And, like the string laws passed by the Apartheid regime,
including the Suppression of Communism Act, Banning Orders et
al, an almost identical set of increasingly repressive
legislation has been passed by the Labour government since it
took power in 1997.
The similarities between the two are no accident nor were the
original South African laws, modelled as they were on laws
passed by the Nazis in 1930s, and enacted for exactly the same
reason - to suppress dissent and to cover up the lies the
state uses in order to justify its policies.
--------------------------------------------------------
http://www.williambowles.info/ini/ini-0369.html
Sleepwalking into Slavery?
by William Bowles * Thursday, 13 October 2005
"The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can
shield the people from the political, economic and/or military
consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for
the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the
truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension,
the truth becomes the greatest enemy of the State."
- Dr.Joseph M. Goebbels, Nazi minister of propaganda
The great British public, apparently don't think that home
secretary's Clarke's proposed additions to the anti-terror
legislation including the 90-day detention without trial,
apply to them, at least as far as we know, as nobody has
actually asked them. Perhaps they need to be reminded that
almost identical laws were passed by the Apartheid regime of
South Africa. Commonly known as the '90-day law', it was first
used to imprison 'terrorist' Ruth First, later murdered by a
South African assassination squad in Maputo, Mozambique.
Mr Clarke, the home secretary, when asked by Labour MP Dave
Winnick whether anyone who supported Nelson Mandela's African
National Congress would have been prosecuted had the proposals
been in force during when the Apartheid government was in
power, Clarke replied that "people would not have been guilty
merely by not condemning the ANC" but said nothing about what
would have happened to people who actively supported the ANC,
thus revealing the fraudulent argument used by the government
to justify its 'war on terror'.
And, like the string laws passed by the Apartheid regime,
including the Suppression of Communism Act, Banning Orders et
al, an almost identical set of increasingly repressive
legislation has been passed by the Labour government since it
took power in 1997.
The similarities between the two are no accident nor were the
original South African laws, modelled as they were on laws
passed by the Nazis in 1930s, and enacted for exactly the same
reason - to suppress dissent and to cover up the lies the
state uses in order to justify its policies.
What unites all of these and similar laws enacted elsewhere is
the fact that the state, when its policies are under threat
resorts to repression not only to carry out its policies but
most important of all, because it lacks the legitimacy. And
ultimately, a state which claims to be democratic, that is,
claiming to represent the wishes of the electorate finds
itself trapped in a vicious cycle of lies.
Please, first let us disabuse ourselves of the notion that the
'war on terror' is about terrorists, unless of course we are
all potential terrorists. The lie is exposed by the vast range
of countries and people who get caught up by the phrase, from
Chavez of Venezuela, to Castro of Cuba and all the stops
in-between. If so, does that make anybody who opposes the
imperium a terrorist? Are we to believe that we who oppose
capital are ultimately to be tarred with the same brush?
Apparently so, for ultimately, we are all targets of the same
laws, why else have such all-encompassing laws, this is after
all, the objective.
The 82-year old man who was detained and questioned under
'anti-terror' laws at the Labour Party conference two weeks
ago just for shouting out "rubbish", is a harbinger of things
to come, just as a handful of No2ID demonstrators arrested in
Newcastle last week, before they'd even demonstrated!
'Anti-terror' laws are the catch-all for the assault on our
liberties and illustrate on the one hand, just how weak and
vulnerable the state is, and on the other, just how weak is
our opposition, devoid as it is of politics, of a political
understanding of what the hell is going on!
Blair tells us that the terrorist activity of today was "of a
wholly different order" from any before, yet he does not
explain how, exactly, today's "terrorist activity" is
different from that of previous actions, for example the IRA
bombing campaign.
Nor does he explain how preventive detention will stop any
possible future actions when he says "We need to make sure
therefore that we give ourselves every possible opportunity to
prevent such terrorist acts occurring" short of locking up
anybody who might possibly resort to some future 'terrorist'
activity. But how does one link a thought to a prelude to
action?
One of the deeper ironies of the state's 'war on terror',
which is, we are informed, to defend democracy and the
'Western way of life', has been the increasing encroachment of
the state's control over its citizens. Prime minister Blair's
speech that attempts (in the vaguest of terms) to justify the
latest round of repressive measures, actually links
'anti-social behaviour' to both 'terrorism' and 'organised
crime'.
The upshot therefore, is of a state machine which claims
greater and greater power and control over its citizens and
tellingly, not over their alleged criminal activities but over
their day-to-day lives, whether it be their relations with
their neighbours or their behaviour in public.
By linking 'organised crime' and 'terrorism' to 'anti-social
behaviour', the state creates an all-encompassing climate of
fear. So by implication, 'anti-social behaviour' is treated as
the first step on the road to 'extremism' just as smoking a
joint is allegedly the first step on the road to 'hard drugs'
and hence to 'organised crime'.
But when the slogans are unpacked, what we discover is a state
that views its citizens as the enemy! And indeed, that is
potentially what we are, for it reveals a political class that
lives in fear - in fear of its own citizens. Worse still, it
reveals a state that no longer trusts its citizens to accept
the dictates or the rationale for its actions hence the need
to criminalise the thoughts of its citizens, for what else can
a law that talks of making it a crime to 'glorify terrorism'
be?
The media for its part, mostly talks about the 'encroachment
on our civil liberties' as a 'knee-jerk reaction' to the
events of July 7, ignoring entirely the history of the
increasing build-up to the 'war on terror' through a series of
increasingly repressive measures designed expressly to stifle
dissent.
Nor is the history of such laws referred to in the slightest,
instead we read of comparisons with some other European
countries such as France which not only have very different
legal systems, but where the centrality of habeas corpus is
absent. Moreover, are we to accept that because some other
countries have repressive legal systems that allow the state
to detain, virtually indefinitely, alleged 'enemies of the
state', we should too?
It is no accident therefore that as the occupation of Iraq
disintegrates into chaos precisely because it is illegitimate
not to mention illegal, the government has to repress dissent
under the guise of preventing terrorism, for as Dr. Joseph M.
Goebbels, Nazi minister of propaganda said, "It thus becomes
vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to
repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie,
and thus by extension, the truth becomes the greatest enemy of
the State."
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