The Faces of Oppression

Jan 09, 2012 Editorial

Iris Marion Young dealt extensively with the issue of ‘difference’ and its relationship with oppression. Our political elites will have to go outside the box if they are to create a just society in Guyana. Oppression is quite multifaceted. We offer the following, inspired by Young, to suggest the nuances of the phenomenon that must be addressed.
Oppression is how the system is rigged against certain classifications of people— women, homosexuals, working class people, people with disabilities, youth, the elderly, people with mental illness, etc. Young divides oppression into five categories— exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, and violence.
Exploitation, is the transfer of the results of the labour of one social group to benefit another. Women’s work for instance, is unpaid or underpaid and results in the transfer of energies to please and comfort men. There is also the history of racial discrimination that reserved menial work for some groups. These stereotypes were internalised and passed on into the succeeding generations. The educational and economic systems, therefore, need to work to dismantle these fetters to our youths’ progress. Obviously, we need to work in the economic realm through our unions, to dismantle economic systems that result in exploitation.
Marginalization is the process by which “a whole category of people is expelled from useful participation in social life.”The political forces must accept that many of our deprived come from communities significantly affected by marginalization. Recognizing the systems that lead to this marginalisation and working to transform them is an important part of effective governance. There has been an extensive debate in Guyana on the causes of marginalisation and we cannot ignore its adverse impact on some groups.
Powerlessness is something that all persons experience at some time or another but individuals from oppressed backgrounds do so even more. As Young notes, “The powerless are those who lack authority or power… those whom power is exercised without their exercising it; the powerless are situated so that they must take orders and rarely have the right to give them.” This, unfortunately, could describe the experience of most of our citizens. The unseemly fight over which ethnic group or another might be more powerless, misses this point. There is only a tiny stratum that has wielded the levers of power and this must be reversed. Power really belongs to all the people. Their votes at the last elections signalled that they are not satisfied with the status quo.
The fourth face of oppression is cultural imperialism. According to Young, this is “how the dominant meanings of a society render the particular perspective of one’s own group invisible at the same time as they stereotype one’s group and mark it as the other. Paradoxically, one is both made invisible and presented in a stereotypical fashion.
This form of oppression is particularly evident in mass media representations of oppressed groups, although certainly it can be also seen in classroom curriculum. It is important for teachers and leaders to include perspectives of different groups (particularly in their own voices) and to avoid perpetuating stereotyping and marginalization. Moreover, it is important to work with our people to sharpen their skills of cultural critique so that they can learn to recognize these dynamics of representation in mass media and in their lives.
The last face of oppression is violence— the systematic violence directed at people because they are members of some group. Our society is particularly prone to violence – against women, children, and even political opponents. There is also homophobic violence to which so many turn a blind eye. This can also be verbal violence — racist and homophobic comments proliferate in our discourse.
Young writes, “Group violence approaches legitimacy, moreover, in the sense that it is tolerated… according to the prevailing social logic, some circumstances make such violence more ‘called for’ than others.” As leaders, it is important for our politicians to make sure that all citizens feel safe from violence, and to ensure that our laws and system of justice engage vigorously in the process of deconstructing institutionalized systems of violence.

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The Faces of Oppression

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