This violence produces a state of fear, not only amongst those who are the principal targets of such forces but also amongst the population generally. Being afraid is the first precondition for paralysis, inertia, or, while others are targeted, looking the other way — a crowd impulse on which dictatorships and authoritarian juntas always depend. Fear also serves as a strong motive for conforming, in order to avoid falling prey to governmental persecution. To lead an ordinary life, citizens are required to pledge obedience to the party or group in power. One could not, in places like pre-perestroika Eastern Europe, teach in the public school system or at university, or practise one of the professions, without being a member of “the party.” The same is also true in Syria or in the “state-owned enterprises” of China or in North Korea.
Oxford defines freedom as “the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants” and “the absence of subjection to foreign domination or despotic governments.” Fear is defined in many ways but usually as “an unpleasant emotion caused by the threat of danger, pain, or harm.”[2]
In the absence of freedom from fear, it is only fear that remains and the manipulation of events, lives, communities, and prospects by the purveyors of fear. Totalitarian and authori-tarian administrations depend on fear — it is their lifeblood.
When freedom from fear is diluted or destroyed, other freedoms are reduced as well. The military juntas that ruled in Argentina and Chile in the recent past understood and the authoritarian regimes in Cuba, Syria, Libya, North Korea, and Iran today understand the leverage that the weight of fear can exercise, when expertly applied, to the scope of freedom. The fear of a confiscatory, punitive, and capricious government, accountable to no electorate, court, elected legislature, or media becomes the basis used by the fearful to negotiate for their own economic or physical survival; it is, of course, a context defined by the fear-dispensing regime itself. The currencies demanded by such regimes for escape from the punishments they threaten are typically loyalty, subservience, silence, material support, or cash. The agents of fear in such regimes, almost universally corrupt, all have whims to be indulged, and, depending on their rank and level of power, significant or relatively insignificant, are able to demand from citizens seeking service or attention or justice something “extra.” They are able to tell those seeking help, “You had better negotiate.” This was true in pre-perestroika Eastern Europe. It is still true in modern Russia or today’s China. It is neither surprising nor new that the greater the degree of authoritarianism of an administration, the greater the level of corruption exhibited by agents of the administration. Average citizens must face daily examples of dishonesty and corruption in their dealings with the state, greatly increasing the level of fear in their lives. Usually the only way to deal with such situations is through the payment of bribes; indeed, in most authoritarian states the need for such transactions is found in almost every aspect of life. Those with little resources to negotiate are the ones who are most afraid.
In Russia, for instance, corruption is rampant, and freedom from fear is not remotely a reality. The rich and powerful oligarchs who control much of the Russian economy are friendly with the Kremlin; part of the essentially corrupt economic structure, they are able to do well. Those who choose not to be part of that system, however, or who do not show sufficient fear of authority, place themselves in danger of being jailed. Falling afoul of the justice system is something that instills great fear amongst Russians; for them, knowing who amongst the police, the local administration, or the armed forces can be trusted to be honest and fair is a difficult if not impossible task. Despite the fact that there are laws and a parliament, Russia does not offer a fair and just home to its citizens. Purporting to be a democracy does not mean you are a democracy.
Another freedom diminished when there is a lack of freedom from fear is that of freedom of expression and freedom of the press. Looking at Russia again, it now stands 172nd out of 197 nations in the world in the “freedom of the press index,” next to Zimbabwe, Gambia, and the Congo. On July 13, 2012, the Russian Duma brought in a new law that changed libel from a civil offence to a harshly punished criminal one. It introduced particularly severe financial penalties for anyone who might criticize public officials. The Putin regime has targeted websites, NGOs, journalists, and think tanks. The message from all of these actions is that no one is safe who is not loyal to Putin.
To be fair, historically, authoritarianism has never been very far from Russia’s soul. The tsars who ruled the country earlier and the Communist leaders who replaced them all relied on terror and a culture of fear to maintain their grip on power. Maintaining that culture of fear today takes consistent and dili-gent application. Threatening freedoms and spreading fear can take no holiday when democratic legitimacy is sketchy at best. But redeploying fear does not sustain legitimacy. It weakens it.
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Healthy freedom from fear, when present, underpins a society of robust achievements. Freedom from fear allows for freedom to innovate and change. Freedom from fear results in a democracy where those elected to public office face genuine competition for those positions at regular intervals and accountability to judicial restraint and process. Freedom from fear goes hand in hand with a presumption of innocence and a police-judicial process that is subject to the rule of law, not just the product of the whims of those who happen to be in office. Freedom from fear in a democracy permits a broad spectrum of media and press who owe no fealty except to the media organizations they serve, their market, the democratically legislated laws of the land, and their own consciences.
Freedom from fear also means freedom from official discrimination on the basis of gender, race, creed, colour, or sexual orientation. Even more important, in terms of day-to-day life, it means no tolerance, official or unofficial, for discriminatory activities that create fear within specific groups. Extreme harassment, or worse, by Buddhists of Muslim populations in Myanmar or Sri Lanka is a new but serious manifestation of intimidation-based extreme nationalism. Tolerating hate crimes or violence against minorities is as bad as officially sanctioning such crimes or violence. A society where the legitimate apparatus of the state does its best to prosecute the illegal purveyors of fear is a society where freedom from fear is real. A society or state that looks the other way when minorities of any kind are subjected to violence is a society that tacitly encourages the use of fear against its own people.
In recent years, Sri Lanka has become a discouraging case in point. At the end of a brutal anti-terrorist war in 2009, the spirit of reconciliation, accountability, and generosity, that was so essential to the rebuilding that took place in post-apartheid South Africa and post–Civil War United States, seemed to be furthest from the mind of the Rajapaksa administration.
While nominally democratic, the government was, in fact, a family dynasty, with Rajapaksa brothers in control of Defence, Economic Development, the Parliament, the Presidency, and all aspects of state regulation and private enterprise. The brothers used fear to energize a soft ethnic cleansing of the Tamil population and serious harassment of the Muslim minority. Media voices were intimidated, brutalized, or murdered. Muslim stores and properties were destroyed by roving gangs of thugs while police stood idly by. Not one scintilla of accountability was exacted from either side for the thousands of civilians who had been killed by the end of the civil war with the terrorist Tamil Tigers in 2009.
Judicial independence was done away with when the chief justice of the Supreme Court was summarily and unconstitutionally impeached because of a ruling the Rajapaksa clan disliked. While the United Nations human rights commissioner made serious findings and a multitude of recommendations, very few have been addressed. The Commonwealth of Nations, of which Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) was a founding member, has done almost nothing of substance to defend its own core values of rule of law, defence of democracy, judicial independence, and human rights. In fact, it gave Sri Lanka the privilege of hosting the 2013 Heads of Government Meeting in Colombo in November of that year — the first meeting in more than four decades where the queen, as head of the Commonwealth, did not attend.
Terrorism in any country is about the targeted and energized use of fear as a political and tactical weapon. The damage any terrorist attack achieves is rarely, if ever, an existential risk to a country or community. But the fear it seeks to generate, and the overreaction it hopes to incite is all about creating a circumstance where freedom from fear begins to erode. Depending