Who is the mob? This may sound like a silly question so for clarity I do not mean organised crime, what I mean is who or what is this mob people speak of and which constantly pops up throughout history? If we are to believe the illustrious historians of past and present the mob is a bad thing, the mob, this amorphous thing is made up of the dregs of society who only wish to bring ruin and destruction. This is the image of the mob, rancorous, unstable and fickle, persons such as Plato, Cicero, Gibbon and Churchill have all depicted the mob in this light and this image has stuck into the 21st century it seems.
This, however, couldn’t be further from the truth and it is my strong suspicion that those who spew this classist nonsense know this and that is why they double down with their demeaning behaviour and language. The mobs spoken of in the days of Plato were (wait for it) the Democrats, who were pushing for a democracy as opposed to an oligarchy which was then in power. The mob so ill spoken of was made up of Helots and Hoplites (slaves) who were seeking to remove the corrupt government and install a democracy in which all free men took part.
The same thing is seen with Cicero and gibbon, the mob they are so quick to condemn and make fun of were in fact made up of all the guilds in Rome. This mob again was pushing for greater inclusivity, their champion Julius Creaser empowered these people and as such he is remembered as a despot who cemented his power by bribing the easily fooled mob.
The mob Churchill writes about in his sick history of his time in govt etc were always people protesting the imperial yoke of the United Kingdom. The mob he speaks of is the people of British India, they are the bombed and gassed protesters in mandate Iraq demanding independence, they are the Mau-Mau in Kenya and they are our very own Frome protesters.
The mob in almost every recorded case is made up of the backbone of the society. It is made up of the middle class and the masses of urban and rural poor. The masses are made up of people such as OT Fairclough, St William Grant, heck at one point in time the mob consisted of Manley and Bustamante. The mob gave us the Russian revolution, the mob gave us the Haitian revolution and led the fight against apartheid. The mob in almost every case is formed in order to combat oppression or right a wrong which the state does not wish to remedy. That is the mob.
So why do we use the word as an insult? Why do persons deride these people and look to lump them as simpletons grouped together by a charismatic charlatan? The word is used in such barbed ways because persons know what the mob wants, and they are scared to death that the rest of society may listen to and agree with the mob. What does the mob want? The American founding fathers (who were as classist and elitist as it comes) called it levelling (see diggers and levellers), we in the modern days call it the destruction of class and class barriers. The mob wants self-rule, majority rule, justice and equality and that is why the mob is insulted and derided, that is why people hurl insults towards members of the mob.
Truth be told, any half-decent human being belongs to the mob or finds themselves in the mob at one point or another. Persons in power often times got there on the backs of the members of many a mob and as such know what they want and how dangerous they are to their new-found power. That is how you can then get a Hugh Shearer labour leader and mob member at times breaking up the Rodney riots and banning the man who embodied the wants of the mob.
If they label you a member of the mob or great unwashed wear it as a badge. Those who use those words as insults know where the power lies, and it does not lie with those in power. They insult and degrade us just as they did to the slaves because they are so scared that if the mob decides then those in power would very quickly find themselves with nothing but the shirts on their backs. Pay them no mind, don’t let their barbs get under your skin, remain with the mob, maintain the mob mentality which is, in the end, one single-minded determinedness to achieve a fixed goal. Be the mob which marched from Morant bay and be the mob which in 1938 won us universal adult suffrage and let them remain in their ivory towers because when they start bawling for justice, they will, in the end, turn their eyes us, the mob for help as they have always done.
jamaicachange 