How Freedom Dies

Not just at the hand of despots from above, but also at the hand of sadists from below. The BBC reports that a suicide bombing at a rally in Pakistan, already a bastion of state brutality, has killed 22 people and injured many more, possibly including Musharraf’s Interior Minister.

Hannah Arendt had a cunning and invigorating definition of power: The ability of a large group of diverse people to work in common cause, held together by mutual trust and mutual respect. Power is almost synonymous with freedom, and it’s certainly not same thing as violence; indeed, they are stark opposites. From On Revolution:

…For power can of course be destroyed by violence; this is what happens in tyrannies, where the violence of one destroys the power of the many, and which, therefore, according to Montesquieu, are destroyed from within: they perish because they engender impotence instead of power.

Tyrants, suicide bombers – the effect is the same, replacing action and trust with stunned silence and fear.