Documenting Anarchy

The Panopticon is a hypothetical prison building where each prisoner is unable to see the other prisoner or the prison guard but the guard can see all the prisoners. This complete shift in power and freedom takes place when the observed cannot observe. Somewhat like a hypothetical god and hypothetical subjects or even like some modern governments and their protected citizens. This possibility is depicted in Huxley’s fantasy of ‘Brave New World’ anonymity (people have numbers not names) is combined with the complete lack of privacy or individuality. All information is with a faceless government who monitors the entire population. Life is so mechanical in Brave New World that all human experiences are defined in mechanical terms. The purpose of conformity and homogeneity is to suppress and control. Each citizen is potentially capable of anarchy and rebellion; therefore each citizen must be conditioned. Freely associative thoughts are the beginnings of rebellion and dissent. Ironically the ‘Brave New World’ feared anarchy so ‘Big Brother’ had to control the masses. In another novel on contemporary culture ‘1984’ a homogenous society struggles with moral questions. A recent cult movie ‘V for Vendetta’ based on the graphic novel by Alan Moore is also about a homogeneous society under state control.

Ok so violence, justice, morality and society are major themes in popular culture these days. Quite obviously popular culture is struggling with a conflict. The burning questions being, “When is Violence justified? And when is power benign? “

Older societies (aka un-democratic) were controlled societies where thoughts were modified for the greater good. Somewhat along the line of you must do this or you will burn in hell whereas implicit was the desire for stability. More modern societies (aka democratic/technologically advanced/open) don’t have the clearly stated goals and objectives that religious morality provided. A lot more gray can coexist in greater anonymity. This gray can be a good thing in the sense that self-examination as a society is easier. After the Vietnam War and World War 2 Western modern states entered an agonizing period of self-examination. This ability of modern countries to discuss, debate, vent and argue is perhaps the singular achievement of humanism over any other totalitarian system. A moral conscience after debate and argument has a humanitarian ethic making modern society livable despite a high degree of mechanization and limited human contact.

The ethic of liberty--referred by George W. Bush as ‘freedom’ (freedom however is a far bigger word) is the distilled elixir of modern society, its one gift, and its final contribution to humanity.

The ideal of Liberty means that being different is ok and bad people can be corrected by the Psychologist and the State (Anthony Burgess’s Clockwork Orange expressed the problem with liberty in a graphic way). So far the idea of modernity still works and if everyone isn’t nice enough, a machinery has been created that uses your tax money to provide assistance to people so that they are ‘helped’ to accept the adjustments required in a modern system. This somewhat humane way coupled with prosperity seems to have worked quite well in limiting violence to fewer freak incidents. A violence free modern society is still unknown.

The correction and accountability of government has been somewhat more erratic. The greatest insights into what went wrong with a Government is always after the fact. There is much grief after holocausts, Vietnam type debacles, but inaction while people responsible are still in power. Power is still the biggest dilemma of any society.

Private entrepreneurship in the West led to the growth of organizations larger than many governments—little fiefdoms. This with Liberty meant that ordinary people had the power to dissent, debate and critique government. But if you don’t have a job, how can you criticize? And if your livelihood depends on a corporation, you can’t really be rude enough to argue with the goals of business. Whistle blowers are few and far between. There never is a good time to have political opinion. The individual as protector of modern morality is a weak link. Ironically, when people hopped on to Democracy to escape from the Church/God/the plantation and housewifery, they never realised that faith in democracy will end it.

Anarchy is perhaps the only true path to the massive corrections that modern society seems to need often. Such is the message of V for Vendetta, violent anarchy to end violent governmental control.

Ok, so we all know this democracy stuff is a bit fishy. For one, it requires the complete access to information that most governments resist—second an ever vigilant and alert populace who read boring articles rather than the juicy stuff. Third, the voted candidate ends up doing pretty much the same things as the guy who loses (the law of averages prevails always; a Normal curve reigns supreme). Fourth, all politicians want power, so any alliance that will increase power e.g., Church/Madrassah/Mullah/Corporations is a temptation beyond belief. A truly just politician would be he/she who has no desire for power. (The Republic, Plato). And people who have no desire for power wouldn’t be attracted to the job and really without power not much can be done.

It seems then that the very basis for democracy is on unstable ground, that sinks even while we create nations on its shifting sands. The entire carefully constructed fair and equitable structure of a modern and liberal state is a house of cards that needs constant vigilance and correction.

In this real politic vs. ideal politic world, Governments can have many reasons to resist providing open information to the public—for the greater stability and good of the populace, of-course. Information is power. On the other hand, Governments want complete information about their public. At the heart of it is the fear of anarchy, rebellion, chaos and disorder. Even if violence must be used, there has to be control, otherwise this modern edifice of civil liberty, freedom of speech and everyone going to work and coming home would collapse (read as ‘we all need to be homogenous for the great modern clockwork of consumption, production and liberty to work.’

Governments want and need complete information on their subjects for various stated reasons. Some of those reasons hinge around ‘efficiency’, where government departments are unable to share data so they want a universal view of information so that everyone knows everything that they need to know all the time (for the purposes of this column/article, all jargon will be treated skeptically). Sharing information also reduces costs of duplication, redundant record keeping, storage of data and limitless amounts of otherwise manual work. It saves money immediately by reducing the number of people you need to do the same amount of work if not more and in the long run, it is scalable meaning when more work needs to be done, you have the extra capacity. For Governments this means better allocation of tax payers money. For many people it may mean some more jobs right now, while for others it means job loss and for society it means that computerized work overtakes all other alternatives. Of-course Governments have the option of being less efficient to provide jobs however that loss of efficiency is not something taxpayers want to support.

Skipping the preamble as to why this efficiency goal is never quite achieved. Let’s move back to the real center of the topic.

Recently—meaning in the last decade but more openly since 9/11, there is a continued effort to document people all over planet earth. From the most disorganized countries to most orderly, there is a concerted effort to account for every person on this planet. You walk into any airport in Pakistan and you are photographed and documented in your own home country. Your passport photocopies are taken and kept. All Pakistani citizens overseas must obtain a NICOP (A special ID card created in Islamabad and mailed back to you in 6 months). Pakistanis cannot even get their passports renewed for more than 1 yr unless they have a NICOP. And if NADRA is late, you end up without a valid passport and can’t travel at all. Of-course, quite kindly the Pakistani embassy will stamp it again for you in case they make an error. The passport renewed stamp has led to more suspicious looks than if we Pakistanis had a NORMAL passport valid for the normal time. Where is all this data going? What is the purpose of this data? Why must people be so documented?

To protect the American people, the US government spends great efforts on watching people. For the safety of Americans, everyone in America must be documented and watched. Their voices tapped. Their banking transactions scrutinized and reported. Not only must Americans watched—thanks to the American constitution which somewhat protects American citizens. But non-Americans aren’t so lucky. Non-citizens must be watched even more closely. America is now not just a country but also a cult and a way of being that must never be questioned. Non-Americans have their blogs viewed; their exit and entry into USA documented, their fingerprints recorded and their phone conversations listened. ('Americans Don't Live Here Anymore', Counterpunch, March 2006)

Let’s move to other countries. Almost every Western country now uses passports with electronic chips. People cannot travel to USA if they have old style passports. When you enter USA your fingerprints are kept on an especially created file with all your dates of entry along with purpose along with a mug shot. Wearing a Burqa while traveling can mean instant exit from an international flight. If your passport is from a Muslim country, your bag will most likely have a baggage inspected tag when you get it back. The unfortunate thing about discrimination is the ease with which it spreads. In every bureaucrat there seems to be an abused child who wants to get back at somebody for his/her childhood sense of mediocrity.

Documenting individuals has become part of the great security and surveillance paraphernalia that modern states have at their disposal. The idea is to know everyone so that chances of anarchy and crime are reduced. At great expense to the average citizens whose taxes are siphoned into militarization or surveillance equipment rather than welfare, the grand effort to convert the globe into a giant Panopticon continues. Somewhat conveniently terrorists and anti state elements appear to justify the huge expense of saving people from each other. The irony is that the modern state cuts funds to support environmental research, aid for famine ridden countries or preventing genocide (e.g., cut-backs on environmental research, Somalia and Rwanda). Getting funds sanctioned to save people is so much more difficult than sanctioning funds to document or kill them.

A strange kind of war is on. Suffocated in the blanket of paperwork and record keeping, this war lacks a typical frontier—it wages in government computer systems and filing cabinets or on oil rich chaotic countries.

These defined 'others' must have special records, they must have passports, they must have criminal records and fingerprint records.

There are two major battles within the larger war of controlling violent anarchy:

One is the war of liberty vs. dogma. This takes various forms but it is actually raging very hard in Muslim countries. The one great gift of modernity, Liberty attracts a vast number of modern day Muslims. Even though tolerance and liberty aren’t just an outcome of modernity, the concept has become synonomous. This war therefore is a perpetuation of a continual low level struggle within Islamic societies about interpretation, secularism, feminist rights and an equitable/just society.

Second is the war between the USA and Muslim Terrorists who want a return to the Caliphate or control over resources or the exit of USA from Muslim countries. At different times, different ‘terrorist’ types have said different things about the purpose of violent attacks on the West.

The one thread that runs through these various wars is oil, land and identity. The irony is that the last remaining oil lies in the poorest and most chaotic countries. Or was it Iraq? Three protagonists come up again and again in this war: 1. Corporation led America 2. Insecure Muslims who fight for identity, while their governments suppress dissent 3. Jews desperate for a homeland.

If indeed suicide bombing is done by underground groups to protect oil and their identity it is working in very strange ways. It has acted as a catalyst for change—answering the question, what is the meaning of being Muslim? A somewhat positive outcome is the coming out of hundreds of aware and thinking people onto paper and other means ( See Hina Khan's documentary) . The second impact has been the limitless documentation of individuals. This is a very scary outcome because it has meant the end of privacy and severely curtailed liberty in the West. The fear of terrorism has led to a reduction in civil liberties never before seen in USA, a constant yes/no debate in Canada and other European countries. . The war for Liberty in Muslim societies is suffering because of oppressive royalist or dictatorial regimes propped on Wahabi Islam and oil money. Ironically a liberal and tolerant system that attracts the modern Muslim is key to any success in maintaining and saving Muslim identity. Fatwas that ban free thought are the best way to turn off the very people it needs. If Islamic societies want to develop in a natural manner, then the dogma has to be loosened, the Scientist has to think and the Sufi must dance. In other words Muslims have to divest Wahabi interpretations to keep their identity alive.

Today some of the best and brightest immigrants from the so-called Muslim brotherhood of nations are paying taxes in USA. Taxes that eventually allow the USA to drop missiles into Iraq and Afghanistan and soon to be Iran. Taxes that allow maniacal Presidents to go to war and force the oppressed populace of Iraq/Afghanistan to fight this useless war and die in the process. If, instead of serving America, these same people were able to work and perform in their own countries without fear, it would mean a different world. Unfortunately immigrants in America pay taxes but don’t enjoy voting rights. In other words they provide the funds for militarization but don’t enjoy the political freedom to vote or voice opinions.

Let's see the crystal ball here. First it was Afghanistan, then it was Iraq, now it is Iran. See ‘The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and The End of the American Dream’. Every oil producing country on this planet (especially the non-Western) will be in direct or subdued conflict with USA. There will be terrorist bombings, efforts to bring ‘democracy’ to dictatorships. USA will go in to fight against Muslim Terrorists. Muslim ‘hardliners’ will mouth increasing resentment against US arrogance (see Hina Khan’s documentary). The USA will keep electing maniacs who promise them oil.

What’s the big deal?

1. Oil consumption of countries where there are huge deposits of oil is low—they aren’t too modern. They can have four wives. They live in a large family set-up. Low key violence is somewhat normal here, they have the least political freedom, and the least upward social mobility. But heck, at the end of they day they don’t consume that much oil. Even after a higher relative degree of modernity—they just never hopped on to the industrial dream. Too lazy maybe. Or the fear of usury contained them whereas the Judo-Christains grew the industrial dream to mammoth size. For whatever it is worth, the Muslims have been more or less content as they are and their biggest export is oil and next to that human brains and endeavor to Europe and North America. A key tidbit is that 18 months ago, Canada outstripped Saudi Arabia as the biggest single supplier of Oil to USA. Oil in Saudi Arabia is getting harder and harder to extract.
2. USA is the biggest consumer of global oil. In fact the US lifestyle of big house in the suburbs—2-4 large cars and a daily 1—3 hour commute is a key attraction for people. Seems facetious written out like this but just after getting to USA, people perform day in and day out to get a big house and a few big cars, while the whole numbing cycle of never-ending consumption starts and never ends (did I say it never ends?).
3. It may be that global oil production has peaked. Meaning that there will be a plateau for a while—we don’t know how long a while before an actual slump in oil production. It is at this time that the Islam conflict could reach its climax into a full-fledged war over oil. Or as it will appear—Islam vs. Christianity/Judaism.

Is there any other way?

There are opportunities and alternatives. They require huge effort and a concerted effort to openly debate them.

Let’s look at those alternatives:

Oil substitution

Hydrogen Fuel Cells

Meaning that cars as we know will continue but instead of petroleum fuel we will have hydrogen fuel cells.

Cons: Requires huge energy to create the hydrogen fuel cell. So back to square one, oil or nuclear technology to produce fuel cells. Nuclear technology is hazardous. However places like China will say no problem, what are people if not expendable after all. Places like North America may offer resistance unless Nuclear power plants are either hidden or packaged in the media properly.

CNG, LPG, Propane etc

These are natural resources and equally prone to depletion. However, they are environmentally less dangerous than Petroleum.

Off-beat alternatives

A number of ideas such as solar energy, nano technology are in infancy—in the minds and notepads of off-beat start-ups perhaps or in government hush hush labs. We hope. We don’t know for sure if they are pipe dreams or not.

Reduction in Oil Consumption

Lifestyle Changes

Consumer consumption of oil may reduce because of price hikes. American people may buy smaller cars. However, since there is a general lack of debate over the environment/oil depletion especially in the last few years of the Bush government, Americans are really sleeping. Movements such as ‘New Urbanism’ aren’t in the mainstream consciousness. (New Urbanism is about developing smaller housing situated closer to places where people work and shop rather than the pseudo country style living of Suburbia). Whenever people have a choice, they seem to prefer housing that is close by to places where they work or where they have a lifestyle interest such as community centers, libraries etc. (See documentary).

Can reducing oil consumption work?

Some environmental experts seem to think so. Switching to hybrid cars can reduce per car emissions by 70% (Tim Flannery). New Urbanism has also seen success. Recent real estate prices at least in Western Canada show greatest appreciations around housing that offer lifestyle amenities and quick public transit to downtown offices.


E-Commerce

The day when people have no alternative but to use e-commerce for a variety of purposes is not unimaginable. A cashless society that walks to work would actually solve much post-modern discontent from lack of exercise and endless commutes. It means the end of auto car companies, suburban sprawl, highways and a number of jobs. The re-adjustment would be painful indeed but quite exciting one would think to American entrepreneurial soul if that soul would come out from under the shadows of fear driven Governmental suppression.

Community Networks

Self-reliance on its own national production for US would mean that small entrepreneurs would supply local consumers. This would mean the end of economies of scale and mass consumption. You might actually get some stuff that is not Made in China. If the oil depletion scenario comes true, the world will separate physically-it would be very expensive to travel. The readjustment would be positive in some ways and pretty horrible in others. It would mean a global slow down but it could be a solution for many problems arising in a super connected world.


The Future Outlook

The oil depletion scenario—whenever it happens would portend a world quite opposite of what passes for cool business thinking. Far from the super connected world and the India/China/US trading block here is the real possibility of a super disconnected world in which dependent economies i.e., import dependent will suffer hugely in the re-adjustment phase. Perhaps the fear of this will drive USA to even more maniacal efforts to control the countries with remaining oil. The last few years may be the beginning of wars to get the last oil.

Quite ironically, far from destroying Islamic fundamentalism, America may just have dignified the fundamentalist Islam movement and given it a validity and respect that it had never before enjoyed in the Muslim world.

USA given its track history of innovate or bust should be the ideal springboard for the New Way of living. But it isn’t really happening that way. US policy seems to be a scramble to grab the last remaining oil on this planet. It is feeding fear of other people and civilizations and spending billions of dollars on creating a Panopticon.

The imagination of the world needs to be redirected to the stuff that matters.

1. Global warming is the real threat not fringe lunatics
2. Oil depletion cannot be prevented and the best time to change is now

References

1. The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and The Collapse of The American Dream (documentary)
2. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
3. 1984 by George Orwell
4. “Jihad, Struggling with Islam’ Documentary by Hina Khan
5. The Weather Makers: The History and Future Impact of Climate Change by Tim Flannery, 2005
6. The Hollow Nation: Americans Don’t Live Here Anymore, by Paul Craig Roberts, March 22, 2006, published in CounterPunch
7. Posters in the American Embassy “Remember 9/11” reminiscent of Guy Fawkes rhyme ‘Remember, Remember the 5th of November”
8. Real Estate Prices in Western Canada published by Canadian Real Estate Association
9. V For Vendetta, screenplay by Wachowski Brothers, based on graphic novel by Alan Moore
10. ‘A Clockwork Orange’ by Anthony Burgess and film by Stanley Kubrik
11. ‘The Weather Makers’ by Terry Glavin, Georgia Straight (Straight.com) 13 April, 2006
12. Global climate data from Canadian Climate Impacts and Adaptation and Research Network
13. Panopticon is a recurrent theme in Conferences on Computers, Freedom and Privacy, 2005
14. The Republic by Socrates