What does responsible use of power look like?
Recently we've been thinking a lot about power and our choices to use it. Are we responsible? Do we misuse it?
We’re struck by the damage caused or the missed opportunities for change that surface when people do not see where their (powerful) decisions maintain an unjust status quo, often because they are not aware enough of the power they have.
Take this Guardian article from this morning. It concerns the UK government's approach to asylum seekers. The way they made choices about language, what to centre, and what to avoid gives us plenty of food for thought about how our everyday choices of how we use our power and influence can be for harm or for good.
So here's a newspaper that is (apparently) liberal leaning. Quite a few of our connections probably read through this when it was published. But here’s what is to notice about their use of power:
Reinforce the government's aggressive framing and language, 'nationwide blitz', 'criminal', and inferences of 'disrespecting taxpayers', blindly reinforcing a law and order narrative
Did not refer to the £9 or so a week they are expected to live off if food is provided, or less than £50 if it's not. No mention of the economic hardships that might be driving the need for additional funds (such as delays in processing or poor levels of support). Made it about 'criminal' individuals and not systemic failings as a story
Nobody cared enough to have asylum seekers' voice represented - either directly or via a charity or legal aid organisation, who could offer a perspective of their lived experience and by not doing so, centres all the power and narrative with the state and the focus on 'criminality'
This collection of choices used their power to reinforce a dehumanising narrative, further "other" asylum seekers, and not call out the need for moral accountability for the policy consequences. In white supremacy terms, this is a power-hoarding master class, making decisions about who is platformed and how. We think there are reflections in here for us all.
“There’s really no such thing as the ‘voiceless’. There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.”, Arundhati Roy
