The resurgence of despotic regimes

dr.max
dr.max
Aug 28, 2017 · 5 min read

When I was young, growing up in Duvalier’s Haiti, I never understood that we had a despot ruling the country. You could forgive my naïveté by my young age; but also because, while there appear to be indication here and there that calling Jean-Claude Duvalier “president for life” seems to be out of the ordinary, in Port-au-Prince, no one seemed to mind and life went on.

That was not until the 1986 revolution, where out of nowhere, thousands of stories about abuse of power, wide spread corruptions and crimes, would bubble into every conversations. The revolution was bloody and friends who I grew up with knowing as good people, all of a sudden were the enemies…

The people, controlled by the ever growing consuming fire of the revolution was taking their vengeance against the militia that the regime had established as its stronghold. Within a few months, Duvalier and family fled the country and left us with a mess that took decades to stabilize — if one can consider the current state of affair as stable.


Life after our second revolution, transitioned for me, to the most stable form of government in existence. I moved to the United States for college. This was the country, while flawed, I was convinced offered the most established and fair democracy. This view was not only one that my father often praised, but one that I could easily deduce from witnessing the collapse of the Soviet Union, the reunification of Germany, and of the amazing reach and freedom of the press in its borders.

I remember our entire family united around the TV set at night, in 1986, to watch CNN for the “real” news of when Duvalier would depart. CNN knew what was going less than five miles from my house all the way from their headquarters in Atlanta.

It was information we could depend on. It was fair, non-bias, and was disseminated realtime with videos and audio that our own national news channel could not offer. Of course, this was at the brink of the Internet coming into existence, and today, Twitter might be the best channel for such current events.


What is the point of my reminiscing of such memories gone by and of a tumultuous time in my country of birth and of my adolescence. Well it’s simply because I always thought that I would not see this kind of revolution again, in my lifetime. I never thought the world would be again increasingly dominated by despotic regimes… We, as a species, had figured it out, had grown past this authoritarian style of government.

The United States was the shining city on the hill casting its exemplary shadows all over the world. Sure, people complained of western imperialism, but people complain about everything and most of the specific grievances could not be fully substantiated and thus never be taken seriously.

After all, the US system had vanquished Communism, and with Reagan and Clinton and even Bush, we had decent presidents, not at all perfect, but presidents who wanted to spread democracy around the world. They represented the people, and did their best to channel the original genius of Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Hamilton, and Maddison.

This was the country of Abraham Lincoln. While not always fair to all, tried to live the beautiful ideals written at the footstep of the Statue of Liberty and of Jefferson’s immortal declaration. The land of freedom, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.


Sadly, today, all of this is no longer true. We have a president who sympathizes with people trying to keep alive the worst evil we have ever seen in the history of the humanity. A POTUS who ambiguously equates the KKK with people demonstrating against what I thought was a dying ideology. A POTUS who has declared war against my trusty news channel from the South and all news and authority who fail to agree with his twisted narcissistic ways.

While on the surface one could be forgiven for thinking: well the US finally got a despot like the rest of us. It took 45 tries but hey, this was bound to happen with time. The problem is that this comes at a time in world history where the United States is the only super power (military and economy) and the rest of the world still does look up to us for directions.

Donald Trump, has emboldened every despot and want to be despot around the world. Whether it’s Kim Jong-un in North Korea, Duterte in the Philippines, Maduro in Venezuela, or Putin in Russia, there is no stopping the ambitions of men drunk with power who believe they alone can fix the problems facing their country and plaguing their people.

Forget the fact that Trump tries to show a veneer of opposition against some of these leaders, it’s another lie; we know, however, deep down, all of these leaders are one of the same. All hungry for power and self-aggrandizement. By definition, they are all, in their own ways: dictators.

And while life will go on as it did when I was in Haiti during the Duvalier, the true reality and ugly mess will only be divulged to the world when a revolution takes these authoritarian regimes out of the picture, with the people taking to the streets and maybe fighting bloodily to reveal the horrors underneath the veil of lies that is blinding so many.

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dr.max

Written by

dr.max

scientist, engineer, architect; tries to swim, bike, and run; photographer; works at IBM CloudLabs; words are my own

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