not having basic amenities. They are essentially the same.
Our democracy is hacked. No matter who comes to power( notice how we use the word power as it is the most definitive aspect of governmental politics) its the 1% that rules. So I'm not calling for a transformation of the government. I am calling for it to be shaken to the core. I am calling for its total annihilation. The fact that today at power, there is an extreme center, combining the negative extremities of the left and the right is alarm enough. Look around at what happened to the rights of people, the common people. Look what is happening to the immigrants. It is the West that with its mindless conflicts in the Middle East, the continuous dehumanisation of people, creates refugees and then is the one who refuses to accept the, barring a few countries. The indigenous people are deprived of their rights everyday. The Brazilian right-wing government has promised to nearly obliterate whatever patch of indigenous land is remaining. In India, the Supreme Court has very recently ordered the eviction of 1 million forest dwellers.
For all its heavy exploitation, the government does nothing about climate change. They sign deals and accords and protocols in their air-conditioned rooms and do nothing when they are violated. The USA blatantly withdrew from the Paris Agreement without a single finger being raised against it. This is a problem of the world, and the governments are pushing it onto the future generations. Polar ice-caps are melting. Natural disasters are increasing. Forest covers are disappearing. Every other week some species goes extinct.
By this time it is a certainty that the government won't act. It won't act for liberty, equality, fraternity,rationality and not least for the pursuit of happiness. Yet it knows about every move of yours. It tracks your steps. You can't do things without its permission. You can't run a school, you can't grow your own food, you can't even have your land. Your vote does not make a difference. The call now should be to occupy and reclaim. The first call has to be to the streets. Occupy the streets. Reclaim your streets.
A riveting article. Perfectly brings out today's scenario. Just adding a bit of ideas from the personal spectrum. We cannot foget the fact that this authoritarian structure of the state has only been facilitated by man's never ending desire for the state, to keep it alive. I say, from the next day onwards, we use the term 'statist' when terming something as 'feudal'. How much more feudal can you get? xD.
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DeleteA well executed article. But I would like to point some things about your article. I am quite wary and I intend to disagree about your generalisation of the whole situation. Secondly, regarding Israel, we may condemn it's actions but that dosnet mean we must condemn the whole existence of the State of Israel, because I think they also need pritection after ages of suffering. Thirdly, the things about the government is quite generalised. We cannot call every government like that by looking at one or two or three examples. Fourthly, I find the idea of total annihilation of the State as wholly utopian and nonsense, because you can't destroy power ever, even after you end government. And even ending "government" is impossible. And frankly I don't enjoy dreaming Utopia. Let's see into the loopholes in the Utopia and it will not appear Utopia anymore because Utopia is quite Utopian to come to real. So let's not get into practicalities of annihilation of state, neither do I feel it as necessary. These were my opinion. But otherwise you have executed the article well enough. Appreciable.
ReplyDeleteThis is the picture of our sad present. You talked of occupying the street and for that one needs the support of the masses. Sadly the masses of our country doesn't have the academic capacity to understand your argument (a failure on the part of the government), and for that we need a way to keep our arguments also easy and available for the masses. I personally think that each and every individual should be given a hand in order to understand how the basic necessities of life are commodified. Only by mobilizing the masses on the grounds of food, clothes and shelter the present authoritarian structure can be shattered.
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