This is the argument often heard in defence of "increased security". The citizens are supposed to trust the state to protect them, and in doing so, to not act arbitrarily. They are also expected to agree to the "small" price in liberty that is paid for greater security.
I have never seen this cited as an argument FROM the citizen TO the state.
I say this in the context of our mothers - Dada's and Boudi's - being visited at home by the police to "help them with their enquiries" as they say in Britain - a phrase that, for me, never ceases to elicit mirth, with its pre-coolBritannia image of Enid Blyton-ish PC Plods helping old grannies cross the road.
I say this in the context of the shooting down of the innocent Brazilian in cold blood by the British police after the London bombings of 7 July 2005.
I say this in the context of these terrorist plots that are periodically uncovered to the accompaniment of much media fanfare and paroxysms of pontification about "eternal vigilance being the price of liberty". Actually, it's true, but the vigilance should be directed by citizens at the state as well as at the criminals the state is supposed to guard us against. In many cases, the two are almost indistinguishable.
In this rhetorical construction called the war on terror, the real terror is of course being inflicted by the state security apparatus on its citizens, by winding up the panic alarm clock from time to time, and by attacking those deprived of their rights and capacities to participate as dignified citizens, as is happening in India.
What is more, in the most powerful countries - especially the ones lower down in the Global Peace Rankings - the state has a direct interest in keeping alive situations of conflict and terror, not in solving them, because the quasi-dictatorships that these so-called democracies have become require a permanently scared, distracted and supine populace.
When you come to think about it, it is usually the state in such countries that has plenty to hide from its citizens, that exercises unaccountable violence on its citizens in situations of internal crisis, and has everything to fear from a vigilant and vigorous citizenry that is capable of holding it accountable.
Both states and markets are powerful and dangerous, not benign and neutral institutions. They need to be kept under citizens' control. That's the theory. In practice, it's the opposite: citizens in contemporary democracies are held in thrall to both. And thanks to the intellectuals allied with these two institutions, we cannot often see this clearly.
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