[TLDR (too long didn’t read): If you are reading this, chances are you care about HR. This Reader is about how authoritarian regimes are straightforward repressors while liberal democracies use veiled approaches for the same purpose. For a quick overview, just read the bolded text]. Traducir/traduire los/les Readers; usar/utiliser deepl.com
1. ‘Transparent persecution’ (repression among other things) consists, of the prohibition of political parties, the absence of fundamental rights and procedural guarantees, political dependence of the courts, an official list of prohibited/‘illegal ideas’ and the punishment of those who profess them (censorship, crimes of opinion, political prisoners…).
2. ‘Opaque persecution’ does not use —officially, at least– any of these instruments that are constitutionally prohibited in a democratic state. The opacity lies in the fact that similar objectives can be achieved by means that appear to be completely different (and even contrary) to those used in non-transparent, dictatorial persecution. The danger of opaque persecution is that it goes unnoticed by the majority of the population. If it is not democratically combated, it can easily turn into ‘quasi-transparent persecution’, i.e., tolerated or even promoted by the constitutionally democratic state itself, and accepted with indifference by the majority of the population.
3. Questioning this persecution becomes a dangerous act (and the one who questions it is, by definition, dangerous). Dangerousness can justify the neutralization of those questioners* by informal, legal, a-legal, or even illegal means —thus are finger-pointed internal enemies. But, in a democracy, there are no dangerous ideas! Opaque persecution requires that these boundary is crossed –and this is done through disinformation campaigns. (An example of this is the concept of anti-Semitism, which today in the US (and to some extent in Europe) has been reframed to cover any criticism of the State of Israel, no matter how heinous the crimes against humanity committed by Israel against the people of Palestine).
*: It is the impossibility of creating democratic opposition that favors the slide from democracy to dictatorship that characterizes our time.
4. Nation-building has always depended on the interests of those who dominate the state. For this reason, many social groups who live in the space of the state were/are excluded from the nation, that is ethnic or religious minorities (sometimes majorities), slaves, women, immigrants and other. Citizenship has always been a principle of both inclusion and exclusion. The excluded have always been potentially internal enemies.
5. At the moment, in Europe and the US, the common internal enemy of choice is the immigrant, especially if Muslim. He/she is an internal political enemy, because they are considered individuals or groups whose ideas are seen by the political powers to be so dangerous thus not deserving to be protected by the guarantees of citizenship and the Constitution.
6. The global far right, today led by Donald Trump** and Benjamin Netanyahu, is beginning to extend the concept of internal political enemy to all critical-thinking intellectuals and all left-wing parties (suspected of being in the service of an external enemy).
**: The American Dream has become a nightmare. (Vivian Camacho)
7. Historically, it was with neoliberalism that the promiscuity between the political and economic worlds intensified. This is the case with the hidden and unlimited private financing of political parties and electoral campaigns.
8. The internationalization of hate and of conservative polarization uses the means that the US high-tech information and communication giants have at their disposal to: a) silence or eliminate critical thinking, b) monitoring the communications and movements of social activists and critical thinkers, and c) checking the alternative media on a daily basis. The ‘blacklists’ of ideas, authors, and media outlets to be canceled are distributed internationally to the hegemonic media in different countries, to investigative police, and even to NGOs that are willing to collaborate, because they believe that such cancellation could further their supposedly progressive goals.
9. It is difficult to know who the internal collaborators of the haters are, and how the disinformation is spread so quickly. Another mechanism used in the same process is the declaration of states of emergency that suspend the constitutional guarantees of the persecuted.
10. ‘Dangerous’ ideas may continue to be published, but they no longer have any political influence, either by discrediting the authors or by marginalizing the media outlets in which they are published, if they are published at all.
Bottom Line
11. In capitalist societies, liberal democracy is always an island of democracy in an archipelago of despotism. Contemporary societies are politically democratic and socially fascist. State security has always been the preferred reason for dictatorships to persecute their opponents. Its increasing use by ‘democratic’ states is one of the clear signs of the degradation of democratic coexistence. Neoliberalism has infiltrated these movements with a neo-puritan ideology and used them to make the class struggle invisible and to divide the groups fighting against social injustice and human rights violations.
12. The aim of the media war is to turn accusations into condemnations so that the objectives of neutralizing those who are opaquely persecuted are achieved before any initiative to defend them kicks-in. The professional and personal damage of the outcast becomes definitive and irreparable, even if the accusations are later proven to be false. The defense of democracy and the use of human rights lingo serves as a veneer to legitimize governments and some NGOs’ true aims. The NGOs most committed to opaque persecution are often financed internationally by interest centers linked to the defense of neoliberalism and the neutralization of its enemies. Denunciation of these individuals or groups in the media and on social networks constitutes an almost criminal conviction. The political class (or their political clients) does not hesitate using the courts to obtain political results; the question is how independent these courts are. (B. de Sousa Santos)
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
Your comments are welcome at schuftan@gmail.com