Azfar Aziz, Development Consultant, CREA and Advisory Editor of Daily Finland

Azfar Aziz, Development Consultant, CREA and Advisory Editor of Daily Finland : In ‘Power: A New Social Analysis’ (1938), Bertrand Russell made a number of predictions we are witnessing now. He first divided the forms of power sought by man into ‘force and coercion’, ‘inducements’, and ‘propaganda’.
“We must first understand the basic methods by which the socio-economic organizations exercise power,” he said, which is to persuade people to obey and to be loyalty to some authority. Because, without believe in a cause, armies won’t fight. Russel said, ‘the representatives have left their seats, came to the capital, and thus lost their powerbases.’ “[L]arge countries have become more and more like the City States of antiquity.” Economic and military power, too, are in deep love, while, “the government is not completely democratic.”
The 180-IQ maestro then explained that “The power of a community depends not only upon its numbers and its economic resources and its technical capacity, but also upon its beliefs.” Therefore, instilling such a belief among the populace is an imperative. He said large-scale systematic propaganda was being run by the Churches, businesses, political parties, and the State, all on the same side.
But, a total control over opinion spelled only a State monopoly, Rusael said, adding that there must be a small ventilator to exercise freedom of expression, or democracy is doomed.
So, dear journalists, what about rethinking our role for a few minutes?
Russell really had a gift of prophecy that made him say: a global federal government of sovereign States was the only means of survival for the planet; the flickering agencies of UN, EU, SAARC, ASEAN are the lone candles of hope, as Russell predicted.