The oppressor’s interest lies in keeping the people submerged and impotent.

Evidence

Herein lies one of the reasons for the prohibitions and the difficulties (to be discussed at length in Chapter 4) designed to dissuade the people from critical intervention in reality. The oppressor knows full well that this intervention would not be to his interest. What is to his interest is for the people to continue in a state of submersion, impotent in the face of oppressive reality. — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 124