Perhaps you have heard about a man such as Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador. He looks cool: he rolled Bitcoin into the country, reduced crime almost to zero, destroyed the gangs. Sounds like success, right? But there is one major problem: in the process, he essentially transformed the entire country into one enormous prison.
Briefly: since March 2022, a “state of emergency” has been in effect in El Salvador. Sounds formal? Well, imagine that the police can arrest you right on the street simply for appearing suspicious. And this is not an exaggeration. Over two years of such a regime, more than 85 thousand people have been arrested. That’s 1% of the entire population. Imagine, one in every hundred families has lost someone close to them behind bars. Justice? Let’s forget about it! Courts take place in groups of 500 people, where you are given a sentence of 15-20 years in just 5 minutes. Guilty or not, nobody really figures it out. Orwell is smoking on the sidelines.
Incidentally, you can also end up in this “wonderful” statistics for criticizing the regime. Journalists and human rights activists regularly face threats, phone hacking through the Pegasus spy program (a greeting to Israeli intelligence services) and even have to flee the country because they don’t want to spend 15 years in jail for a report about a gang.
Instead of fighting violence like in developed countries (strengthening courts, working on education, creating jobs) or taking an innovative technological path (in the direction of treating violent criminals with means to strengthen the mechanism of inhibiting violence), Bukele chose the shortest way – mass repression and force suppressing all who impede him. Crime has decreased, yes. But now all of El Salvador is one huge zone of fear, where criminals have been replaced by the military and police.
Incidentally, let’s remember old Benjamin Franklin: “Those who sacrifice liberty for temporary security do not deserve either one.” In El Salvador, they sacrificed literally everything for an illusory stability. What comes next? Today the troops come for gangs, tomorrow they will come for the opposition, and after tomorrow – for you if you happen to become inconvenient.
History has already shown us time and again: a state, once it feels limitless power, never voluntarily relinquishes it. Of course, we all want security and order. But the price shouldn’t be equal to destroying civil liberties and turning society into a herd of frightened sheep. And you know what’s the worst thing? Bukele destroyed practically all independent institutions under the guise of fighting the Bukele gangs. Courts? Now completely controlled by the president. Parliament? It stamps out any laws, even the most absurd ones. Freedom of speech? Forget about it. Any mention of gangs or criticism of the government now can end with charges of “supporting terrorism.” And don’t forget about the “foreign agent” law, which El Salvador copied from Russia and Nicaragua. NGOs and independent media are required to pay huge taxes if they receive money from abroad. All in order to drown out uncomfortable voices and destroy any dissent.
Speaking of such “freedom” of business: under Bukele, police can easily confiscate your phone, money or car if you don’t please them. And there are no courts – because the judicial system simply stamps out decisions that suit the president. But Bitcoin is legal! True, who will buy it if your money can vanish without a trace? And this will certainly happen if you buy crypto on legitimate exchanges with KYC, revealing your identity and thus becoming vulnerable to raids by security forces who already know where to come.
Bukele assures us that he’s protecting people from bandits, but instead he simply replaced criminal lawlessness with the state. Suppressing rights and freedoms, power only sows new seeds of violence and resentment, which inevitably will give their poisonous fruits in the future. Therefore, remember that a state machine, once it tastes absolute power, usually turns into a monster that devours its own citizens, even the most loyal ones. And El Salvador is a striking example of this.
