When Darkness Falls

As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such a twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air – however slight – lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.

~Justice William O. Douglas

Today I had a chance to browse through a book called, “The End of America – Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot,” by Naomi Wolf. Like I said, browsed, so I can’t give you a full synopsis, but what I read, was disturbing, to say the very least. This book is a wake-up call that brings to light issues of tyranny, democracy, and survival. It is a call to arms…compelling us to face the way the freedom in America is under assault. She draws parallels to the Bush administrations post 9-11 policies and events that took place during the early years leading up to the rise of Nazi Germany, Pinochet’s Chile and Stalinist Russia. She explains how Americans have the wrong idea of what a closed society looks like, how in the initial shut down, for the most part, for most people, life goes on as usual.

She takes one through the steps that dictators in the past who have taken over democracies or crushed prodemocracy uprisings by invoking emergency decrees to close down civil liberties, creating military tribunals, and criminalizing dissent have used and brings to light echoes of these events in America today. She calls to our attention important lessons from history about how fragile civil liberties are and how quickly freedom can be lost. Our fundamental rights and freedoms are being eroded as we apathetically sit back unaware. She clearly outlines the same ten steps that have shut down democracies all over the world at different times: invoke an external threat; develop a paramilitary force; create a secret prison system; surveil ordinary citizens; arbitrarily detain and release them; harass citizens’ groups; target writers, entertainers, and other key individuals for dissenting; intimidate the press; recast dissent as “treason” and criticism as “espionage”; and eventually subvert the rule of law. She then warns and illustrates how the United States is moving towards becoming a more closed society.

Naomi makes us aware of the urgency to become informed, act, and protect our rights and liberties. Although I am not American, being a close neighbour, and looking at the US’s place in the world, any movement the US might make towards a more closed society would have immense implications internationally. To quote one paragraph: “If a democratic America, with working checks and balances, often exempts itself from international agreements when its strategic interests don’t coincide with international goals, would a United States led by a dictatorial regime be likely to subdue in itself any level of aggression internationally or restrain itself from any plunder of resources that it seeks, simply because it was upsetting the rest of the world?

If you don't have time to read the book, I encourage you to watch the video below of Naomi speaking at a university campus. It's a little long, but she goes through most of the points covered in her book.