ON TYRANNY

Author: Timothy Snyder
Year: 2018 (2017)
Publisher: Albert Bonniers Förlag
Language: Swedish (translator Margareta Eklöf)

Some people, particularly intellectually active and capable ones, happen upon a moment in life where they experience something that can be compared to a second awakening. A few may even have several such experiences. For Timothy Snyder, professor of history at Yale University and specialist in European 20^th century authoritarian extreme right and extreme left regimes, one such epiphany seems to have been when his own country defaulted on its democratic credibility and elected Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton for president in November 2016.

One year after the elections, Snyder published what would become an almost iconic pamphlet “Om tyranni – tjugo lärdomar från tjugonde århundradet” (“On Tyranny – Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century”). To a professional historian, none of what is happening today can seem particularly innovative or novel. We have seen it all before. Drawing on his vast knowledge and applying his sharp and unmistakeable pedagogical prowess, Snyder lays bare the imminent danger that our liberal society is facing from the neo-fascists in our days. He puts his finger on red flags and indicators, big and small warning signals to look for, and how to spot the threat behind the thin veil of civility and faux democracy in which the far right routinely tries to shroud its sinister intentions.

The good news is that besides recognising the threat, we also have some clues as to what we can do about it. What is unique about Snyder’s book, is that it does not only show us the danger and the connection to past events, but more importantly gives practical advice on how to counteract the developments and effectively stop the train from going off the cliff.

Each of the lessons is only a few pages long with a short and poignant introduction, a brief exposition, and a crisp conclusion often with a concrete call for action. It is solid, clear, unambiguous, and probably the most practically and directly applicable instruction on how to engage in opposition to totalitarianism that I have ever come across.

Although the book is intended for a US audience in response to the election of Donald Trump, virtually every lesson in it should resonate with a European reader. Snyder, after all, draws his knowledge from research on European authoritarianism which until recently, has enjoyed but modest support in the US.

I will not account for all the rules in this review but although they are all to some extent relevant, a few deserve particular attention.

·        (1) DO NOT OBEY IN ADVANCE

Virtually every authoritarian regime comes to power without violence. People are adaptable and subservient, and autocrats often bet on it and win. In order to keep out of trouble and stay off the radar, lots of good people will try to anticipate what the ruler wants and obey in advance. The autocrat does not even have to apply oppressive measures to oppress the people (cf. my review of “Discourse on Voluntary Servitude” by Étienne de la Boétie from July 2021).

·         (2) DEFEND AN INSTITUTION

Institutions are not indestructible. In fact, they are no stronger than the people that manage them. They need to be defended from the moment they are first under assault. If they are allowed to stand undefended, they will crumble faster than we can imagine. Snyder encourages each and everyone of us to pick any institution (a news outlet, a court of law, a ministry, a trade union) and make it our mission to defend it. 

·        (5) RECALL PROFESSIONAL ETHICS

Does your government ask you to act in violation of the oath you took? Resist! Do they implement laws that will force physicians to break medical confidentiality to expose undocumented migrant? Refuse! Do they want teachers to report 7-year-olds to the police for fighting on the playground? Disobey! Do they require that judges pass sentences without proper trials with public defenders present? Decline! But whatever you do, do not resign. You will be easily replaced. Just stick to protocol and be the safety brake that your country needs in that moment.

·        (6) BE KIND TO OUR LANGUAGE

Avoid using newspeak (cf my review of “Nineteen Eighty-Four” by George Orwell from July 2021). Do you find that people around you all of a sudden call things by a different name than they used to? Pause and try to figure out what changed? Language develops over time and in a normal world there is nothing menacing about it. Just stay alert. Also, stay off the internet and read books. The internet is changing rapidly. Books are consistent (most of the time). Let books be your anchor to the use of language.

·        (9) BELIEVE IN TRUTH

Do not try to be clever. What appears to be true, usually is. Questioning established knowledge by sheepishly citing discredited sources and conspiracy theories does not make you smart. It makes you an idiot. Autocratic propaganda rarely aims to make you believe anything in particular. On the contrary, it is designed to make you disbelieve everything. If there is no truth, there can also be no untruth. Do not allow them to turn you into their instrument of oppression. Yes, scientists are wrong sometimes. So are journalists, politicians, and experts of all kinds. But neither you nor your sources are likely to be qualified to call out their mistakes in any meaningful way. You are probably great at your job. Let everybody else do theirs.

·        (13) PRACTICE CORPOREAL POLITICS

Those who want to rule unopposed will want you to be passive. They want you to stay indoors. They want you to focus on other things and let the world pass by without asking questions and without making trouble. Manifest your dissidence early, before they grow powerful enough to punish you for it. Also, do not let power pit you against other groups or categories in your society. In the 1960s, the Communist regime in Poland struck down a student revolt with the help of the workers. In the 1970s, the workers were similarly crushed by the help of the intellectuals. Not until the labour union Solidarnosc managed to organise workers and intellectuals in unified protests could the dictatorship be toppled.

·        (18) BE CALM WHEN THE UNTHINKABLE ARRIVES

Populists are actively seeking excuses to do away with obstacles on their road to their unlimited power. It they cannot find suitable excuses, sooner or later they will create them. Study carefully how your government reacts to extraordinary events like e.g. a terrorist attack, what words they use, what actions they call for. Do they try to influence the investigators, prosecutors and judges to deliver “swift justice”? Do they remove some of your liberties in the interest of your “security”? Do they accuse any particular group or category of people in your community calling for collective punishment? Is the law, although not rewritten or changed, suddenly interpreted in a completely different way than it used to be? Do not be a sheep!

The running theme throughout most of the lessons in “Om tyranni” seems to be honesty and dignity. To protect our lifestyle and our freedom we must at all times trust the best in us. Logic over panic. Dignity over humiliation. Cooperation over egotism. Respect over hatred. Facts over opinions. Action over cowardice.

In other words… we are doomed.