I contemplate the crisis of justice when it intersects with the strict logic of power—within the state and within the international system alike. And I invite the conscious public to a frank, painful, and honest reading of the relationship between weapons and authority, money and law, and principles and the tools used to enforce them in reality. A reading that goes to the roots of the existential dilemma in the nature of governance and control.
At the core of political philosophy lies an age-old question: What makes laws binding? Is it enough to agree on written texts to guarantee justice? Or is it that behind every law stands someone who possesses the power to enforce or suspend it? And can justice truly flourish in a world where the tools of power are so unevenly distributed?
Why does justice fail us when weapons and money unite against constitutions?
Let us begin with a symbolic image that summarizes the tragedy of this complex question:
If you hold a gun and I hold a gun, we can talk about law.
If you hold a knife and I hold a knife, we can negotiate rules.
If we come empty-handed, we can reason together.
But if you hold a gun and I hold nothing, then what you carry is no longer just a weapon—it becomes my life itself.
This, in all its simplicity and brutality, reveals the essence of the relationship between law and power. Justice is not born in a moral vacuum—it first requires balance in the instruments of control. When these tools—whether weapons, money, or political authority—are relatively equal, the law becomes necessary to regulate and stabilize that balance. But when the scales tip dramatically, legal texts turn into ornate façades concealing the brute force of those who hold real power.
This painful truth applies just as much to internal struggles within one state as it does to the vast arena of international politics.
On the global level, the same pattern unfolds—complicated yet fundamentally identical to what happens within states. Leaders speak often of international law, human rights, and the UN Charter. But when have supreme principles ever been upheld when they conflict with the interests of major powers? When armies move, international legitimacy falls silent; when economic might speaks, whatever remains of moral standards collapses. The international system has become an open battlefield where great powers impose rules when they wish and violate them when it suits them—all under the banner of “international law.”
In the Third World, the individual ruler or the group that monopolizes the army and security services and dominates financial structures needs very few legal pretexts to govern. Once a ruler possesses the tools to impose authority and crush opposition, the law becomes a soft mask hiding the iron fist that controls everything. And when money and weapons come together in one hand, dictatorship becomes the natural outcome—no matter how adorned it is with carefully crafted constitutions or decorative parliaments.
So imagine when this fusion of money and weaponry is draped in religious garb and speaks in the name of God!
In such a situation, the only safeguard left for the citizen is the possibility of peaceful transfer of power and the enforcement of separation between the executive authority and the parliamentary and media oversight. Experience has shown that these mechanisms are often disabled in substance while their outward form is preserved to deceive the masses—and to prevent the misuse of religion in governance.
This is the tragedy of justice when its true essence is emptied out and tied not to a balance of rights but to a balance of weapons and wealth.
Some may think this is humanity’s inescapable fate. And like many, I once believed that established democracies offered humanity a promising alternative path. The American model in particular once seemed like a practical demonstration of how to build a system that guarantees peaceful transfer of power, separation of powers, and legal limits on the state’s authority. A solid constitution, an independent judiciary, a free press, periodic elections… components that appeared to be the true safeguards of self-rule.
But recent events in the United States have revealed the other face of this dream. Mega-money networks, arms manufacturers, media barons, and deeply entrenched Zionist influence have succeeded in purchasing political power, transforming the democratic process into a financial contest rather than a fair democratic competition. Those with the most money can now shape public opinion, finance electoral campaigns, buy loyalties within political and administrative institutions—and I can already see signs of erosion in judicial independence.
Thus collapses the very model once thought to be humanity’s refuge in its long struggle against tyranny. Even in the most “democratic” of systems.
At times, I feel personally betrayed by the United States—by its internal transformation that has struck at the principles I fought for for years, and by its external transformation stripped of the very values it once championed: human rights, respect for international institutions, globalization, and so on.
Are we then facing a historical inevitability in which dictatorship always prevails because it controls both the military and the money—and uses religion whenever it chooses?
In the depths of political philosophy, there is no definitive answer—only an open battle.
Power may grant authority, but it cannot guarantee legitimacy.
Money may buy influence, but it cannot create stability.
Oppression may silence people for a while, but it leaves behind a boiling anger that eventually erupts at a decisive moment.
The way out of this crisis begins with the awareness of the people. It is not enough to have written constitutions—there must be vigilant minds that monitor, hold accountable, and protect state institutions from being hijacked. The greatest danger to freedom is not the existence of power itself, but the absence of popular and global consciousness that ensures a balance of power.
For law without balanced power remains mere ink on paper; power without legitimacy is a fire beneath the ashes; and freedom without awareness becomes an invitation to disguised servitude.
History has taught us that every tyranny—however long it lasts—eventually collapses before the will of awakened people. The one thing oppressive regimes, local or international, fear most is the awakening of minds, for free ideas are more dangerous than armies. In the end, only enlightened people truly possess the right to decide who governs and how they govern.
In an age where what we once thought were fortresses of law and justice is crumbling, philosophy reminds us that every system of governance remains hostage to the real forces behind its texts. And it is the people alone who can rewrite the equation when they realize where true power lies—not in weapons, nor in money, nor in the fusion of religion and politics, but in free, enlightened minds.
During a discussion about this article before publication, a thinker friend told me:
I appreciate your philosophical attempt to deconstruct the relationship between law and power, and to show how the text becomes a mask for authority when balance is absent. But I paused at your conclusion, where you placed popular awareness as the final solution and refuge. And here a pressing question arises: where does this awareness even come from?
How can we expect awareness from a people deprived of free education, immersed in daily repression, trapped between two prisons: the prison of a brutal dictatorship on one side, and the prison of a state that manipulates religion for politics on the other? How can we ask a society subjected to every tool of cultural and intellectual destruction to suddenly rise into enlightenment?
The bet on popular awareness is beautiful—but the question remains: How is this awareness created?
In my view, there are three essential pillars:
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Reforming education:
There is no awareness without schools and universities that liberate the mind and build critical thinking, instead of serving as tools to domesticate generations. -
The role of the elite:
Societies do not rise out of nothing; they need intellectuals, a free press, and creative arts to open windows and plant the first seeds of awareness. -
Breaking the two prisons:
No collective awareness can flourish under the double grip of tyrannical authority and politicized religion. Unless this grip is loosened, awareness will remain trapped in a closed circle.
If the law needs a balance of power to survive, awareness needs someone to plant its first seed in order to grow.
