Allegations of sexual abuse were recently brought by a female child again Minister of Local Government Nigel Dharamlall. It has since come to light that similar allegations against Dharamlall and other political functionaries may have occurred on countless previous occasions. If those allegations are true, one may reasonably conclude that many other instances of such behavior could have gone unreported and unnoticed. One may ask, how many alleged victims are there?
While this editorial is being written as a result of attention brought to the abuse of power by the recent allegations, this article is about the general case of political power abuse, and how to resist it, and has no explicit or inferred comment on issues currently engaging the attention of the public. Additionally, it must be noted that sexual abuse is only one type of political abuse; other types may be verbal, physical, domestic, corruption, and so on.
Power is defined as the ability to influence other people. And abuse of power always involves a power imbalance – for example, between a powerful government official and a poor, powerless, vulnerable child.
Experts say that there are at least five types of power, but an explanation of those kinds of power need not concern us now. What should be noted, though, is that a person in a government ministerial office possesses at least four out of those five kinds of power. That makes such an official very powerful indeed.
Experts say that before a powerful abuser starts to abuse “full-time,” that abusive individual – consciously or unconsciously – sets up an institutional power base. Such a base may include a political party, powerful colleagues, wealthy friends, and loyal comrades. That’s right, powerful, abusive people are very busy indeed.
This action of setting up a power base serves – among other things – to protect the powerful person if he or she is ever caught. For example, he or she may be able to engineer political, police, and judicial cover ups.
It may be mentioned at this point that analyst Elena Cherepanov made an interesting statement, and asked an even more interesting question. The expert writes:
“Political abuse is understood as the deliberate misuse of a political position for the benefit of power itself, and the use of it for institutional discrimination and maltreatment of dissenting and marginalised groups. The most common forms of authoritarian leadership include dictatorships and totalitarianism. There may be many reasons why people elect a charismatic and populist authoritarian for the first time. The second time, however, they know what they are getting into.”
Ms. Cherepanov asks the question: Why do citizens elect such people for a second time?
Guyanese may wish to think about that.
Experts say that it is possible to fight or resist political power abuse, and win.
Thinkers point to the following fact:
Power is about a relationship. A powerful person – A – can only exert power over another person or group – B – if B accepts that A has that power. For example, in an aircraft hijacking, if passengers follow the orders of a hijacker, the hijacker will win. But if the more numerous passengers resist, the hijacker will lose.
One writer expressed the procedure for resistance in the following way:
“In some cases, minority and powerless group members may choose to resist the abuser’s influence. When low-power group members have a feeling of shared identity, they are more likely to form a Revolutionary Coalition, and resist an authority when authority lacks referent power, uses coercive methods, and asks group members to carry out unpleasant assignments. It is because these conditions create reactance, individuals strive to reassert their sense of freedom by affirming their agency for their own choices and consequences.”
In other words, to resist an abusive authority, a less powerful group must work together in a coalition to fight the abuse.
Guyanese may wish to consider these findings and act accordingly, for their own good.
