Beyond Fear

In the 1980s, Reagan was waging wars around the world that most Americans were blissfully unaware of. One of those was in El Salvador. Yes, the same El Salvador that kept delivering refugees to our doorstep. And that Trump lawlessly uses as a torture prison.

Our Central America Response Network raised awareness and direct aid to reduce Reagan’s brutality. The real power in El Salvador was with the military, the Treasury Police and a wide range of death squads, which Reagan funded. The civilian government was mostly irrelevant.

One of my friends “Jessie” had the courage to travel to El Salvador and build relationships with heroic people who organized resistance. One of these resistance heroes was a young student “Beto.” Beto described to me how military helicopter gunships fired into his school, terrorizing everyone.

So I was surprised when Jessie told me later about mass demonstrations in El Salvador. How can that be? She said the Salvadoran people had an expression “Beyond Fear.” When repression becomes too extreme, it backfires. People feel that they can die just going to school or doing everyday things. So, they might as well fight back.

This may explain some of what has been happening in Iran. The Islamists running Iran famously killed young Jina Mahsa Amini claiming she wasn’t wearing her headscarf properly. At some point people realize three things: The oppression is intolerable. Death from resistance is no riskier than death from just living. And they are not alone.

Beyond Fear can lead to a mix of non-violent and violent resistance. The issue is not primarily ethical. Brutal oppressors may well “deserve” getting a taste of the violence they dish out. The issue is more about results. A violent resistance inevitably results in even more violence from the oppressive power.

But, again, if the oppressive violence is extreme past a certain point, resistance cannot bring more violence. It is already saturated.

I remember the 1970s uprising against the Shah of Iran. Many Iranians felt anything was better. Which was how they got something worse: a revolutionary Islamist dictatorship. A government that comes to power through revolution knows how it was able to crack an oppressive power. Which means they know how to seal the cracks to prevent themselves from being overthrown.

We have witnessed many uprisings against the Islamist government of Iran in recent years. There is no guarantee that this will succeed. But the current government should be very afraid. It rules only by fear. Polls are difficult, but the government seems to have little support. At some point resistance can make the cost intolerable for those implementing the violent oppression.

Bullies are really just cowards in disguise. When people fight back, bullies often run. Not much consolation when a wall of bullies confronts a wall of citizen dissenters.

My last article declared that we are officially in a dictatorship. It was written before a masked ICE official killed Renee Good. Not only has Trump blocked his prosecution. He has blocked an investigation. We are not yet in the situation in Iran. Our situation is actually worse. Most Iranians reject official disinformation.

But tens of millions of Americans live in an echo chamber where they believe a bizarre alternate reality. One in which Renee Good deserved to die. They probably would believe that young Masri also deserved to die if they lived in Iran.

MAGA people do not grasp this: Federal agents can literally kill American citizens with impunity. We no longer have a functioning FBI, Justice Department, or Supreme Court.

The Fourth Amendment clearly made the killing of Renee Good illegal. But the Supreme Court perversely ruled that Congress would have to pass a specific law to enforce the Fourth Amendment. The U.S. is an outlier among Western nations in having this immunity for official lawbreakers.

Protesters in the U.S. are in a difficult situation. Trump will use the slightest provocation to respond with more oppression. Non-violence is the most effective response. But it takes real courage to remain non-violent in the face of unjust violence.

Our challenge is to wake up MAGA people to reality. And to build effective resistance.