FR VICTOR FERRAO
Goans are experiencing a profound fear of loss. It is an imminent fear of 'Goacide'. It is not just the fear of 'degoanisation' of Goa. It is more. It is the fear of the times ahead. In several ways, we can notice that the powers that be are producing this fear.
The so-called development that it is promoting is actually the reason for production of this fear. Hence, we have the challenge to understand this psychopolitics.
Psychopolitics has taken centre stage globally. After 9/11, we seem to be administrating fear. We spend a lot of energy on governing fear. Our security industry is growing.
Our airport security has become stricter. Impersonal invasive procedures are now accepted by us without question as they purport to stand for our safety.
Psychopolitics has taken centre stage globally. After 9/11, we seem to be administrating fear. We spend a lot of energy on governing fear. Our security industry is growing.
Slavoj Zizek tells us that national security has become an ideology and we accept anything related to it without any contestation. Governments do not have to prove charges against anyone. It is enough to present a person as a threat to national security.
We, then, silently accept the prospect of innocents languishing and even dying in the jail, much like Fr Stan SJ, without feeling any qualm of conscience for not providing a fair opportunity for trial.
This administration of fear is sending terror into the spine of innocent citizens about the possibility of them being the next target. It then produces silent, passive, massified and frightened citizens.
The psychopolitics that was supposed to be guarding citizens has paradoxically come back to haunt citizens, themselves. Thus, perhaps the dictum of American president Roosevelt has become our reality: ‘The only thing we have to fear is fear itself’.
This administration of fear is sending terror into the spine of innocent citizens about the possibility of them being the next target. It then produces silent, passive, massified and frightened citizens.
It is not just that citizens are haunted by fear. Governments are also under psychopolitics of fear, and are out to administrate the fears of the people, much like the industry that capitalises on fear through health insurance, wellness pharma etc.
The politics of fear promises rich dividends, and politicians are using it to their advantage.
In this climate of fear, we may have to ask: how does fear work? Why are we afraid? Who benefits from this administration of fear? Who loses in this climate of fear?
These and other questions are relevant to seek a response to the administration of fear we are facing today.
Paul Virilio, a French philosopher, has raised some of these questions.
In this climate of fear, we may have to ask: how does fear work? Why are we afraid? Who benefits from this administration of fear? Who loses in this climate of fear?
Perhaps, we may get some insight into the administration of fear in our context in dialogue with his work. To our surprise, we will find that the source of our fear is not in the reigning terror and consequent securitisation of our global movements.
He says that it is the speed at which change is occurring that is producing fear in us. Terrorism and securitisation are only ways of managing the fear.
Thus, the terrorist is also afraid of the rapidly changing world around him and is using terror to allay that fear without really addressing it.
Much like the war on terror, where a good liberal democracy is thought to be destroyed by the evil religious forces, the good age-old religious traditions of India that were destroyed by the invaders and colonisers are thought to be under threat.
The narrative of war certainly produces fear which, then, leads us to think that the very producers of this narrative of fear are our own protectors.
The narrative of war certainly produces fear which, then, leads us to think that the very producers of this narrative of fear are our own protectors.
Virilio, in his book The Administration of Fear, teaches us that fear and security stem from the rapid change that we are facing today. He assigns the reason for this speed, or dromology, as the space and time overcoming technologies that are mushrooming around us.
Virilio does not see this change as caused by some evil class. Yet, he says that because we think that technology is innocent, we then fall to the conspiracy theory that blames a class for our ills and misery.
Once we do this, we are on a slippery slope and we, then, become suspicious of the so-called 'evil class'.
Virilio, in his book The Administration of Fear, teaches us that fear and security stem from the rapid change that we are facing today.
This means the real reasons for our fear can then continue as we try to expel the demon of fear that is prompted up and is pushing us into a vicious cycle of fears, which only benefit those that divert our fears and blame them on some group or evil people.
Thus, psychopolitics comes full circle and we become blind supporters of the one who claims to be our protector.
The rapid pace of development in Goa is actually producing our fears of 'Goacide'. The fear of the colonial past is being channelised with some success.
The real villain of the production of fear is rapid development pursued by those in power. The powerful, being afraid of being found out, hide their faces by diverting our attention to the wrongs of the past.
The rapid pace of development in Goa is actually producing our fears of 'Goacide'. The fear of the colonial past is being channelised with some success.
Thus, the development that destroys Goa can go on, and those who claim to be the protectors of the interest of the victims can then preside over the sale of Goa to the highest bidder.
Hence, the psychopolitics that is reigning in Goa is the destruction of Goa, Goans and Goan-ness.
We, therefore, have the challenge to decode the mechanism of the administration of fear in our society. This would enable us to see how we are made to fight with each other while our land and other resources of Goa are handed over to the power-elite.
It is time to resist the reigning psychopolitics. It is in resisting this psychopolitics that we will overcome our fears, and fearlessly resist the development that destroys Goa.
