We, the Architects of Our Own Chains

More about We, the Architects of Our Own Chains

We, the ones at the bottom, are the ones who crown those at the top. This is the fundamental irony of our time, a tragic cycle that endlessly repeats itself on the stage of politics and in the arena of public opinion. We are a people that has been benevolently divided—not by chance, but by design. This division is the most efficient mechanism of rule: a fractured people is easier to govern, for in instability, a hundred opinions spring up that cannot find a common denominator.

We, who bear the burden of this rule, who know the bitter taste of uncertainty, who lie awake at night wondering how to pay the rent and the bills, are paradoxically also the ones who passionately defend the very system that oppresses us. We applaud the kings who grant themselves lives of unimaginable luxury with our own tax money. We celebrate their charitable donations as signs of great generosity, without seeing that it is merely a drop returned from the ocean we ourselves fill.

We are not "us" and "them." These artificial dividing lines—left vs. right, old vs. young, native vs. immigrant—are merely the cleverly constructed walls of a single, large prison. In truth, we are all one, only shattered into smaller, manageable units that are busy feuding with each other instead of recognizing the true architects of their condition.

A virus has been unleashed upon us, an invisible pathogen of the capitalist world order. It is a virus that declares greed a virtue and compassion a weakness. And like a body, the people fight back. It struggles, it feverishly tries to shake off the pathogen. But the body is confused; it no longer knows which of these symptoms is the disease and which is the immune response. We can no longer distinguish friend from foe because the true enemy has made us see each other as the greatest threat.

So we argue. We insult each other in comment sections, we scream at each other on the street, we clash in agitated protests, and in the worst cases, we kill each other over ideologies fed to us from the same source. We rail against each other, the poor against the poorer, digging the trench of our own powerlessness ever deeper.

And those at the top? They watch us. They observe the spectacle of the divided masses, this great, tragic theater of distraction. They lean back in their floating spheres of wealth, untouched by the hardship they administer, and they smile. They are pleased that their plan is working. For as long as we are busy blaming each other, we will never find the strength and unity to question the true sources of our oppression. Our fight against one another is their guarantee of peace and their undisturbed privilege. We are the prisoners acting as guards for our own cage.
- © Ferit Sahin