Be Not Afraid

September 2005

Subway commuters in metropolitan Boston have recently been bombarded with “security” announcements. Three different recorded warnings (urging riders to report strange packages, to call police about suspicious people, to remain ever-vigilant and ever-worried) are blared over loudspeakers in a continuous loop with only a brief reprieve of silence before the next cycle. Thus, commuters can easily hear dozens of high-decibel danger alerts in a single trip. Regular subway riders will hear such “be afraid” warnings hundreds of times a week and many tens of thousands of times throughout the year.

Given that subway riders are far more likely to be hurt by routine handgun violence or by poorly maintained trains, why such enormous overkill in warning about possible attack by terrorists?

Part of the reason is money. Those wallowing in the current lavish anti-terrorism funding are eager to demonstrate that they are “doing something.” No doubt, some bureaucrat in the Boston subway system is busy preparing a report for Washington officials touting their endless warnings as “community education” and “public notification,” efforts in need of– from the bureaucrat’s view– ever-more money.

But there is another more insidious reason for such a constant drumbeat of fear.

Just as warmongers needed to scare US citizens about (non-existent) Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, our newly expanded security apparatus needs to keep the citizenry afraid– even in the absence of any specific threat– in order to justify police-state legislation like the so-called Patriot Act. Politicians know that people will not put up with the abrogation of the Bill of Rights unless they are frightened. Thus, terrifying the populace becomes, with tragic irony, the goal of those who claim to be fighting terrorism.

Fear is corrosive socially and politically. When the government repeatedly, unendingly encourages citizens to view neighbors as “suspects,” we all lose. And imagine how a person who appears to be of Arab descent or who wears a turban feels waiting on a Boston subway platform as everyone around him is again and again and again and again and again urged to call the police to report any “suspicious looking” person.

Gay people of all colors and faiths have a particular interest in stopping such soul-numbing fearmongering. Though today’s “be afraid” announcements ostensibly focus on presumptive terrorists, it is easy to imagine the Religious Right expanding the technique. Shouldn’t citizens, they may soon argue, be urged to report to police any gay man who is near any underage youth? Shouldn’t any group of gay men be broken up since they are probably planning some sort of sex crime? And if the Religious Right, which controls much of government nowadays, does target gay men for such harassment and persecution, who will protest and risk becoming blacklisted as a “defender of child molesters”?

Throughout history, it has been the goal of true religious and political leaders to liberate people from fear. From Jesus to Nelson Mandela, from labor organizers to those who resist totalitarian regimes, the message of real liberationists has been and remains “be not afraid.” Such a message does not, of course, mean that there aren’t real dangers that should be anticipated and dealt with prudently. Rather, the command to “be not afraid” recognizes that fearful people are easier to oppress. Fear itself is thus at the root of injustice.

People’s better natures only emerge when they are not frightened. Let us defend justice by not being afraid. Let our courage be the antidote to all those government loudspeakers shrieking fear.

Pasted from <http://guidemag.com/magcontent/invokemagcontent.cfm?ID=9D14A969-F33E-4864-837A1E15E49308C7>