faith is free
An anonymous global protest against the workings of the “church of scientology” was brought to my attention yesterday. I could delve into the issues concerning the questionable antics of this so called church – but perhaps more interesting is the uprising of an anonymous movement of subversive internet geeks (read: you and me) who take to the street as strangers and comrades for the sake of shared dissent. The activist tactics can’t be called new, but the expedience, the reach and the “virtual anonymity” of this decentralized and democratic system of organization just might be. The internet as a communication tool has long been accused of inducing antisocial and apathetic solitary confinement amoungst the many, but could it be that it has reactivated our restless and techno saavy citizens to take to the streets in the name of protecting faith?
This is no online petition passed around by email supporting breast cancer or warning of grocery store parking lot predators. These are real people who synchronized their message and actions, and left their homes clad in disguise to represent the faceless public audience. No longer merely passive spectator, the internet chat community has made real-time history by going wireless.
Surely the media and the scientologists will point fingers and there will be backlash. Prank, religious bigotry, fickle frenzy or simply truly concerned citizens speaking out against a disconcerting organization; regardless of the motivation this was an intriguing event shedding light on the potential of the internet to facilitate and mobilize a group of
nobodies, anybodies and everybodies on behalf of a cause.
I’ve stuck myself on this image of the signage carried by a masked “anon”.
The words are particularly fitting in light of our critical studies of theology and culture and especially of our recent discussions surrounding the influence of a market economy on religion and science. How does this heavily publicized religion whose fundamental basis is financial affluence reflect the current status our search for universal truth? And what does the heated backlash from average income average Joe say about our continued passion on the subject?
“How does this heavily publicized religion whose fundamental basis is financial affluence reflect the current status our search for universal truth?” Ah yes in $$$ we trust, unrepentantly. Is there a sense in which an anonymous individual can have more impact if they really play up the anonimity? can they appear ‘larger’ than they are?
Maybe there is also a play on the currency of identity fear here – one that the “scientologists” are taking advantage of by their use of documentation as a counter movement to criticism. Photos, video, information about an individual as some sort of abstract threat. A sly move with a disturbing commentary on our sense of the individual in society.
So much of our encounter with the world now is as the unidentifiable observer..the public/private sphere of media both communication and technology both. Im not sure if the drive to be anonymous frees a person to participate, gives a false sense of security or if it does give a movement more impact as representative of the many. I know myself as a person, I prefer to go about my day as an unknown. Certainly frees me up to critique, to observe and to comment without accountablity or repercussion.