While grabbing The State Press first thing in the morning as part of my usual routine on Fridays, last week something was different: I noticed the concrete columns around campus were covered with flyers announcing the evils of Scientology, something about "Anonymous" and Feb. 10.
For a quiet Friday morning, I wasn't really expecting all those flyers and posters to mysteriously appear.
I had forgotten about all the news I had seen online about Scientology and the Tom Cruise videos being leaked and causing controversy, but these jogged my memory. I hadn't realized that Anonymous was taking up a crusade against the Church of Scientology, but here was Anonymous on our campus informing me of its intent.
There were also videos posted on YouTube in the days leading up to the protest with speeches similar to declarations of war in computer-generated voices which made me wonder further about what Sunday would be like.
It wasn't until after Sunday that I realized the scale and impressiveness of the protest. For a fairly unorganized group with no central authority or leadership, staging protests in nearly 100 cities worldwide in a single day is extraordinary.
I wasn't sure how the whole event would turn out, as Anonymous has gotten some interesting press in the past, especially from Los Angeles Fox 11, which called them "hackers on steroids" in a newscast from July of last year with a ridiculous accompanying video of an exploding yellow van after a guy's MySpace page was hacked into and vandalized by Anonymous.
Their protest, consisting of mostly young, geeky guys in Guy Fawkes masks or other forms of concealment to stay anonymous was actually fairly uneventful, if not visibly entertaining, and didn't quite live up to the media's hype about the group being similar to terrorists. All protests remained peaceful and participants were encouraged to and did follow state regulations regarding protests, yet in the Church of Scientology's response, they still called Anonymous "cyber terrorists."
The aim of the protesters was to get Scientology declassified as a religion in the U.S., thus losing its tax-exempt status. They also feel Scientology is destructive in its practices and has caused the death of some of its members.
Scientology also censors any criticism directed toward the religion and does not allow for freedom of knowledge or information about itself. The protesters believe Scientology goes against free speech and should be viewed as a money-grubbing cult.
Anonymous's efforts gained attention from the local media in cities with protests, as well as other larger media outlets.
Being anti-Scientology or at least very skeptical is certainly nothing new. Even from the little I've known about it until recently had made me wonder how anyone could take it seriously. I'm not sure how you can get a serious religion out of a science fiction book written by a science fiction author in the 1950s. Some people have marked their religion on census surveys as "Jedi," but they do it just for fun, not because they're serious about a system described in fiction.
The concept of the religion is basically self-purification and how to make decisions, but one could buy a self-help book for much cheaper than what members have to pay for Scientology classes. Increasingly higher payments also aren't required to become a better person in other religions or just in daily secular life, unlike in Scientology.
I agree with Anonymous's aim to get rid of Scientology as a religion. The structure of the Church is basically a pyramid scheme. Knowledge should be free, as Anonymous has said, and a questionable cult shouldn't be allowed to have so much power.
The future of Anonymous's crusade against Scientology is somewhat uncertain. Without central leadership, I'm not sure how keeping the movement organized is possible, even with the success of Sunday's action.
Come March, when the next protest is tentatively planned, maybe a few Anonymous geeks will be out there in masks while the rest have found something else to occupy their time.
But maybe, and hopefully, Anonymous will remain strong and dedicated to bringing down Scientology and succeed in at least bring attention to Scientology's questionable practices.
Monique's thetan level is over 9 thousand. E-mail her yours at monique.devoe@asu.edu.
