The Tyrants’ Game 

The Tyrants’ Game   -   in Persian   بازیِ ستمگران 

By: John Kazerooni

Once upon a time, in a quiet corner of the world, there lived a nation guided not by its people, but by unseen hands. No foreign flags waved in its streets, no soldiers marched openly through its cities, yet every decision followed lines drawn far away—beyond the sight and voice of ordinary lives. 

The people lived modestly. Many were poor. Many were afraid. Speaking freely was not bravery; it was danger. The nation was ruled by a rigid ideology, inherited and mirrored in the mind of its leader from the founders who came before him. It did more than govern laws—it claimed minds and souls. To question it was to vanish. To disagree was to be erased.

The ruler believed himself chosen. Not simply to rule, but to protect “purity.” His ideology offered certainty in a fragile world. It divided the people into the loyal and the unworthy. Safety, wealth, and opportunity belonged only to obedience. Justice obeyed power. Life itself was measured by silence.

Beyond the borders, the colonial power watched patiently. It saw profit where suffering grew. Sanctions were not meant to ease pain, but to deepen it. Isolation became a strategy. Chaos became leverage. While the nation weakened, the colonial empire sold its resources with its set price across the world. Markets remained calm. Profits stayed secure. Words of morality were spoken aloud, while cruelty worked quietly in the background.

Years passed. Resistance rose again and again. Students marched and disappeared. Workers gathered and were crushed. Mothers asked for bread and buried their children. Funerals turned into protests. Protests turned into funerals.

Voices tried to reach the world, but communication was cut. Phones went silent. Messages vanished into darkness. Nations that spoke of human rights chose caution instead of courage. Embassies stayed open. Relationships remained intact. Silence became protection—not for the people, but for power.

The darkness deepened. Young men were dragged from their homes. Young girls, still learning life, were violated. Innocence became a battlefield. Trauma was hidden beneath slogans, denials, and fear.

Yet hope bent—it did not break.

Once again, the people rose. Not suddenly, but after decades of endurance. Not with weapons, but with voices shaped by loss. They asked for dignity. For justice. For the simple right to live without fear. This was not ambition. It was exhaustion.

But freedom threatened more than one power.

The colonial leader stepped forward and publicly supported the protesters. The world heard words of solidarity. But it was no accident. It was a calculation. The empire knew the ruler well—his fear, his obsession with enemies. They knew such support would not protect the people. It would expose them.

And it did!

The ruler seized the moment. The protesters were named “foreign agents.” Doubt disappeared among his supporters. Violence became duty. Mercy became betrayal. The revolution was turned into an excuse.

What followed was not control—it was massacre.

Thousands were killed. Young men vanished. Young girls were violated. Dreams were buried. Fear grew stronger. Power tightened its grip. The colonial power watched quietly. Its goals were met. Influence remained. Markets stayed steady.

Only the people lost.

When questioned, the colonial leader spoke calmly:

“He promised me he would not hang anyone.”

And the ruler replied without shame:

“I kept my promise. I did not hang them—but I never promised not to execute them.”

Executions continued. Bullets replaced words. Language was twisted. Promises became loopholes. Morality shrank into grammar.

And this pattern repeated—across years, borders, and regimes. Dictators reshaped revolutions to serve themselves. Empires turned suffering into strategy. Each spoke of peace while standing on graves.

Yet injustice never truly disappears.

Ashes remember fire. Blood remembers names. Pain remembers faces.

Time does not erase the truth. It only delays its return. Power can silence voices, but it cannot erase memory. What is done in darkness carries weight—and that weight always comes back.

One day, history shifted. The people rose again—not because they forgot, but because they remembered. Freedom returned slowly, fragile and scarred, yet real. They reclaimed not only liberty, but their humanity—from those who had turned lives into tools.

History teaches us this: foreign intervention rarely saves a revolution. Often, it ignites destruction instead.

One may ask why free nations did not close embassies, end relations, and send a clear signal to the dictator. Such actions might have saved lives. They might have forced restraint.

The answer is simple and painful: self-interest speaks louder than justice.

They speak of peace when it costs them nothing. They speak of stability while others bleed.

Too often, revolutions are redirected not for freedom, but for gain. Neighbors circle like wolves, not to help, but to claim a share.

And still, one question remains—heavy and unanswered:

Who answers for the blood?

For the stolen childhoods?

For the broken lives left behind by leaders fluent in the language of peace and victory?

Perhaps justice will never arrive through courts or treaties.

Perhaps it lives in memory.

And perhaps remembering—clearly, honestly, without forced forgiveness—is the first judgment that no empire, no ideology, and no tyrant can ever escape.

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