Disobedience: Refusal is the strongest defence against corrupt authority and its control

When allegations of corruption are made against people in positions of power, such as those levelled against Spanish Prime Minister Mr Mariano Rajoy earlier this year (Tremlett, 2013), it can generate enough fear and anger to get people out onto the streets in protest. However outright corruption, such as that which Mr Rajoy was accused, is not all that can cause that kind of anger or fear.

Lobbying, in particular by wealthy interests seeking the support of those in power - and often through declared and legal financial contributions - can also have an unseemly edge. At the UK's Prime Minister's Questions, opposition leader Mr Ed Miliband accused the Prime Minister Mr Cameron of being in the pocket of just such a lobbying interest. Mr Miliband pointed out that hedge funds that had received £145m in tax cuts from the Conservative Government, had also made £25m worth of contributions to that party (Wintour, 2013).

When powerful organisations with vested interests are able to work in concert, even if such collaboration is done legally, and above board, there still remains a stench of impropriety, of exploitation. And even the perception of corruption is enough to cause fear, since powerful interests with power concentrated in their hands pose a real threat to even the most basic of rights. The might and influence of such a confederation allows them to deflect questions, suppress debate and prevent change. In the face of such a torrent of might, how can people, and their rights, prevail?

In Agrarian Justice, Thomas Paine stressed that:

'Cultivation is at least one of the greatest natural improvements ever made by human invention. It has given to created earth a tenfold value. But the landed monopoly that began with it has produced the greatest evil. It has dispossessed more than half the inhabitants of every nation of their natural inheritance, without providing for them, as ought to have been done, an indemnification for that loss, and has thereby created a species of poverty and wretchedness that did not exist before.'

Paine argued that those who took advantage of the system of private property still owed something back to the community, who were exploited and dispossessed by the existence of the institution. While his comments here were aimed at the general construction of modern western society, which from its root and beginning was built around a foundation of property, the point extends beyond its roots to many other forms of corruption, impropriety and exploitation. People oppose the collusion and corruption of the powerful, because it is an abdication of civil responsibility - by purpose or neglect, it threatens people's rights.

Throughout history vested interests have gathered power about themselves, using their wealth and influence to form powerful confederations that allow them to strip away the encumbrances upon them that are the rights of others, and to rule in their own favour. Each time it has sparked not just protests but revolutions (The Economist, 2013). But those mass movements take a big risk when they decide to oppose them by pitting power against power.

In order to oppose them, the people put together their own powerful movements. Yet, when they do, they only build more power structures, new potentially unchecked leaders and new vested interests. The risk is that, by relying on popular might to defeat institutional might, you tear down one power structure just to replace it with another.

This is where civil disobedience offers guidance to mass protest. It opposes power, not with a power of its own, but with refusal. The true power of concerted action by vested interests is in its monopoly on the use of force - the ability to compel, control or coerce others through might of arms or fear. Rather than meet fear or force head-to-head with the might of a popular movement, civil disobedience argues that the fundamental answer to attempts at control and tyranny must be the refusal to co-operate.

The difficulty comes in facing the fear wrought by those who wish to impose their views, their systems, their control, by way of punishments - like fines or imprisonment - or through denial of rights and services. Facing those kinds of threats calmly, without anger or using violence, takes phenomenal courage. But in such action is the most basic defence against despotism. Tyrannous attempts to control others depend upon tyrants successfully getting people to play their game by their rules - but without the compliance of the people, tyranny is for naught.

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References:
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+ Giles Tremlett's 'Spanish prime minister Rajoy accused of hiding secret income'; in The Guardian; 31 January 2013.

+ Patrick Wintour's 'Ed Miliband challenges David Cameron on pay rise and party funding'; in The Guardian; 10 July 2013.

+ Thomas Paine's 'Agrarian Justice'; 1795.

+ The Economist's 'The march of protest'; 29th June 2013.

Protesting: Violence is a real threat to protests and their causes

Over the past couple of years public protests have become extremely common. On the one hand this has been positive, with people getting involved in trying to change their world for the better; from the Arab Spring that has spread across the Middle East, to Camila Vallejo and other students campaigning in Chile. However, there are also some matters about the increasing protests that are troubling.

The first of these troubling matters is the violence that has 'infiltrated' protests. Both in the protests of 2010 in the UK and this year's protests in Brazil - not to mention the 'unrest' in Greece or across the Middle East - violence has found its way into massive public demonstrations that began as peaceful protests against authorities and their policies.

Whatever the source of the violence - whether instigated by extremist groups, agents provocateurs, or in self defence - its presence during protests is dangerous. It is dangerous to the protester's cause, threatening to undermine a movement's purposes by damaging its image; and it is dangerous to the protesters themselves, particular those newer and younger, to be exposed to those kinds of methods.

The second troubling matter is that protesters are getting demonstrably younger. News coverage of protests has shown a high level of involvement from students and young people in protests around the world. In itself, protesters getting younger isn't something to worry about. Young people getting out, getting active, and getting involved with the running of the world they live in, is an undeniable positive.

But there are reasons to be concerned with growing youth involvement with protest movements. One of the most serious is the increasing incidence around the world of youth unemployment (Observer, 2013). In a world where employment has been made central and absolutely essential to our lives, large scale unemployment could, through general disaffection, encourage disconnect amongst young people from the legitimate political structures.

In both cases, these concerns are well expressed by MP and former leader of the Liberal Democrats, Mr Charles Kennedy:

'The danger in all of this is that if sufficient people conclude that there is nothing in the conventional political process for them then they may opt for more simplistic and extreme options on offer. I remain an optimist. But across the mainstream political spectrum there is a candid recognition of the danger.' (2006)

If, especially, young people cannot be convinced that the traditional political structures are worthwhile to engage with, then the work must begin to reform the system to better serve those people. The alternative is the wholesale mistrust and rejection of the political process, the beginnings of which can be seen in the massive turnouts at protests while elections turnouts remain low. People are already finding alternative modes of expression in protests, in social movements like Occupy, and with populist politic groups. If the political system is not to entirely lose legitimacy, then it must begin the process of earning back the people's trust.

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References:
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+ The Observer's 'A crisis of legitimacy could strike Britain too'; 23 June 2013.

+ Charles Kennedy's 'How we lost people's trust'; in The Guardian; 4 August 2006.

Fighting Monsters: Doctor Who, Fear and Peace

The past few seasons of Doctor Who have seen the Doctor face a crisis of confidence. His crisis has centred on the way he fights evil, and we can learn a lot from it. When it comes to fighting monsters, there aren't many of our fictional heroes who take the words of Nietzsche to heart:

'He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.' (Beyond Good and Evil, 1886)

Fighting fire with fire presents many dangers - as John Green put it referring to the dilemma of Shakespeare's Brutus, 'when, if ever, is it okay to stab someone 23 times'? If it isn't ever okay, is there still a way to oppose evil without actually fighting?

This problematic dilemma is played out in Doctor Who's sixth season episode A Good Man Goes to War. River song, the Doctor's sometime companion, admonishes the Doctor for the reckless way he meets the might of his enemies with a might of his own. Over the next season and a half, the Doctor's attempts to wrestle with this dilemma becomes a particularly prominent theme. He fakes his own death and even starts erasing knowledge about himself in order to lower his profile and the fearful stature he has attained in the cultures of his enemies.

However, some people took issue with River's dressing down of the Doctor over his heroics, including John Ostrander, writer of Star Wars comics amongst other things. Ostrander (2011) argued that by saving so many lives, the Doctor was above such criticism of his methods and should never be expected to apologise for them.

And it's not hard to see why we are willing to turn a blind eye, when we see the genocidal threats that many of his enemies pose.

However, even when the Doctor merely outwits his opponents he still intimidates and antagonises them, forcing them to become stronger in fear of him. In the seventh season episode Asylum of the Daleks, we see this exposed in the Doctor's relationship with his great enemy the Daleks.

In the Doctor's darker moments he also uncovers the hidden dangers of the utilitarian viewpoint - where the means are justified by the ends - and faces the question: if you fight monsters with their own methods, how are you any better than them?

When the Doctor uses his name and his reputation to fight his opponents he is using fear to oppose blow-for-blow the might of his enemies. The problem with utilitarianism, such as this, is that it ignores the value and impact of means. The way in which we oppose evil has a profound affect upon both ourselves and the struggle itself, helping to give meaning to the outcome. Our methods help to not only define what we have achieved but also the world that victory then creates. If we achieve our victory by using fear to coerce, or with might by force of arms, what do we justify? What do we legitimise? What do we say it is okay to do in the name of the things that people adamantly believe in?

The harder road, the slower road, is civil disobedience. The likes of Gandhi, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King, all led campaigns of peaceful opposition and suffered for their victories - but that suffering was part of what defined their success. Civil disobedience seeks not just to oppose attempts to control and tyrannise, but also to win the argument through reason and evidence. By rejecting their enemies' methods and embracing peace; by refusing to comply with authority; these people rejected coercion, and all attempts to motivate and control people through fear.

In doing so they gave up any pursuit of conquest or destruction of their enemies. In peace, they sought to use mercy, hope and forgiveness - combined with reasoned argument - to instead win over their enemy. The aim is not to strike them down but to lead them away from the evil with which they oppressed others. But at no point does this involve backing down in the face of evil or letting evil get away with evil.

In Doctor Who, the Doctor is at his most heroic, his most fantastic, when nobody dies. When the Doctor tries to save his enemy rather than destroy them, he represents the very best to which we can aspire.

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References:
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+ Friedrich Nietzche's 'Beyond Good and Evil'; 1886.

+ William Shakespeare's 'Julius Caesar'; 1599.

+ John Ostrander's 'Why Doctor Who's Time Traveller Should Never Apologize for Fighting Evil'; on comicmix.com; 28 August 2011.