The Realness of "Token" Resistance

Prof Scott cites Eugene Genovese's Roll, Jordon Roll (1974) as an example of a writer who privileges "real" over "token" resistance. Likewise the commenter, who spurred Xenoboy's post, privileges "grand" over "cowardly" (in Xenoboy's terms) resistance.

As implied by Genovese and the commenter, the characteristics of the former category include (a) organized, systematic, cooperative, (b) principled, selfless, (c) has revolutionary consequences and/or (d) embodies ideas or intent that brings down the system of domination itself.

On the other hand, the latter category is materially and normatively inferior as it is (a) unorganized, unsystematic and individual, (b) opportunitistic and self-indulgent, (c) have no revolutionary consequences and/or (d) imply accommodation with the system of domination. (J.C. Scott, "Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance" in Scott & Kerkvliet (eds), Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance in South-east Asia (1986), p.24; also available from The Journal of Peasant Studies, Vol.13, No.2)

Prof Scott argues that while many of these individual acts may indeed lack revolutionary consequences on their own (c/d), when such acts take place on a massive scale, they can have systemic effects even if they are uncoordinated (a). Fans of the anime series, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and its sequel 2nd Gig, will be familiar with another version of this argument and how the net can mediate this phenomenon. The other main counter-point that Prof Scott makes against critics of "token" resistance is that it is often impossible to untangle self-interest and selfless behaviour (b) - IMHO parallels can be found in the debates over the nature of altruism.

An example cited by Prof Scott that fits this analysis is the disintegration of the Russian Tsarist Army in 1917 due to massive unorganized "self-demobilization" by individual soldiers who were pushed by starvation and prospect of death or injury from enemy action and pulled by the prospect of joining in the land seizures that were breaking out across the countryside. Risks were minimal as the army had lost its ability to impose military discipline and maintain wider domestic order. Thus "the aggregation of a host of petty, self-interested acts of insubordination or desertion, with no revolutionary intent, have created a revolutionary situation" (p.25) and culminated in the February Revolution.

Virtual Resistance as "Real"

The description of online resistance as "virtual" is often appropriate as it has no significant physical manifestation or effect it is not "real". In Sedaka, efforts to stop combine harvesting included attempts by women padi transplanters (kumpulan share) to boycott those landowning farmers who attempt to employ the machinery, sabotage of the machines at night, theft of harvested padi (zakat peribadi, angkat sindiri), rumour mongering, slander and even black magic curses.

In contrast, online resistance appears to have little real, much less revolutionary, consequences. The slings and arrows of blog posts are often dismissed and ignored by the government as chatter or white noise. The expression of online dissent can also be seen as a safety valve, a prop in the system of domination which allows Singaporeans to vent and then go back to being good, obedient, productive members of Singaporean society in real life.

Online resistance in the blogosphere is also often seen as inferior as it does not directly produce political effects: blogs don't stand for and win elections as candidates, neither are they effective conduits for fund raising in the Singaporean context and according to the IPS survey, they do not have much influence over the electorate's decisionmaking either.

This is, perhaps, expecting rather too much of blogs. Their effect and influence may more circumspect, rather than the futility of speaking truth unto power, it is the utility of speaking truth amongst members of a virtual community. It is not the medium that brings about a mass political awakening - that needs a spark or a catalyst like how the NKF scandal provoked significant actions (e.g. cancelling regular donations) from Singaporeans - but a medium through which a person can listen to a tur kwa podcast, foward it, discuss it and laugh until the collective sound of that laughter reaches even the ears of the regime.

In contesting the official line, speech becomes action, revealing that there are those who are not buying into the hegemonic discourse. Whereas the state-guided media declines to mediate the connections and community that comes with: "Ah, I was thinking that too!", posts and comments show that individuals are doin' it for themselves.

The mere existence of online resistance itself also indicates that Psychological Defence, the foremost and arguably most important form of Totalistic Defence is not as, well, total as generally believed. Furthermore the first objective is to Deter active resistance as actually moving to secure a swift and decisive victory over the resisters necessarily means that Deterrence has failed.

Technology on Whose Side?

Despite deploying an innovative repetorie of acts of resistance, the Sedaka padi cultivators eventually gave up after three years. The green revolution in Kedah had simply removed them from the productive process (made "redundant" in our current HR parlance) rather than subjugating them in an exploitative relationship. (p.13)

The effect of technology on production and work is such that striking industrial workers return to find themselves replaced by robots or that their factory has been relocated to China, India or Slovakia. Or striking white collar professionals return to find that they still have to do the work that piled up in their absence which they now have to do but without the pay that was docked for the period of the strike.

However technological development may be the ally (for the most) of the dominated this time. Not only is technology delivering an ever increasing range of products and services to aid the information flows that make up the blogosphere, the type of intellectual environment favoured by these new engines of growth is not an illiberal one.

As economic development moves from industrial to knowledge economies, the effort to move up the value chain also shifts the emphasis from the maintanence of industrial discipline to giving space to the innovative free spirit. Will there come a time when the contradictions between the old imperative of maintaining control and that other hoary old chestnut of economic survivalism become too great to resolve within the current framework and those who had been meekly resisting finally inherit the republic?