This is what I was saying in one
of my nightmares.
Reading books that make me think
or feel may be my way of escape.
Escape from the boredom of this country
where people seem able to think only about money, career or religion. This is a
result of having their minds made numb by the restriction imposed on a sacred
principle of any society aiming to be and remain sound, healthy and democratic,
which is freedom of expression and the press. The constitution of the country states
that it guarantees every citizen freedom of speech and expression, peaceable
assembly and formation of associations, but the parliament may impose
restrictions on these freedoms when "it considers necessary or expedient
in the interest of the security," "public order" or
"morality" of the country. Which of course is subjective, depending
on who defines security, public order and morality. To begin with, this country
does not even pretend to be a democracy because it is not. As far as I'm aware,
in no section of the constitution does it contain the term, "democracy"
or "democratic." A recent case shows that here, one is a number of
persons large enough to organize an illegal "assembly," which seems
to the court not in the country's interest of public order. Newspaper reports
describe this guy as an "activist" with an arrest record. What cause
this activist is for or against, I don't know. And a company needs approval by
the government if it wants to publish a newspaper. Many newspapers have been
suppressed and gone extinct before and soon after the independence of the country.
If people sense that something
seems not really right but are trying not think about it because doing so may put
them into an uncomfortable situation or worse, it is deplorable but still
understandable. But so many of them are so passive and do not care a bit and
are busy using their heads to come up with ways to make more money or praying
to whatever god they believe in.
Especially those who didn't
experience the days, when diverse, even subversive to the eye of the powers
that be, voices existed in the press, may not have the vaguest idea of what freedom
of the press means.
Such an idea as abstract as democracy
may not have a place in their minds. You cannot see democracy in your bank
account or on the restaurant menu. And it is certainly difficult to find conflicting
views going on in any religious circles. It seems that a very few people who
have doubts about how the country has been managed are those who witnessed democracy
in action, no matter how tame that may be, in other countries. During my days here
for more than 20 years, only one man talked about differences of social and
political attitude between his country and mine, where he had spent some years as
a student of the Defense Academy (!). He told me he had get astounded when he
was watching TV programs wherein people were calling the then prime minister a fool
or idiot. Impossible here unless you are ready to go broke by being prosecuted and
found guilty of libel.
More than a few said very nice
things about my country but they were only tourists there. And the same can be
said even about this country if you are tourists. I remember that another citizen
of this country was saying she wanted to emigrate to Australia not so much because
of any ideological reason as because of the insufficient supply of exciting
nightspots. When somebody expresses his dissatisfaction with the country's
boring environment, he will be understood in most cases that he is complaining
about nightlife. All others have never showed the slightest interest in any
kind of discussion which is political even very remotely. People see only
specifics of their everyday lives but not an overall picture. They may prefer
safety and security which is probably more difficult to realize with a chaotic democracy,
and they cannot eat democracy.
By the way, prostitution is legal
in a strictly controlled manner. Nobody seems to know who is controlling it
strictly under what law. Nobody seems to know who is in charge of recruiting
women, all of them foreigners from surrounding countries, who would work as
hookers in this country. And in the statistics of covid-19 infection, those
guys from South Asia or China working at construction sites had a category
separate from the general population, though at one point of the pandemic,
their dormitories are where most cases of infection were occurring.
Oh yes, somebody else mentioned a
politician as an object of her respect. She seems unable to look at what kind
of country the politician and his colleagues have created and how they have
numbed her and many other's minds. A political lobotomy. When freedom of
expression is so heavily restricted, people are satisfied with reporting by
their domestic press, and they don't bother to take a look at how their country
is portraited in democracies, they have no way to know their country has often
been the butt of many jokes.
I have no intention to be engaged
in any serious political debate with people here because I have no vote here,
even though that frustrates me sometimes. But aren't people of this country so
incredibly and pathetically spineless, gutless, or simply ignorant? The government
has succeeded brilliantly in creating a populace that is obedient and
unquestioning and never wake up to be skeptical. People are not even aware that
they have been made who they are by not enjoying freedom of the press.
What could be more boring than living among
lobotomized people? Or are they superb experts of hiding their true thinking?
