Safety In Ignorance
“Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave” - Frederick Douglass (Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass)
The Stono Rebellion of 1739 was the largest slave uprising in pre-Independent America. Many Southern states responded to this unexpected freedom-struggle with the Negro Act which imposed severe restrictions on slaves, including an education-ban. Knowledge, the slave-states realised, was inconsistent with mindless submission.
The unbanning is yet to happen, though the President indubitably can get it done with one call. Is the banning – and the delay in unbanning – aimed at sending the message that satire will be permitted only so long as its primary target is the Opposition?
Today’s power-wielders are often beset by similar cares. The need to keep constituencies in pliable ignorance is not limited to governments. Religions tried/try to appear infallible through knowledge/information control. So do corporate-giants; a case-in-point is the unsuccessful attempt by ‘Dole’ to legally-restrict the documentary, ‘BANANAS!*[i], which depicted the connection between Dole’s use of pesticides and growing sterility among banana-plantation workers in Nicaragua[ii].
Thought control is impossible without information control. If people know, it is hard to keep them in thrall to mirages.
A ruler’s dependency on information control grows as the gap between rhetoric and reality widens. Attempts to hem and guide information flows become pivotal in places where lack of transparency is essential to the maintenance of societal-consent.
This month, the Censor Board banned the latest instalment of the popular satire, ‘Puswedilla’ – ‘The Common Welthings Summit’. Three days later the President reportedly called the playwright/director, Feroze Kamardeen, and promised to sort things out[iii]. The unbanning is yet to happen, though the President indubitably can get it done with one call. Is the banning – and the delay in unbanning – aimed at sending the message that satire will be permitted only so long as its primary target is the Opposition?
In absolute monarchies lèse majesté (offending the dignity of a ruler) was/is a punishable crime. There is nothing like humour to reduce these self-proclaimed divinities to ordinary level, and make their subjective people see the common clay beneath the dazzling gilt. Plus, President Rajapaksa is unsparing in his intolerance. He once condemned a song which mocked the rulers as ‘unpatriotic’ and proclaimed that “songs disgracing the country could help those who want to divide the motherland”[iv]. An astrologer was arrested for making an ‘unacceptable’ political-prediction. A leader with such a gossamer-thin skin is unlikely to be happy about a skit which mocks a matter dear to him. After all, inescapable billboards across Colombo hail the President as the ‘Great Leader of the Commonwealth’! Read More
