The recent unfortunate events unfolding in Iran can best be addressed in the context of a global trend and not in isolation. Widespread protests erupted amid economic desperation and political repression, met with brutal crackdowns, mass arrests, and internet blackouts. These events are emblematic of a broader pattern: power is increasingly concentrated in the hands of brutal, self-serving leaders who exploit nations, manipulate populations, and consolidate authority. They plunder resources, suppress dissent, and leverage fear to maintain loyalty, while ordinary citizens, banking on survival through complicity, navigate a system that rewards silence over resistance.
Economic instability, poverty, and ignorance create fertile ground for authoritarianism. Weak institutions like compromised courts, muted media, and ineffective anti-corruption bodies leave citizens vulnerable. Charismatic leaders exploit fear, nationalism, and social divisions, reinforced by propaganda and strict information control, ensuring obedience and quashing opposition. Leadership increasingly shifts from value-based governance to commodification, treating citizens, institutions, and resources as objects to be exploited for personal gain. Resource plundering is widespread, while elections are manipulated, constitutions rewritten, and resisters brutalized as warnings to others.
International bodies like the UN and AU struggle to hold leaders accountable, constrained by politics, bureaucracy, and dependence on member states. Potential “saviours” are either opportunistic global powers seeking influence or genuinely democratic actors too weak to intervene. Meanwhile, a global network of authoritarian alliances strengthens impunity: leaders share tactics, form economic and military partnerships, and protect one another diplomatically. Corporations, NGOs, moral and religious leaders, as well as many brilliant academicians, critics, and media houses become apologists, legitimizing regimes and perpetuating authoritarian rule – whether through intimidation, coercion, or voluntary compromise. These alliances cut across ideologies like capitalism and socialism alike, demonstrating that power and profit, not philosophy, drive authoritarian collaboration.
Modern authoritarianism mirrors historical patterns of personalized, exploitative rule. European feudal lords exercised absolute control over land and vassals; pre-colonial African chiefs, such as the Nyamwezi and the Asante, commanded wealth and loyalty through tribute. In Asia, the Tokugawa Shogunate in Japan and the Mughal Empire under Aurangzeb consolidated power through military authority, taxation, and coercion. In South America, the Inca Empire and Spanish colonial viceroyalties controlled vast populations, extracted labor and tribute, and enforced hierarchical obedience. Across regions and eras, authoritarian leaders rely on fear, patronage, and centralized control to dominate people and resources.
Citizens who resist are brutalized, while the majority, convinced survival requires complicity, perpetuate the system. The result is a sophisticated, globalized feudalism: wealth concentrated in a few hands, citizens treated as vassals, and governance serving self-interest rather than public good. Iran is only the latest example of how authoritarianism, enabled by global networks and local complicity, continues to threaten citizens worldwide. Without strong institutions, civic awareness, and coordinated accountability, the pendulum will continue to swing toward authoritarianism, reshaping societies across the globe.
