Ash Aujla

Them: So whats the plan?
Me:

I wonder how often we numb ourselves instead of creating...

Self-centred people are usually the most miserable. Just an observation. #mentalhealth

I'm finding it increasingly difficult to stay on any mainstream tech platform. Each and every single one of them has ties to Mordor. Each and every single one of them have effectively trapped. They didnt call it the world wide web for nothing. You know what makes webs? yeah, the bloody spiders.

The news is heavy. Reality doesn't feel real sometimes these days. But I do want to let you know that it's ok to turn it off. We were not meant to carry so many burdens. There is so much beauty, kindness and magic in the world, and the news makes it look like there is nothing good out there.

Been on an absolute bender since coming back from holiday. Kids back to school, lunches, birthdays, socializing, pickups and dropoffs, dinners, morning routines, evening routines, work deadlines, and the crushing pressure of late-stage capitalism. Godspeed to all the working parents out there.

At 18, I thought I’d save the world.

By 22, I realized the world didn’t want to be saved. It wanted to keep running on myths.

Now I know: power doesn’t move when you appeal to it.

It moves when you disrupt it. #SchoolOfPower

— end —

So no, silence isn’t always complicity.

Sometimes silence is discernment. Integrity. Refusal to play the optics game.

The real question isn’t: did you speak?
It’s: did you do what mattered?

Research shows this: when just 3.5% of a population engages in sustained nonviolent protest, movements almost always succeed.

3.5%. That’s all it takes to tip a system.

Real power is messy, risky, disruptive.

Strikes. Boycotts. Whistleblowers. Mutual aid. Protests that shut things down.

That’s what systems fear. Not hashtags.

Fake power looks like petitions, hashtags, letters to officials, awareness campaigns.

It feels good. Looks good. But rarely changes anything. 99% of petitions never reach a response threshold.

#Power

And this is why, today, I see social media moral policing “say something, your silence speaks volumes” as the same trap.

We’ve been sold fake versions of power.

That’s when it clicked. Development is an industry.

It doesn’t want to end poverty, because poverty is its business model. It doesn’t want empowerment, because dependency keeps contracts flowing.

Then came my final lecture.

My (ridiculously hot) professor stood up and told us:

If you go into this field, you won’t be saving the world. You’ll be contributing to the mess.

Mic. Drop.

In Afghanistan, by 2008, 40% of aid money circled straight back to donor nations.

Billions pledged. Billions spent. But little translated into real improvements for Afghans.

Aid didn’t end poverty. It managed it and just enough to keep the system humming.

Fake foreign aid. On paper, generosity. In practice, a boomerang.

In 2020, only 32% of aid was actually managed by local governments. The rest stayed in the orbit of donor countries through consultants, NGOs, contractors.

I bought into it at first. Lectures on GDP growth, poverty reduction, literacy stats.

It felt like a roadmap to justice.

But by year two, the cracks showed. Every project came with strings. Every success story looked different when you zoomed out.

1980s photo of Bono in a Feed the World T-shirt — the era when charity became a brand and Africa was the backdrop for Western virtue.

I grew up seeing images like this. The West framed as rescuer, Africa framed as broken. It took years to realize who that story really served. (This is a photo of the band U2 in the 80's)

International Development sounds noble.

People would light up when I said it: wow, so inspiring, you’re going to help people.

But baked into the field was a hierarchy: the West as savior, the Global South as broken. Colonialism rebranded with NGOs and conferences.

🔥 HOT TAKE: When I was 18, I thought I could save the world.

I chose International Development Studies because it felt like a degree in hope. I thought I’d learn how to dismantle oppression.

Instead, I learned how power works and how “saving the world” is often a scam. 🧵 #SchoolOfPower

Never ever.

We’ve been sold activism lite.

But the real fight?

It starts where comfort ends.

Politeness doesn’t change power.

Disruption does.

Ungovernability does.

Building outside the system does.

So next time someone tells you to “speak up”…

Ask:

Does this action soothe me?

Or does it scare the system?

Real power is messy. Risky. Uncomfortable.
But it’s the only kind that Evil respects.

Why are we fed fake power?

Because it’s safe.

It keeps you obedient, hopeful, and busy.

You feel righteous, but nothing actually shifts.

Real power = what systems fear:

- Disrupted money flows.
- Withheld labour.
- Exposure and leaks.
- Parallel systems.
- Mass disruption.

Everything else is just noise.

Fake power = what you’re told works:
– signing petitions
– writing your councillor
– voting every few years
– awareness campaigns

Looks good. Feels good. Changes little.

Systems don’t change because you asked nicely.
They change when you interrupt their money, their control, or their credibility.

We’ve been sold a fake version of power.

Write a letter.
Sign a petition.
Post a hashtag.
Wait for the system to listen.

That’s not power. That’s pacification. 🧵

#systemsofpower #powertothepeople #activism