Aimee Smith

CENSORSHIP, PRIVACY, SURVEILLANCE

An American man’s home was raided immediately following the recent Ahmedabad bombings following a connection between his computer and an email claiming responsibility for the blasts. The director of the organization hosting me has, in the past, had to flee the country after being threatened by mobs outside her home for making comments about the state government’s treatment of the 2001 riots. And then we see the law-changing that has occurred in the United States Government over the past few years during the “War on Terror” where people have been stripped of their privacy, with other countries following in their footsteps.
All this makes me acutely aware of and question my own privacy. In a cyber-connected world where information flows in what one feels it is a democratic space, as I publish my articles the question of surveillance always weighs on my mind. There are many things I’m learning about this country’s history – distant and recent that infuriate me, anger me, frighten me, upset me and impassion me to say something. (Don’t get me wrong, this country is winning my heart more and more each day with its vibrant beauty and warmth but, like any culture, it has its good and bad. Nothing is black or white but usually comes in all shades of grey!) But then I second guess myself and wonder who might be reading. What if I said something offensive to someone with more power than I. Why on earth should someone in this world have more power than I do when it comes to freedom of speech? The notion of this maddens me. But all the same I have monitored this space and not written in some thoughts that I have had. And, just as I wrote in my entry on fear, I hate that the people who are using fear through surveillance to paralyse us, to hold us back, to stop us, to silence us, have an effect on me, even in some small way.
For now, I am holding my thoughts, searching for the best way to send them into the world. Perhaps they’ll end up being danced.