The dark face of power: The dictator and the masses

When we look at history, we encounter so many autocrats and dictators responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.

So, how did these individuals attain the power we speak of, and how did millions view these dictators as "leaders" and even heroes? A further question naturally arising from this is: Can we then explain all this suffering, evil, and even massacres through a single person?

In other words, should we be talking about singular oppression here, or an organized form of oppression?

I am talking about the organized form of evil. Because if oppression has become implemented at a mass level, we cannot limit the perpetrator to one or a few people. This is because in such a political atmosphere, there are masses backing the perpetrators. The masses we speak of, influenced by various propaganda and rhetoric, in some way consent to the environment of oppression, and beyond that, support this oppression.

Remember Mussolini.

Recall how fascism was accepted by millions of people as an ideology and a form of politics.

In this case, is limiting the subject solely to the leader of fascism enough to explain those pitch-black days?

Think of Hitler and his ideology, Nazism. In this case, is the only thing we should talk about Hitler alone, or the millions of people who made Nazism their compass?

I want to remind you of a historical reality here: After the Second World War, the trials of the extermination process in Germany could only progress to a certain stage. It is after that stage that a serious problem arises regarding the prosecution of the perpetrators. And that is this: Judges with their rulings, bureaucrats with the signatures they put in black-bound ledgers, the press with the propaganda it conducted, even some scientists with the weapons they developed, and ultimately the public with the support they gave to Nazism, were all complicit in the extermination process that took place.

There were almost no judges left in Germany to conduct the trials.

Evil and oppression poisoned the German people like a contagious disease, and this poison, which seized minds and consciences, caused massacres in proportion to the offices it occupied.

In this case, how were the perpetrators to be weeded out, and how was this great stain on the forehead of a people to be cleansed? This question also stood before history, life, and humanity.

As power turned into poison and became mass-based, it made not only the holders of power but also the millions who supported it "perpetrators."

In this case, our problem was not just fascism or Nazism.

The fundamental problem we have faced from ancient history to the present day was the phenomenon of power and authority.

Evil was organized from here, privileges and prerogatives were seized from here, and all those crimes were committed precisely to avoid losing power and authority.

The uniform of fascism was not the black shirts, but actually power and authority.

The symbol of Nazism was not the swastika, but the crimes committed at a mass level, the organized network of evil, and the idol of power that held this entire network of evil together.

To remain in power, dissidents could be declared traitors, the press could be silenced, and when necessary, even religion could be used to turn an entire country into a prison.

Indeed, all of this happened in history. We are not talking about possible situations, but about events that passed into time with bloody lines.

Another reality as grave as all these experiences is the existence of the masses who consent to oppression. This situation alone is a mutilation of humanity and a shame of life.

How many times has history tested humanity with this shame.

It gave lessons, it showed the direction.

The bodies that perished in concentration camps became a torch to this shame experienced and left humanity alone with its greatest lesson.

Power could turn into poison, and authority could be the nourishment for all crimes.

To recognize fascism, we needed to look not at the clothes worn or the symbols carried, but at the policies implemented and the crimes committed.

Otherwise, neither fascism nor fascists would ever be exhausted.

The clothes worn would change according to the country, the names of the parties would differ, time would pass, but the network of evil organized around single men would always remain the same.

Because they bowed before power and worshipped authority.

Not one person, but millions of people were committing this crime, either openly or implicitly.

This was the unchanging truth.