By Sahayaraj Stanley, SJ
Some books make you smile, some make you frown, and some make you think deeper and give you a cerebral rejuvenation! The Revenge of Power by Moises Naim belongs to the third category.
Moises Naim is a distinguished Venezuelan writer. In 2013, the British magazine Prospect listed Naím as one of the world’s leading thinkers. Moises Naim served as the editor-in-chief of Foreign Policy magazine for 14 years (1996-2010). A former Minister of Trade and Industry in Venezuela, and Director of its Central Bank, he served also as the Executive Director of the World Bank.
His book, The Revenge of Power has a subtitle: How Autocrats are Reinventing Politics for the 21st Century. The book begins with this compelling portrayal: Free societies all around the world face an implacable new enemy. This foe has no army, no navy; it comes from no country we can point to, on a map. It is everywhere and nowhere, because it is not out there, but in here. What is this new enemy? Naim says that the answer is power, in a malignant, new form.
The book has 11 chapters, excluding an interesting introduction and an afterword. The chapters are divided into two main parts. The first part, consisting of four chapters, deals with the three ‘P’s, namely, Populism, Polarization, and Post-Truth. The second part consists of 7 chapters. They talk about a world made safe for autocracy.
Naim’s exhaustive analysis goes through the maze of corporate power, anti-politics, mafia states, and criminal governments. He also elaborates on how the pandemic helped the autocrats to consolidate power, and the last chapter zeroes in on the five battles that we need to win to safeguard democracy.
Naim makes us see the gradual shift in world politics towards autocracy. What is alarming is that this phenomenon is not restricted to one geographical area or in one particular country – it is the world over!
Naim makes us see the gradual shift in world politics towards autocracy. What is alarming is that this phenomenon is not restricted to one geographical area or in one particular country – it is the world over!
Leaders across the globe, from Putin to Modi, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez to Hungary’s Victor Orban, Brazil’s former President, Jair Bolsonaro to Turkey’s Erdoğan, all play or have played this same power game of manipulating people. Naim calls these megalomaniacs the ‘3P Autocrats’.
Who is a 3P Autocrat? 3P autocrats are political leaders who reach power through a reasonably democratic election and then set out to dismantle the checks on executive power through the above-mentioned 3Ps – populism, polarization, and post-truth. As they consolidate their power, they cloak their autocratic plans behind walls of secrecy, bureaucratic obfuscation, pseudo-legal subterfuge, manipulation of public opinion, and the repression of critics and adversaries. When their mask comes off, it’s too late.
Populism projects them as messianic leaders. This 3P leader is everywhere; he occupies the public space – front and centre, developing a deeply personal bond with his followers that shields him from the formal, lawful demands for accountability. Stealth and spectacle work together to deceive people. A meticulously planned strategy is used to create a ‘fandom’. These crazy fans identify themselves with the 3P luminary. What is more dangerous is the hatred they build for the other party, which sows dangerous seeds of polarization in society.
Naim lucidly points out how the 3P Autocrat works, hands-in-glove with the mega tech companies that wield their influence far and wide. When the power and prowess of the digital giants are used to spread disinformation, embedded fake news, and tools of sheer propaganda, then gullible citizens become their innocent victims.
Naim writes that one of the most sophisticated subversive is the invention of GONGOs. A GONGO is a government-organized non-governmental organization. Naim says that today there is a mushroom growth of fake NGOs, and many of them are GONGOs. Don’t we have plenty of them in India?
People of the Lie is one of the famous books written by the psychiatrist, Scott Peck. He writes about the ‘evil’ nature of this category of people. In Revenge of Power, Moises Naim writes: “Politicians lie….they have lied since time immemorial! The art of ‘lying’ gets sophisticated in this century with other types of digital mastery and a knack for maligning and mudslinging with bits, bytes, and pixels. Reality is reconstructed and we are forced to live in the post-truth era!”
As they consolidate their power, they cloak their autocratic plans behind walls of secrecy, bureaucratic obfuscation, pseudo-legal subterfuge, manipulation of public opinion, and the repression of critics and adversaries.
Naim points out that in the twenty-first century, new autocratic regimes typically emerge not by toppling democracies via force but by posing as democracies! This is an absolute abuse of power and office, and a nosedive and democratic backsliding! Naim points out that the 3P power is a malignant form of power, incompatible with the democratic values at the centre of any free society. It hides until it no longer needs to hide. Then it strikes. And by the time this type of power sets aside the cloak of stealth, it’s often too late.
In the last chapter, Naim writes about the strategy to win back the soul of democracy. In the opinion of Naim, we need five battles to win:
1. The battle against the Big Lie. People should be taught to sift truth from lies – We need digital hygiene to be informed and responsive citizens.
2. The battle against criminalized governments. We need to expose the planned ‘reputation laundering’. We need to find out fake charities, and other mechanizations of these autocrats, name them, and shame them.
3. The battle against autocracies that seek to undermine democracies. We need to make collective, mutually supportive commitments to stand up for democracy.
4. The battle against political cartels that stifle competition. We need to ensure fair and lawful political competition and insist on impartial courts and checks on executive power.
5. The battle against illiberal narratives. We need to keep telling people that the rhetoric of the 3P autocrat is shallow and hollow. This hollowness could give us an opening we must exploit to convince people once more of the promises of democracy.
The book ends with a cautionary note. Naim says, “Winning the war against 3P autocrats will require the revolutionary courage and creativity that gave birth to modern representative democracy in the first place. If we fail, we’ll bequeath our children and grandchildren a world that gradually drifts away from the principles of freedom and self-government that ought to be their birthright. And so, win this war we must”.
Revenge of Power has become popular with Jesuits all over, for the simple reason that the Jesuit General, Fr. Arturo Sosa made a reference to this book in his address on De Statu Societatis at the recent 71st Congregation of Procurators, held in Loyola, Spain. In my view, this book is a must-read for anyone who cares for the future of democratic countries. All those who want their freedoms guaranteed by a democracy should read this book to become aware of the malicious shenanigans of autocrats who allure people into their shoddy snares and devour them without mercy. Obviously, one who sups with the devil should have a long spoon and needs to know how to destroy the devil before devouring the soup!
Fr. Sahayaraj Stanley, SJ (MDU) holds a licentiate in Moral Theology from Accademia Alfonsiana, Rome, and a doctorate from the State University of Innsbruck, Austria. He is the Academic Director of Arul Kadal, the Jesuit Formation Centre for Theology in Chennai. He teaches courses on Moral Theology and Ethics.