Anti-Intellectualism and the Arrest of Political Dissent
In this article learn
Content warning: arrests, activism, genocide, dictatorship, society, psychology
We are living in tumultuous times. The rising death toll of Covid related deaths in India is accompanied by the unjust imprisonment of political activists so much so as has caused Amnesty India to launch #UnGagDissent , a virtual face mask campaign on Twitter, aimed at freeing the voices of those arrested. To learn more about protests in pandemics see here.
In the past week, the arrest and imprisonment of students and anti-government activists have made headlines, adding to the list of many names charged with alleged anti-state activity. But what did these convicted individuals actually do? And more importantly, why were they arrested?
History has demonstrated the use of arrest as a tool to delegitimize active protest by ostracizing dissenters from society by way of imprisonment.
It is merely another manifestation of what author Michelle Alexander calls ‘the prison label’ while referring to the mass incarceration of Black people in the US, as a modern method of segregation.[1] “Knowing that a person has been arrested or imprisoned automatically leads to the assumption that they might have done or said something unlawful or incendiary. It removes them from public discourse and virtually eliminates them from mainstream society.”
“The curbing of free speech and jailing doctors, poets and educationists by the highest echelons of power under the guise of national security are reminiscent of a movement known from history as anti-intellectualism.”
What is Anti-intellectualism?
Anti-intellectualism can be defined as hostility or opposition directed towards intellectuals or an intellectual view or approach.[2]
Historically, this idea has often been manipulated and applied by totalitarian regimes to repress political dissent.
The period of White terror in Spanish history, is a good example of the fact where during the Spanish Civil War and the years that followed under the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco, nearly 200,000 civilians- politically active teachers and academics, artists and writers that formed the Spanish intelligentsia- were captured and subsequently killed.[3] Similarly in the Genocidal regime of Cambodia, Pol Pot, the leader of the communist party condemned all non-communist intelligentsia to death. Anti-intellectualism thus, has always followed reactionaries, a term best described by political theorist Mark Lilla as a political entity that seeks to overturn the present condition of a people to recover an idealized past. And so
this movement purges the public of its most influential voices, voices that have the power to question, contradict or provide an alternative idea and thus hinder the restoration of the desired new order.
This is better illustrated in history by victims of the Armenian genocide, who were either deported or killed with the sole intent of erasing a community of intelligent people from among the Armenian population; or by book burnings in Nazi Germany conducted by the German Student Union to ceremonially burn books in the 1930s. The books targeted for burning were always those viewed as being subversive or as representing ideologies opposed to Nazism.[4] But who even qualifies as an intellectual? And what causes those in authority to seek out and deliberately silence such individuals?
To understand this we can look to Terry Eagleton’s definition of an intellectual as someone who is not just academically inclined but also someone “who feels anger when he or she sees injustice or inequality. Because of this, the intellectual takes positive action, not for himself or herself, but for those suffering from injustice and inequality”.[5] And so, it is very important for us, the common public, to monitor the rampant witch hunt of intellectuals in this country. But what happens if we look away? The answer is in what Noam Chomsky said about speaking truth to power:
"Power knows the truth already, and is busy concealing it". It is the oppressed who need to hear the truth, not the oppressors.
[6] And so, every country needs its intellectuals and educationists to keep the spirit of democracy alive and the moral, political backbone of its society in check.
The Problem
Today, the anti-intellectual sentiment is reflected most prominently in our education system and in the media. Rote learning, cheating on tests, labeling students ‘nerds’ for their academic interests, a lack of emphasis on social awareness, etc. are all ways where this idea is very early and very subtly, normalized. Even inside the classroom, we are taught to not question the status quo; the best students in the eyes of their parents and teachers are those that obey the rules. The same can be said about mainstream political discourse, the nature of Indian popular culture, primetime news and forums of public discussion.
We need to understand that the purpose of taking regular people political prisoners goes beyond the silencing of dissent. It sends out a wider message- that of intimidation, one that normalizes powerlessness. And these agents of socialization have a large role to play in the exacerbation of that powerlessness or what is known in psychology as the bystander effect.
What is the bystander effect?
Have you ever observed a road-accident, big or small, and watched as more people stop traffic and idly stand by watching a confrontation between two disgruntled motorists unfold? No effort is made to assist them, no concern is voiced for their safety or the safety of others, and minutes roll by as the crowd thickens and the argument intensifies.
Anyone who tries to help the people involved in the accident is told to stay quiet and stay back, ‘don’t get involved with the police,’ they’re told.
This mentality has what has given way to a larger observation of the bystander effect in society. A dominating sense of ‘it is best to not get involved’.
Rigid bureaucracy, capitalism and now fascism has made us as a society that internalizes powerlessness at an exorbitant rate.
We undermine the power of the collective, and equate the idea of large money or social capital as the only pathways to power and influence. Unfortunately, crushing dissent reinforces this observer syndrome, and we are reduced to pedestrians on the roadside, silently taking in the wreckage.
The solution?
It is only in the best interests of our democracy that we confront a hyper-nationalist political narrative by celebrating intellectual thought and freedom. We can start by recognizing the alarming reality of intellectual decline in public discourse and the subliminal yet nihilistic messaging in our consumption of news media. Malcolm X once said, ‘we are not outnumbered, we are out-organized’. A unification of society for the greater good, as Utopian as that may sound, is the right place to begin. Our ideas have to acquire the process of a movement.
This can be achieved in the way of social awareness and activism at the grassroots level, healthy public discourse and a re-alignment of societal values and demands.
There is a need to establish a mechanism where the movement of intellectualism is self perpetuating.
We need to create spaces for Dalit, Muslim, Adivasi and LGBTQ leadership to coexist with the nation’s majority; work towards the equal distribution of resources across all sections of society, and restore power back into the public sphere.
From Nazi Germany to Communist China, history or even present times do not paint a merry picture of societies that do not honor due process, rule of law and other constitutional safeguards. A collective realization needs to happen, that we all stand to benefit from the fight for social justice, gender justice, and ultimately freedom of expression and identity.
KEY TERMS AND THEORIES
Intellectual
Someone who is not just academically inclined but also who feels anger when he or she sees injustice or inequality
Anti-intellectualism
Hostility or opposition directed towards intellectuals or an intellectual view or approach.
Bystander Effect
Social psychological theory that states that individuals are less likely to offer help to a victim when there are other people present
Totalitarianism
A form of government that theoretically permits no individual freedom and that seeks to subordinate all aspects of individual life to the authority of the state
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References:
[1] Alexander, M. (2010) The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (p.93-96). The New Press.
[2] Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Anti-intellectual. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anti-intellectual
[3] Anti-intellectualism. (n.d.) Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-intellectualism
[4] United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC. (n.d.). Book Burning. Holocaust Encyclopedia. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/book-burning
[5] Kumar, R. (2019, February 12). Why Modi Government’s Persecution of Intellectuals Should Worry Us All. The Wire. https://thewire.in/rights/why-modi-governments-persecution-of-intellectuals-should-worry-us-all
[6] Kumar, R. (2019, February 12). Why Modi Government’s Persecution of Intellectuals Should Worry Us All. The Wire. https://thewire.in/rights/why-modi-governments-persecution-of-intellectuals-should-worry-us-all
Fasiha Shaikh
Bad with people. Bad with pets too. Has given up trying to fix that posture. Can be found reading Bukowski in bad light somewhere.
