Human Rights and Authoritarian Governments

"Human rights activists are very inconvenient to authoritarian governments. Discrediting them as terrorists or terrorist sympathisers is right out of the tyrant's playbook." 
Sandy Garossino, National Observer.

This article written by Sandy Garossino and published in the National Observer is a well articulated opinion on how "terrorists" and "terrorism" is as useful to authoritarian leaders as war.

It's another trope to divide the world into us and them, good guys and bad guys, without the conversation about what makes a nation safe. So it removes the pressure for ruling elites to make their country a better place.

Of course we need to arrest those who plan to bomb, to kill, to torture for their "cause". But there are always opportunists in government who blow up the conversation to find their opposing parties to blame. It's so easy to stir up big sensational claims in corporate sponsored media and political jades.

When citizens fall into blaming whole groups such as immigrants, Sikhs, Moslems for the violence of a minority we fail on the tasks that move us toward social justice, and lose sight of the ways we can protect the innocent.

Every nation that we talk about or know of has been guilty of destroying civil society through fear and hate.

To support good journalism with your membership go here https://www.nationalobserver.com/support