Tyranny
Question:-
What is tyranny and why does it exist?
Answer:-
Psychological experiment and observation show that tyranny has seven steps which depend on certain features inherent in human nature:-
(1) The tendency to form groups such that the members of a group feel greater closeness and sympathy for each other at the expense of the members of another group. Groups can be formed around any similarity or differences. In one school the teacher divided the pupils into brown-eyed and blue-eyed ones. It was suggested that the blue eyed ones were superior to the brown-eyed ones and should have certain privileges. At first the pupils questioned this, but soon fell in with the differentiation. The blue-eyed ones began to regard themselves as superior, became arrogant, smug, condescending and vicious, and soon began treating the brown eyed ones with brutality without any sympathy or remorse. The brown-eyed ones became angry, resentful, depressed, demoralized, subservient and ingratiating.
(2) The tendency to conform and obey, especially when the orders come from an authority figure in Uniform. These represent the society. The authority figure need only be present while others are actually making the request or giving the order. These orders are seldom questioned. Experiments show that when asked to injure or inflict great pain ordinary people are willing to go to extra-ordinary lengths as long as they are absolved of the responsibility and it is assumed by someone else, specially the authority figure. But the authority figure is remote from the situation and does not himself carry out the act of torture. He does not, therefore, feel the responsibility. He is able to dehumanize the person by thinking o him as a number or name.
(3) The affect of ideologies. Ideologies create value systems and govern the way things are perceived. Ideologies when applied create authorities and give roles to individuals within the system. People belonging to other ideologies or groups can be dehumanized by propaganda by the authorities and this can incite great passion and give justification to mistreatment and persecution. Persons given a role in a hierarchy will carry out acts of injustice and torture because it is their duty. They separate themselves as a human person from their public role. Tyrannical regimes, therefore, control ideologies and information.
(4) The ability to do harm to others. Anger produces the desire to get rid of the source of the anger. it may be aroused because the other causes frustration of some need or desire or is perceived as doing so or is regarded as a threat owing to the ideology which might boost their own ego or importance or the propaganda against the others.
(5) The limits of perception. Small changes are not easily noticed. But they accumulate to cause great changes. By people become used to these and the changes are so well entrenched that they are much more difficult to reverse. The events gather momentum and carry affairs in the same direction. There is a gradual increase in brutality and persecution or injustice through small increments which themselves are unnoticed or regarded as insignificant. But it is slippery slope causing great changes over time.
(6) The tendency to avoid getting involved. With respect to events human beings fall into three categories :- supporters, dissenters, bystanders. People are generally lazy or afraid of the unknown and of difficulties and demands which might be put on them and therefore avoid getting involved. They tend to pass by people in difficulties. This tendency increases the more selfish and materialistic they are. Group sympathy diminishes the tendency but increases it towards members of other group. Tyrannical regimes suppress the dissenters or opportunities for dissent. but this made possible because of the apathy of the great number of bystanders.
(7) The tendencies in all human beings for egotism, the desire for power to dominate and control others for their own advantage and get rid of the sources of opposition. Tyrannies develop at first gradually then with accelerating speed until they explode in mass exterminations and ethnic cleansing. This has been happening in many places in modern days and can easily happen anywhere. To show this, experiments were done in Stanford Universe in the USA. Some students were arrested for breaking some minor rules and placed in prisons. Other students were appointed as guards. Within 5 days these guards owing to the power they were given became brutal sadists who inflicted verbal and physical abuse on the prisoners and used them as toys for their own amusement completely oblivious to their suffering. The Professor who arranged the experiment confesses that he himself became fully involved in the situation and it was only the intervention of an outsider that brought the experiment to a stop.
We see similar tendencies developing in the hate campaigns mounted by groups in the West against Islam.
It is obvious that vigilance is necessary and actions are required to counteract these tendencies.
Tyrannies have also formed among Muslims and caused much suffering and their present backwardness. It is a punishment for their apathy. The tendencies that lead to these conditions should have been counteracted by the exclusive submission and obedience to Allah, the universality of the faith, the inculcation of personal responsibility, the need to do only good in order to obtain salvation, to be humble and act as an agent of Allah. But opposition from hostile groups has led to a similar reaction in defense.
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