One Hour of Anarchy Is Equal to Sixty Years of Tyranny
By Mohammad Ashraf Chaudhry
Pittsburg , CA
“One hour of anarchy is equal to sixty years of tyranny”
- Imam Malik (711-795)
“There is remedy in human nature against tyranny that will keep us safe under every form of government.” - Dr. Johnson, famous English writer.
What Imam Malik had said about a millennium ago came true literally on August 8, not in a country like Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Pakistan or Iraq, but in the very capital city of the “most civilized and developed nation - England”, in Croydon, South of London. The rioters of all ages without exception first looted and plundered, from TVs to tooth pastes, and then burned every store, not even sparing an old and very “venerable House of Reeves Furniture Store”.
This 140 years old middle-class furniture selling fixture had “stood, since Queen Victoria was in her pomp. It came through two world wars unscathed. But on August 8, it was smoldering, a symbol of the wantonness and waste of the London riots”, wrote Time, in its August 22 issue. In mathematical terms, we can deduce that one moment of anarchy then can equal the harm caused by the 140 years of destructive rule of a tyrant. Anarchy is like Tsunami, like lung-cancer, like lightning, or like a fatal explosion, or even like the dammed waters when the dam breaks. Any breach, any spark of disaffection can ignite it. It may not last long, but the destruction it leaves behind is unfathomable.
Tyranny is its younger sister. In fact, it is tyranny that fosters and feeds an eventual state of anarchy. Thomas Jefferson gave one reason when he warned the good conscience, law-abiding citizens that “all tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent”. Tyrants are not necessarily wrapped in a Khaki outfit. A professedly democratic leader can also be a tyrant in disguise. Pakistan in particular specializes in the supply of such civilian tyrants. A general perception is that the rioters in London and other cities took advantage of the police that stood fixated on its tradition set by the founder of Scotland Yard, Mr. Peel, believing “that trust and consent were far more important than the threat of force”. It was perhaps in this spirit that London Metropolitan police deputy assistant commissioner, Stephen Kavanagh have had to say that his force was “not going to throw 180 years of policing with the community away” by escalating its coerciveness: Time August 8. Well, in the effort to resist using force when its use is the only solution, the London police destroyed both: the image as well as the tradition.
The cardinal principle that has put the West on the road to vertical progress in leaps had been its ability to dispassionately sort out the causes of a problem and to never shelve it. England reacted as was expected. Even those who through iPhones had contributed in the spread of the anarchy got sentenced for four years; the rest of about eleven hundred are likely to meet a similar, quick justice. This will not end crime in England, but the criminals will think hundred times before they pocket even a tooth paste without making the payment because England in the world is the most “photographed’ country - the average urban Briton is caught on camera up to 300 times a day, according to Michael McCahill and Clive Norris’ “CCTV in London”.
We all know tyranny is a rule of total authority, of oppression and coercion, a rule in which individuals’ rights never matter. A tyrant who inflicts tyranny is an absolute ruler who governs without any inhibitions and restrictions; who exercises his self-assumed authority in a very harsh, cruel, oppressive and arbitrary manner, with the sole end to strike fear and seek obedience. Aeschylus, the Greek sage, defined the ugliness of tyranny in its true form, “Death is softer by far than tyranny”. Pakistan has had it four times. Why then is there lurking a kind of nostalgic feeling in Pakistan that the rule of a dictator like General Ayub Khan was better than the combined rule of the current and past democratic rulers? Why would people wish so? 1400 killings in six months in a city like Karachi and more than 324 in the month of July alone is the answer.
A tyrant would not let this fool-hardiness and mayhem become a national sport. Dispatching people in the quickest way is his specialty. People may lose their tongues under his rule, but they will not go to sleep hungry, or fear death all the time. What is then a stronger instinct? Hunger or freedom of speech. Anarchy is worst as one does not know who might shoot whom and why. At least in a totalitarian form of government one always has the consolation of knowing who his shooter is and why he is doing so. Pakistan unfortunately is fast slipping into a state of anarchy. The effort here is not to eulogize a tyrant’s rule. A good teacher first needs discipline in the class before he can teach; a doctor first calms an erratic patient before he can administer him some medicine. In the absence of order and discipline, all virtues become outmoded, and if applied, they become ineffective. Even good seeds fail to germinate if sown in unprepared soil.
Avoid anarchy because it is terrible. Ask the French people as they tasted it during the French Revolution (1789-1799); or ask the Iraqis and the Afghanis, or the Somalis. Anarchy sets everyman either on his own or on each other. It is the weak and the poor who become the victims first. It was anarchy that drove the people of Somalia to utter starvation, and the people of North Korea to eat grass. Kang Chol-Hwan, who spent ten years in North Korea writes in his ‘The Quariums of Pyongyang”, “ Anyone who has stood as I have beside a person slowly dying of hunger… will never debate the pros and cons of food aid”. Ali A Mazrui calls anarchy “decentralized violence” or violence for all.
The inner wish and instinct of people in general is to live in circumstances that guarantee the exercise of free will, or free choice. But the stark reality is that hunger, and fear of death and the slow starvation of children, constrain people to wish for authority, for order, and for security. Hunger is more dangerous than anger, as it destroys one’s faith too. No wonder that it was in keeping with such circumstances in view that Voltaire famously said, “I would rather be ruled by one lion than many rats”. Faced with the choice - a chaotic democracy in which nothing works or an authoritarian rule in which order is there but is regimented, and is somewhat suffocating - most naturally the preference of people would be for a totalitarian rule.
Hobbes who favors an authoritarian government contends that by nature man is not social. Man is vicious, aggressive, violent, brutish, nasty and selfish. He cannot live in a society reasonably at peace with others except by the power of the state. Man is greedy, and is, therefore, competitive; he is always scared of others, and therefore, is always aggressive and protective; and he is always hungry for glory, and is, therefore, power-hungry. Only a firm and authoritarian state or person can through subjugation make people live in peace in a society.
The view of Hobbes sounds cynical, but the current situation in the world lends a lot of veracity to it. The fascist regimes emerged in the world under this philosophy. Those that were established under the principles espoused by Locke became democratic regimes believing that man is by nature social, honorable, and that man mostly fulfills his promises and honors his obligations, and that often man is peaceful, good and pleasant. Man surrenders some of his rights for his own good for the retribution of crimes to an overwhelming force that may make sure that justice is administered in a fairly transparent and impartial way. Even such regimes are displaying their decline. The irony is that neither the fascist regimes did well in the past, not did the democratic regimes always stood by the principles that distinguished them. (To be continued)
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