International airlines have perfected the art of fooling passengers, and we happily cooperate.
The first thing they do after take-off is ask you to pull down your window shades. Outside, the sun is blazing away. Inside, they create midnight. Hundreds of passengers obediently shut out broad daylight without the slightest protest.
The meals, however, continue according to the time at which the flight departed.
If you left Mumbai after dinner, dinner arrives right on schedule, irrespective of what your watch says.
You eat happily, watch a movie, doze a little, wake up for another snack.
This goes on for the duration of the flight, when everybody inside believes what’s outside, with what they’re served inside.
And then comes the announcement, “We are now about to land, Ladies and gentlemen, you may now raise your window shades.”
You lift the blind.
The sun is just rising.
Morning!
For the last few hours you have been sitting in broad daylight, convinced it was night, simply because somebody else decided what you were allowed to see.
The airline never changed the sun.
It merely controlled your view of it.
As I looked out of that window, I realised our government has certainly learnt the same trick.
Keep enough blinds pulled down over the media, and people slowly stop looking outside. They begin accepting whatever is announced over the public address system.
Unemployment can be worrying millions of young people, but if the television channels are busy discussing everything except jobs, people begin believing jobs are no longer the issue. Press freedom can quietly shrink, but if those who should question become jailbirds, nobody notices.
Citizens slowly lose the confidence to speak freely.
Peaceful protests are frowned upon.
Hatred becomes everyday conversation. Women continue to face horrifying crimes. Rights disappear, not with a bang, but quietly, one curtain at a time.
Yet the announcement never changes.
“Ladies and gentlemen, it is now time for dinner.”
The frightening thing about this created illusion , is that it does not have to change reality.
It only has to change what people are permitted to see.
History tells us that this illusion never lasts forever. One day the blinds are raised. The sunlight streams in.
People rub their eyes in disbelief and wonder how long they were kept in the dark.
By then it is often too late.
That is why a free press is not a luxury. It is why uncomfortable questions are necessary. It is why citizens must occasionally ignore the official announcements and lift the blinds for themselves.
Otherwise, one day we will wake up to discover that while we faithfully believed it was day, our rulers had quietly turned it into night…!
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Robert Clements is a newspaper columnist and writes a daily column, which has graced the pages of over 60 newspapers and magazines, from a daily column in the Khaleej Times, Dubai, the Morning Star, London, and in nearly every state in India, from The Statesman in Kolkata, to the Kashmir Times in Kashmir to the Trinity Mirror in Chennai.
You can fool some people sometime, you can fool all people for sometime, but you cannot fool all the people all the times.
The analogy of the airline mode to explain the machinations of the politicians is apt though not all airlines tell us to pull down our window slides during the cruise mode of the flight. The governments too pull a wool over our eyes to distract us from their unfriendly acts. Let’s dare to lift our blinds to see the truth and discern the false.
Exactly
Well said.
Let’s not be blinded and respond in blind faith by what is hurled at us by the people in power.
Thanks Bob for bringing this to light through the flight experience. We are often in the flight, fright or freeze mode that prevents us speaking up.
You have described the situation aptly. Everything is controlled, and people happily cooperate without any protests. We are so far lucky to have social media to share our experiences. If we are not alert and use the power of the thumb wisely, we can be sure to lose our liberty.
Thank you for your effort to lift the blinds & try to make us see reality.
So well explained…
There are some who like the Ostrich, prefer to bury their head in the sand !!!
Too many blinds on all sides. People are kept in the dark. They are afraid and have reached a stage where they feel ” what cannot be cured must be endured!”