The oppressed: Who are they?

"The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people." - Martin Luther King Jr.

Generally, the most widely held belief is that in most nations, the minorities are an oppressed people; or so the minorities in many parts of the globe claim. This, in spite of the fact that no one can hold a people in oppression, unless such people consent and are convinced that they are supposed to be, oppressed.

Of course, when a people are denied the right to live in the manner they believe in; in keeping with their culture, custom, and social traditions; they have every right to the claim of being oppressed - whether they constitute a minority or the majority; be it with assent or dissent.

Further, when justice is, denied; poverty is, enforced; ignorance pervade; and the people are made to feel that they are burdened, robed, and degraded; that is an oppressed society - be it of the minorities or the majority. But what the world forgets is that, almost always, the people oppressed for long, eventually become mightier than the oppressor would like; because, to be oppressed is not the natural state of civilised humanity, and the desire to resist oppression is implanted in the nature of man.

Yet, one of the saddest lessons of history is that if a people are, bamboozled long enough; they tend to reject any evidence of the fact they have been, hoodwinked. They are no longer interested in finding out the truth. The deception has captured them because it is simply too painful to acknowledge, even to themselves, that they have been taken for a ride. The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed. In fact, among those who dislike oppression are many who like to oppress.

Victims

People often create their worst enemy, just as oppressors everywhere do. The oppressors fear the people they oppress because they realise that, one day, amongst their many victims, there is sure to be one who rises against them and strikes back. That is the reason why, once a charlatan gains power, there is never a desire to relinquish. In an oppressed society, the oppressed are not aware of the multiple layers of privilege and oppression in a society.

This is mainly due to the fact that, the oppressed are unable to understand that they are being oppressed because they do not have the mental capacity of reasoning which an educated enlightened people possess. That is also the reason why they are, oppressed.

Further, when the leaders who oppress do not act dialogically, but insist on imposing their decisions, they manipulate and oppress the people in order to survive. As a result, the people are not liberated, nor are the leaders liberated - they only oppress; and all oppression creates a state of war.

Everybody or at least every intelligent being knows there is no fineness or accuracy of suppression; if you hold down one thing, the tendency is to hold down everything. We live in a contaminated moral environment.

We have fallen morally ill because we became used to saying one thing and thinking another. We have learned not to believe in anything, to ignore each other, to care only about ourselves. Notions such as love, friendship, compassion, humility, or forgiveness have lost their depth and dimensions; and that is the reason why leaders are not cognizant of the political boundaries within which they work.

Tyranny often destroys, but at times may strengthen the individual; whereas, freedom unfettered, enervates him, until he becomes no more than a puppet.

I always say that man has more chances of saving himself by hell than by paradise; because paradises are usually places where, the human spirit get killed.

The true paradises are the paradises that we have lost due to human stupidity. In fact, the very cause for a fool's paradise is a wise man's hell. No wonder that, the return path to paradise must begin in hell; because, often, hell is where intelligence and wisdom are gained for the realisation that an intelligent hell is always better than, a stupid paradise.

After all, the exquisite gardens of paradise is only a place where, men and women, oppressors and the oppressed, come and go like moths to flame amongst the whisperings and the champagne that is served in the backdrop of the stars. The true duty of humans is not to seek paradise; but to be wakeful and thoughtful - the fundamental condition of life itself. For, wakefulness is what weaves us together; and thoughtfulness brings to us, the unseen, the unheard, the untouchable, fabric of our universe close to us.

Responsibility

Since the dawn of Mankind, a handful of oppressors have accepted the responsibility over our lives that we should have accepted for ourselves. By doing so, they took our power. By doing nothing, we gave it away. We have seen where their way leads, through camps and wars, towards the slaughterhouse.

The history of an oppressed people is, hidden in the lies and the agreed myth of its conquerors. Oppression that is clearly inexorable and invincible does not give rise to revolt but to submission. The fact is, oppression does not stand on the doorstep with toothbrush moustache and swastika armband - it creeps up insidiously - step by step, one step at a time and all of a sudden the unfortunate citizen realises that he is oppressed.

It is bad to be, oppressed by a minority; but it is worse to be, oppressed by a majority. For there is a reserve of latent power in the masses, and if called into play, the minority can seldom resist; but if the absolute will of an entire people is oppressed, there is no appeal, no redemption, no refuge but treason.

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles between the ruling classes and the oppressed masses.

In this struggle, the oppressor first kills all the subversives; then, their collaborators; later, those who sympathise with them; afterward, those who remain indifferent; and finally, the undecided. True enough, the result is a calm country; but it is the calm of a morgue or a grave.

I like to end with two quotes. The fist by, Robert F. Kennedy: Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events.

It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped.

Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. Sri Lankans experienced this recently.

Reconstitution

The next quote is by Karl Marx, from The Communist Manifesto. "Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, that each time ended, either in the revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes."

Let us hope we will never experience this, ever again.

In the final analysis, the object of terrorism is terrorism. The object of oppression is oppression. The object of torture is torture. The object of murder is murder.

The object of power is power. Thus, the object of anything is that thing. This is a lesson never learnt by mindless men.

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