Autocracies thrive in ignorance not fear. And autocrats benefit more from those who don’t care that those who are scared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I know this first hand. It’s true that I was only 6 years old at the time of the revolution in Iran that ultimately toppled the Pahlavi regime and handed the reins of power to the Islamic theocrats. But I spent my entire teens and a good portion of my youth in Iran. I remember myself being one of those “don’t care” people who would complain about the regime in the confines of our home or among trusted friends, but otherwise would say nothing or do nothing to show my disapproval of the way the country was run. I remember people taking pride in saying “we don’t talk politics here,” or “I have more important things to worry about!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yes, I believe a significant majority of Iranians for the longest time believed that worrying about their studies or their work and finances was more important than worrying about the future of the country. Ironically, we all ignored the fact that all those things that we believed were more important, would ultimately materialize in a future which itself we believed was not important enough to worry about or spend our precious times talking about!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Iranian theocrats, later turned plain autocrats, did not gain all their power overnight. They accumulated it gradually, through a meticulous process of trial and error, each time examining our reactions and making adjustments accordingly. The more indifferent we became, the more power they accumulated. We often blame the previous generation for helping the regime take power, but we conveniently ignore the fact that the generations after us have the right to blame us for allowing them to stay in power without being accountable to anyone. I know some of my friends will dismiss this thought as being absurd, but I genuinely believe anytime the Iranian regime executes an innocent person, we all share some responsibility. Yes, we were not the ones who brought them to the power, but we were the ones who allowed them to stay in power, and to accumulate power. We are part of their enablers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But I have no delusions about the limits of individual powers. My feeling of responsibility is not because I think that I, or anyone for that matter, could single-handedly do anything substantial. My regret is because I did not even make an effort, to at least stay informed and voice my concerns. I don’t think I did this myself, but I know many who actually laughed at and ridiculed those who voted in the elections, even the very early ones decades ago, as being na\u00efve. Yes, we wanted things to be different, but we didn’t want to do anything to make that change happen. Even worse, we would ridicule anyone who attempted to do the least amount they could.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Having that experience, I think statements like “they are all the same”, “politicians are all corrupt”, “there is nothing we can do”, “nobody else cares, why should I care?”, “these things are controlled by secret societies”, and the like, are music to the ears of autocrats. These carry the real sentiments that keep them in power. The scare tactics are only for the very few that make some effort, any effort. For the rest of us, it is enough that they brainwash us and make us believe in the above statements. Make us believe that our work and our finances are more important than caring about our future. That future is something that they should decide for us, and we are only players on the stage that they choose to provide us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the same way indifference and complacency is contagious, awareness and courage is too. Our feelings of hopelessness and helplessness become often stubborn because we forget that we ourselves contracted those feelings from someone else. And that in exactly the same way, we can participate in spreading the feelings of responsibility, awareness, and courage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Autocracies thrive in ignorance not fear. And autocrats benefit more from those who don’t care that those who are scared. I know this first hand. It’s true that I was only 6 years old at the time of the revolution in Iran that ultimately toppled the Pahlavi regime and handed the reins of power to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"Argues that indifference is a larger enabler of autocrats than fear.","jetpack_seo_html_title":"Autocracies Thrive on Indifference: A Personal Reflection","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8,7],"tags":[314,313,89],"class_list":["post-783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-society","tag-courage","tag-indifference","tag-responsibility"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jaberborran.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jaberborran.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jaberborran.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jaberborran.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jaberborran.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=783"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jaberborran.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":788,"href":"https:\/\/jaberborran.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783\/revisions\/788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jaberborran.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jaberborran.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jaberborran.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}