Reign of Terror Redux: From Bush to Bonaparte
by Heather Wokusch
Dissident Voice
January 12, 2003
Here's the
situation: The nation's leadership is taken over by a secretive group of
elitists who profess democracy while dragging the country into a totalitarian
nightmare. Confusion and fear take hold, civil rights are eroded in the name of
fighting a terror war, and impersonal governmental bodies with names like
"Committee of General Security" start labeling dissenters as enemies
of the state. Secretive courts with limited accountability punish civilians who
object. Tightening its grip on power, the government creates public crises it
can later be seen as solving, and military service is made mandatory for young
men. The ongoing terror war drains the country's resources, foreign relations
hit rock bottom, and the economy slides even further. But since fear is the
government's most effective weapon against its own population, the terror war
is expanded.
Sound familiar?
The Reign of
Terror, in late 18th century France, lasted only one year but left the country
in chaos and ripe for Napolean's despotic rule soon after. Unless we learn from
history, we could suffer the same fate.
Confusion and
hardship characterized France in the 1790s, making citizens more inclined to
tolerate increased military build-up and a leadership with strengthened
executive powers. Robespierre, a key figure in the Reign of Terror, argued that
civil liberties were less important in times of crisis than eliminating enemies
of the state, both domestic and foreign, and it was under this guise that
citizen dissent eventually became a capital crime. Robespierre also used the
ongoing terror war to justify his regime's secretive excesses, exploding
military budget, and eventual fondness for the guillotine.
Fast forward to
2003, and America is a nation on edge; 9-11, anthrax attacks and color-coded
danger alerts have seen to that. Few have questioned the Bush administration's
unprecedented increase in military spending or why social programs were cut to
fund it. Even fewer realize our government has considered - in the name of
fighting a war on terror - provoking attacks against Americans. No surprise
that mandatory military service is once again a hot topic. Meanwhile, the Land
of the Free has been usurped by Big Brother nightmares like the Pentagon's "total
information awareness" program, and citizens have become enemy
combatants, shorn of legal rights. The economy is tanking, taking the
once-enviable Bush poll numbers with it, but our government has a secret weapon
- fear. With the war on terror described as "endless" and dozens of
countries on the "evil" list, fear can be transformed into
rally-around-the-flag support for a dubious government and its dubious wars.
By the time the
Reign of Terror ended, France had grown so used to an iron hand and a
secretive, militaristic government that Napolean could easily pick up the
pieces and impose another dictatorship. People had forgotten what freedom was.
Patriotism had become a tool for social control, rather than social justice,
and civil liberties were a thing of the past.
So
how different are we today? The issue isn't Iraq, the Patriot Act, or Bush. The
issue is freedom: if we want it, we'd better let go of fear, the ultimate
Weapon of Mass Distraction. We'd better confront the hysteria-inducing tactics
asking us to equate freedom with corporate pork for defense contractors. We'd
better think twice about tossing aside fundamental constitutional rights in the
so-called pursuit of liberty. Because if we don't, what's coming next could be
even worse.
Heather Wokusch is a free-lance writer with a background in clinical psychology. Her work as been featured in publications and websites internationally. Heather can be contacted via her website: http://www.heatherwokusch.com