Thursday, August 20, 2015
How we understand "racism"......
Lee Jasper Official Blog: Why Black People in UK, US and Europe cannot be ra...: The perennial debate about what constitutes racism is a deeply contentious issue and nowhere more so, than here in Britain. Take ...
Friday, April 10, 2015
Misdirection
There is a lot of media talk about the dangers of radicalization. About the need to ensure the safety of all citizens from those being radicalised. I have long thought about the misdirection of which there always seems to be, in mediated story telling. When we do not hear the story from the lips of the teller, but through a professional mediator: a professional and mass-audience-focused mediator, through the literal lens of a professional, mass-audience focused and highly sophisticated mediator, called the media.....then there will always be another agenda, and there always is misdirection whether in the nature of the story or which story actually is selected, amongst all the other stories.
So, I just figured that the misdirection was to do with presenting radicalisation as a MODERN risk, calling for modern responses, such as the need for a security state. I figured that by ignoring the very long history of young men with lots of idealism, a taste for adventure, perhaps a bit of a middle class ethos and the opportunity to go off and fight for a cause - well I figured that that VERY long history and litany of names was being ignored in the cause of enacting MORE surveillance and being able to control the preferably urban population ever more effectively, here in these end-times of "mature democracy" / oligarchy. If youth who were already demonized, were demonized more - well, no harm done really. If young men who were and always have been interested in supporting an underdog, perhaps making a name for themselves, maybe get paid or enjoy the spoils of war, and maybe even find a worthier identity in the process -well if these young men were undermined by the mediators, the hired story tellers, no harm done, not really.
I was wrong. What if while all the above is part of the picture, there is a deeper truth? And isn't there always a deeper truth? What if one deeper truth is that these young men, and now in modern times we know and tell the story of young women as well, what if for these young people, there is an issue of oppression, of disenfranchisement, of exclusion? Feeling rejected forms part of the impulse to look afield for validation. What if the middle-class, adventurous, idealistic impulse is less present than a need to have some element of self-worth that means more to them than what they feel are their options?
What if they have found an ideological transformation from discouragement, from distanced inner selves, from apathy and passivity to empowered action? What if their awakened political consciousness and assumption of their own self-worth, is the end result? If this comes from a population within a society, where "they" are supposed to be outsiders, outliers, intruders, servants to the system in some capacity - that transformation could be more dangerous than actually joining the "other side." They might inspire others to stand up, or even, historically, to march.
What if the danger is not that they are "radicalised" but that they are "empowered,"and young empowered people who are from the excluded classes are a bigger threat to the system than our mediated story-tellers will say? What if that is the Republican fury at Obama - for being such an infuriating role model to young, disenfranchised people.
Perhaps we need to stare with compassion at these people , they who are so desperate to find more meaning in their lives that they go to a war zone to find it? Perhaps these young people are the MOST moral, and most LOST of their generation, and we are BLAMING them for their quest for something more.
It will be more complex than that of course - but using words like "Radicalised" shuts down the conversation that would make us a better country.
So, I just figured that the misdirection was to do with presenting radicalisation as a MODERN risk, calling for modern responses, such as the need for a security state. I figured that by ignoring the very long history of young men with lots of idealism, a taste for adventure, perhaps a bit of a middle class ethos and the opportunity to go off and fight for a cause - well I figured that that VERY long history and litany of names was being ignored in the cause of enacting MORE surveillance and being able to control the preferably urban population ever more effectively, here in these end-times of "mature democracy" / oligarchy. If youth who were already demonized, were demonized more - well, no harm done really. If young men who were and always have been interested in supporting an underdog, perhaps making a name for themselves, maybe get paid or enjoy the spoils of war, and maybe even find a worthier identity in the process -well if these young men were undermined by the mediators, the hired story tellers, no harm done, not really.
I was wrong. What if while all the above is part of the picture, there is a deeper truth? And isn't there always a deeper truth? What if one deeper truth is that these young men, and now in modern times we know and tell the story of young women as well, what if for these young people, there is an issue of oppression, of disenfranchisement, of exclusion? Feeling rejected forms part of the impulse to look afield for validation. What if the middle-class, adventurous, idealistic impulse is less present than a need to have some element of self-worth that means more to them than what they feel are their options?
What if they have found an ideological transformation from discouragement, from distanced inner selves, from apathy and passivity to empowered action? What if their awakened political consciousness and assumption of their own self-worth, is the end result? If this comes from a population within a society, where "they" are supposed to be outsiders, outliers, intruders, servants to the system in some capacity - that transformation could be more dangerous than actually joining the "other side." They might inspire others to stand up, or even, historically, to march.
What if the danger is not that they are "radicalised" but that they are "empowered,"and young empowered people who are from the excluded classes are a bigger threat to the system than our mediated story-tellers will say? What if that is the Republican fury at Obama - for being such an infuriating role model to young, disenfranchised people.
Perhaps we need to stare with compassion at these people , they who are so desperate to find more meaning in their lives that they go to a war zone to find it? Perhaps these young people are the MOST moral, and most LOST of their generation, and we are BLAMING them for their quest for something more.
It will be more complex than that of course - but using words like "Radicalised" shuts down the conversation that would make us a better country.