The Narratives – Mohamed Miah

Mohamed Miah|The Narratives

The Pattern We Keep Ignoring

I keep thinking about 2008. Not just the financial crash itself, but what surrounded it. The wars, the borrowing, the excuses, and then ordinary people being told to pay for decisions made far above their heads. People lost homes, jobs, savings and security, while the systems that helped create the disaster were protected.

And now, looking at the world again, it feels like the same pattern is forming in front of us.

First come the wars, then the financial crash. Governments overspend on the military and underspend at home. They borrow too much, gamble too much, and convince themselves that once they win those wars, they will gain access to resources, riches, influence and control. This is not some new political idea. It is the same old colonial concept that has plagued humanity from the beginning of time: the lust for wealth, land, power and domination.

The language changes depending on the era. Once it was empire and civilisation. Then it became freedom and democracy. Now it is security, stability, national interest and defence. But underneath all the speeches and polished language, the same sin remains: greed. Human beings in power convince themselves that violence abroad can secure prosperity at home, and that the suffering of strangers is an acceptable price for national advantage.

Feed the War Machine, Starve the People

The contradiction is obvious when you really look at it. Governments tell the public there is no money for welfare, no money for healthcare, no money for the NHS, no money for Medicare, no money for housing, and no money to properly support ordinary people. Yet there is always money for weapons, military contracts, defence technology, surveillance systems, foreign intervention and geopolitical games that the average person never asked for.

This is where the phrase “feed the war machine” becomes more than just rhetoric. It describes a system where public money is constantly made available for destruction, while compassion is treated as unaffordable. The same state that claims it cannot care for the sick, the elderly, the poor or the vulnerable somehow finds endless resources when the objective is to bomb, invade, occupy, threaten, monitor or control. That tells us something uncomfortable about priorities.

Then when the economy begins to crack under the weight of debt, corruption and reckless spending, ordinary people are told to tighten their belts. Welfare is cut. Healthcare is strained. Public services are weakened. Families are made to carry the burden of decisions made by politicians, bankers, corporations, military planners and profiteers. Those who had no say in the wars are the ones expected to pay for them.

The Modern Colonial Mindset

Colonialism never truly disappeared. It adapted. Where empires once marched with flags, ships and armies, modern power often works through debt, sanctions, military bases, corporate contracts, resource extraction, intelligence operations and political pressure. The aim remains familiar: control the land, control the resources, control the people, and control the future.

In the old world, colonial powers openly seized territory and extracted wealth. In the modern world, control can be achieved without always needing direct occupation. A nation can be weakened through debt, pressured through sanctions, destabilised through political interference, or made dependent through corporate systems that extract value while leaving ordinary people poorer. This is colonialism in a suit, carrying a laptop instead of a rifle.

The public is rarely told this honestly. They are told intervention is necessary, that enemies must be defeated, that freedom must be defended, and that national security is at stake. Sometimes threats are real, but that does not remove the deeper question: who profits from the response? If every crisis creates new contracts, new weapons sales, new surveillance powers and new opportunities for extraction, then we have to ask whether peace is really the goal.

When the Economy Breaks

War is expensive. Empire is expensive. Military expansion is expensive. Governments borrow, spend and gamble, often believing that strategic victories will eventually repay the cost through resources, influence, contracts or global positioning. But this is a dangerous game, because the bill always comes due, and it is rarely paid by the people who created it.

When the system cracks, financial crises emerge. Banks are protected. Markets are stabilised. Corporations are rescued. The language becomes technical and cold, but the human cost is very real. Homes become unaffordable, wages stagnate, pensions weaken, public services decline, and working families are pushed into survival mode. The people at the top call it adjustment. Ordinary people experience it as fear.

This is why financial crashes cannot be separated from the wider moral condition of society. A society that can spend endlessly on war but cannot house its people has already revealed its sickness. A society that can rescue banks but not families has already shown who it serves. A society that cuts welfare while expanding military budgets is not simply making economic choices; it is making moral choices.

Silence the People With Morals

While all this happens, the people who still object on moral grounds are often treated as the problem. Protesters who stand against war, injustice, corruption and oppression are labelled disruptive, extreme, dangerous or unpatriotic. Their conscience becomes inconvenient because it interrupts the story being sold to the public.

This is one of the most disturbing parts of the modern system. It does not fear criminality in the same way it fears moral clarity. A person committing a crime can be processed, filed, imprisoned or released. But a person with conscience can awaken others. They can expose hypocrisy, challenge propaganda, and remind the public that legality and morality are not always the same thing.

That is why protest is so often targeted. It is not because every protester is dangerous. It is because protest challenges the illusion of consent. It shows that not everyone agrees with what is being done in their name, with their taxes, and under the banner of their national flag. For governments that depend on public silence, moral resistance becomes a threat.

An Upside Down Justice System

At the same time, there is a growing sense that justice itself has become upside down. Real criminals are sometimes let out early because prisons are overcrowded, public systems are underfunded, and governments have failed to manage the consequences of their own policies. The result is a society where ordinary people feel less protected, while those who speak out politically may feel increasingly watched.

This contradiction creates deep anger. The state can appear weak where it should be firm, and aggressive where it should show restraint. It struggles to prevent real harm, yet becomes highly efficient at monitoring dissent. It fails to build stable communities, then uses the instability as justification for more control.

When people see this, trust collapses. They begin to feel that the system is not designed to protect the public, but to protect itself. That is dangerous, because once people lose faith in institutions, society becomes easier to manipulate through fear, anger and division.

Policing Freedom With AI and Cameras

The next stage is control. Modern governments increasingly police freedom with AI, cameras, facial recognition, surveillance networks, predictive systems and, when necessary, force. These tools are always introduced using the language of safety and security. The public is told that if they have done nothing wrong, they have nothing to fear. But history tells us that this is a dangerous way to think.

Surveillance systems do not remain neutral simply because they are technological. They reflect the intentions of those who control them. A camera can protect a street, but it can also monitor a protest. AI can identify threats, but it can also profile communities, track behaviour and reinforce political power. Technology is not automatically moral just because it is modern.

This is the uncomfortable truth of our age. The same governments that claim they cannot properly fund hospitals, welfare or public services can still find the money to watch, track and police the population. Streets can be covered in cameras while hospitals struggle. Protesters can be monitored while vulnerable people wait for help. That contrast should concern anyone who cares about freedom.

Fascism Raises the Stakes

This is where fascism begins to raise the stakes. It does not always return wearing the old uniforms or using the same symbols. Modern fascism often arrives through fear, nationalism, scapegoating, surveillance, militarisation and the gradual removal of freedoms. It presents itself as order, strength and protection, especially during times of economic pressure and social instability.

The pattern is familiar. War creates debt. Debt creates hardship. Hardship creates anger. Anger is redirected towards scapegoats. Then authoritarian leaders rise by promising control, punishment and national renewal. The public is encouraged to blame immigrants, minorities, protesters, the poor, foreign enemies or internal traitors, while the powerful people who benefited from the chaos remain untouched.

This is why fascism is so dangerous. It does not only rely on hatred; it relies on exhaustion. When people are tired, frightened and financially squeezed, they may accept things they would once have rejected. They may trade freedom for the promise of security. They may mistake cruelty for strength. They may support repression if they believe it is aimed at someone else.

The New War on the Horizon

There is a new war on the horizon. Maybe they will not call it World War Three. Maybe they will avoid that language because people understand what it means. Maybe it will be remembered as the Great War of our age, not because there is anything great about it, but because of its scale, complexity and consequences.

This may not be one simple war with one battlefield. It may be a wider conflict fought through nations, economies, technology, propaganda, energy, resources, cyber systems, artificial intelligence and financial control. It may be a war where bombs fall in some places while ordinary people elsewhere feel the impact through inflation, surveillance, shortages, censorship, fear and shrinking freedoms.

And once again, ordinary people will be asked to pay for it. They will pay through taxes, cuts, fear, lost freedoms, broken hospitals, weakened welfare and a society where morality is treated as a threat. The people who profit from war will speak of sacrifice, but they will rarely sacrifice themselves.

Final Reflection

The cycle is clear: feed the war machine, cut support at home, silence protesters, expand surveillance, blame outsiders, protect the powerful and punish the poor. This is not progress. It is history repeating with better technology.

The real enemy is not the ordinary immigrant, the protester, the poor person, or the struggling family. The real enemy is greed: the greed of those who profit from war, chaos, debt and division. Until humanity confronts that, the same patterns will continue under new names and new slogans.

I keep coming back to that point because it is the root of everything. Greed makes war look necessary. Greed makes cruelty look practical. Greed makes compassion look unaffordable. Greed convinces powerful people that ordinary lives can be sacrificed for a greater plan that always seems to benefit those already at the top.

If people do not wake up, fascism will not need to kick the door down. It will walk in through fear, dressed as security, while the public are too tired, too divided and too distracted to stop it.