The K Experience

Pedagogy of the Oppressed - Paulo Freire

Timeless - Literature

Sunday, 02 March 2008

“The revolution is made neither by the leaders for the people nor by the people for the leaders, but by both acting together in unshakable solidarity. The solidarity is born only when the leaders witness to it by their humble, loving, and courageous encounter with the people.” p129

In his most important work, "Pedagogy of the Oppressed", Paulo Freire lays out the dynamics of oppression and uncovers the secrets of the oppressors, in the hope that it will lead to a more educated and emancipated world...

Paulo Freire, the Brazilian educator, died on May 2, 1997, at the age of 75. Before he died he left behind work so powerful that it has spawned numerous institutions around the world and influenced many revolutionary leaders. The National Louie University website article on Freire puts it perfectly when it says:

On a planet where more than half the people go hungry every day because nations are incapable of feeding all their citizens, where we cannot yet agree that every human being has a right to eat and to be housed, Paulo Freire toils to help men and women overcome their sense of powerlessness to act in their own behalf.

It is in the fouth chapter of his amazing book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, that Freire lays out the tools of oppression. He seperates the analysis into Dialogics: instruments for oppression and domination; and Anti-Dialogics: instruments for liberation, which I wish to spend some time on in this entry.

The anti-dialogics consist of techniques used by many of the colonizing and invading nations that have acted during the history of the world, many of which are still used today in different forms and guises. These are:

Conquest: where the conquerors invade the space of others not just physically, but socialogically, denying them of their "word, their expressiveness and their culture";
Divide and Rule: which many are familiar with. To disable the oppressed from being able to fight back, they are seperated and pitted against each other . This is done in many ways, more commonly by the oppressors favouring certain groups, and distribution of benefits to some and penalties to others.
Manipulation: where the oppressors or the elites fool the masses into believing that they have their best interests at heart. this enables them to carry out certain actions which from the outside look as if they are helping, but are indeed further perpetuating the oppression;
Cultural Invasion: here Freire describes the situation perfectly when he says "In this phenomenon, the invaders penetrate the cultural context of another group, in disrespect of the latter's potentialities; they impose their own view of the world upon those they invade and inhibit the creativity of the invaded by curbing their expression."

The dialogics on the other hand are the direct opposites of the techniques explained above, and if executed well will cancel out the oppressive tools giving way to liberation.

Cooperation: The opposing actions rely on a group of people to lead the oppressed to liberation, however there must be constant cooperation with the people. “Revolutionary leaders cannot think without the people, nor for the people, but only with the people.”
Unity for liberation: The people must work as one for their goal of liberation. This works as the opposing force to divide and rule.
Organization: The opposing force for manipulation, they must work and organise themselves in order to realise their lot and transform their own destiny.
Cultural synthesis: The final force described by Freire, where the oppressed reclaim their cultural identity and reclaim sense of self.

This is just a small explanation of part of the book, which once digested helps to unveil many of the injustices currently happening in the world, which have been repeated throughout history, from the slave trade, to the colonization of Africa, South America and other parts of the world, to the Apartheid in South Africa. Each time the oppressive forces use the very tools explained under the heading of anti-dialogics, and each time liberation comes about through the very tools explained under the heading of dialogics.

Although many of the concepts explained by Freire, are not new, he has been able to package and deliver the concepts in a way never done before, and it is this that has allowed Pedagogy of the Oppressed to have the impact on the world that it has. Even so, I feel it is still not as widely known as it should be, and I am hoping that by this entry, I help to spread the word.

This is a book which will get you thinking about the very world in which you live, and make you ask the question "am I the oppressor, or the oppressed?"

Sources: Book cover from Florycanto.net, picture of Freire from University of Kwazulu-Natal. For more information see UCLA's Paulo Freire Institute, and Paulo Freire wikipedia entry.

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