Authoritarian threat

by Thomas Tunny, Hamilton

My wife, Alene, and I spent a good part of our professional careers working in international schools around the world. I was the Director of seven schools and Alene was a teacher/administrator in nine schools. My wife is a native of Hamilton. I am from Brooklyn, New York. We met in Caracas, Venezuela more than 30 years ago. We married here in Hamilton, then returned to our jobs in Port of Spain, Trinidad to continue our careers, providing an American education to US government employees stationed overseas, other government and business dependents stationed in those countries, and local citizens of the host country. The countries we worked in were Venezuela (twice), Trinidad and Tobago, Pakistan, Myanmar(formerly Burma), Brazil (twice), Belarus, and the Republic of Georgia. In all but two of these countries (T&T and Brazil), the countries were run by authoritarian rulers or military dictators. 

We have seen our share of what can happen when a country falls under the yolk of an authoritarian ruler. Citizens have no rights in these countries… only those granted by those in power. You are not able to travel freely. You are not able to move from job to job without permission. There are no political parties. Newspapers, television, and radio broadcasts have a one dimensional view, much as we are starting to see here with the defunding of NPR/PBS and actions of CBS TV. Everyone swears allegiance to those in charge. Prices for goods and services are set by the party. Our phones and computers were monitored. In some countries, like Myanmar, a military dictatorship, our phones were hacked and messages were deleted. In Belarus, local students were not allowed to attend the “American school” for fear of brainwashing! President Lukashenko of Belarus has been reelected several times with over 85% of the vote. He is known as “the last dictator of Europe”. We were in Lahore, Pakistan during the 9/11 attack in New York City. All Americans and other nationalities at the school were evacuated for fear of what the military junta might decide to do with us! These countries do not have any notion of “globalism”. The leaders are only interested in staying in power and becoming wealthy on the backs of their citizens. 

I mention all this because I fear our country is going in a similar direction… and it will happen here before we know it! It is happening now! 

The Executive branch (Trump) does whatever it wants. The Supreme Court upholds whatever the Executive branch wants. And the Legislative branch, on the Republican side, is controlled by a bunch of puppets looking for that one single smile from President Trump! 

America is better than this!