The Florilegium Read. Think. Act.

Good Muslim Bad Muslim - An African Perspective

Essay by Mahmood Mamdani on Culture Talk and the divisions of society. 

What Mamdani describes is ‘Fear of the Mob:’

When I read this, or something like this, I wonder if this world of ours is after all divided into two: on the one hand, savages who must be saved before they destroy us all and, on the other, the civilized whose burden it is to save all?

 Mamdani’s essay reminded me of the concept from George Orwell’s Down and Out Chapter 22:

I believe that this instinct to perpetuate useless work is, at bottom, simply fear of the mob. The mob (the thought runs) are such low animals that they would be dangerous if they had leisure; it is safer to keep them too busy to think.