‘The fear comes back to me': Those who fled despots have thoughts on authoritarianism, here and abroad.

Boston Globe

30-04-2025

Valiente is among some local emigrés from countries that have suffered under autocracies who say Rümeysa Öztürk's arrest — apparently for co-writing a pro-Palestinian opinion piece in a student newspaper — alongside President Trump's broader immigration crackdown represents a source of profound unease.
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For some who fled authoritarian regimes, the echoes of the old country in the United States are jarring. They have seen this movie before, and it doesn't end well.
'I unequivocally condemn terrorism in all its forms, but I believe no one should be targeted, detained, or deported without due process — especially not for their political views' explained Valiente, a journalist who said he was abducted near his home, similar to how Öztürk was taken, after covering antigovernment protests in Caracas.
Trump has used the notion of a connection to terrorism to justify the cancelling visas of foreign students, some of
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'It's very dangerous, because many innocent people are going to be suffering,' said Valiente. 'Many are suffering, and even if you have not been arrested yet, we know in our community thousands of people who can't even go to sleep because of the fear and uncertainty.'
In a statement, the White House batted away the idea that Trump's actions could be construed as moving toward authoritarianism.
'There is no greater defender of freedom than President Trump, who signed an Executive Order to protect free speech on his first day back in office, ended the weaponization of justice, restored over 400 press passes to the White House complex, and takes media questions daily,' said spokesperson Anna Kelly.
But Valiente, a spokesman for the
Panagiota Gounari, a University of Massachusetts Boston linguistics professor who studies authoritarianism, knows how strongmen can influence pillars of the state and erode civil liberties. She grew up in Greece, where a military junta seized the government and ruled for seven years from the late 1960s to 1970s. Gounari was a small child when that dictatorship ended, and so doesn't remember much firsthand. But her parents, both educators, 'lived it in their skin.'
'Curricula were affected, specific ideologies were promoted through schooling, there was surveillance,' she said. 'It was a very, very difficult time for anybody.'
Members of her family were imprisoned, tortured, or exiled, she said. She sees parallels between Trump and that time: 'It's the fear, it's the censorship, it's the retaliation against political opponents.'
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'It's the same feeling of fight or flight,' she said.
The Boston Globe contacted more than 60 individuals and expat organizations who have members who lived through authoritarianism for this story. Many declined to talk, with some saying they did not feel comfortable given the current political moment in the United Startes, despite their legal immigration status.
For Gounari, authoritarianism is 'essentially a form of government that concentrates and exercises power arbitrarily with no regard to the constitution or the rule of law.' Trump, she said, ticks several authoritarian boxes: he refused to accept his defeat in 2020, deals in fear-mongering, creates
She thought he drew from the political playbooks of right-wing leaders like
In Venezuela, he was a congressman and a vice president of parliament. He led a peaceful political resistance against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in 2017, and was politically persecuted, spending three years essentially under house arrest at the Chilean embassy in Caracas before he was thrown in jail by the Maduro regime, he said. He can't return to his home in Venezuela.
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For Guevara, a hallmark of autocracy is 'the absence of dialogue with the other.' In other words, framing the political opposition as the enemy.
Polarization, where people live in a political bubble and demonize those who have different viewpoints, can foster the conditions where authoritarianism is possible and creates a reinforcing effect, said Guevara. Such dynamics can be dangerous, he said.
'It becomes a vicious cycle in which societies get more and more divided, serving mainly the purpose of autocrats, who need to demonize the other side as a precondition to take 'extra institutional' measures to protect 'the people' from 'the enemy,'' he said.
'All sides claim they are defending democracy,' he said.
The encroachment of authoritarianism occurs, 'when you have leaders who have some kind of charisma that elicits blind following from members of the administration either because of fear or because of the sharing of certain type of ideology,' said Charlot Lucien, a 60-year-old Massachusetts poet and history instructor who grew up in Haiti under dictatorships known for their oppression and brutality.
François Duvalier and his son Jean-Claude Duvalier, known as 'Papa Doc' and 'Baby Doc' respectively, used violence as a tool to squash dissent.
In Haiti, the Duvaliers controlled the political institutions, including the elections, and held sway over systems including higher education, according to Lucien.
'Demagoguery was a tool used to [present] a more palatable understanding of what was still an authoritarian regime,' said Lucien of Baby Doc.
Newton resident Simona Coborzan was 11 years old when Romania's communist despot Nicolae Ceaușescu was executed by firing squad on Christmas Day 1989.
'As a schoolgirl, I noticed right away that things changed — his portrait and other symbols of his regime were removed from every classroom," she said. 'We no longer had to start each school day listing all the roles Ceaușescu held — he controlled the legislature, executive, and judiciary."
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Under Ceaușescu, Coborzan's grandfather was put under house arrest simply for owning 'too much land,' she said. Trump's administration, she said, reminds her of that era in her native Romania.
'The cult of personality is strikingly similar — so many flags, symbols, and slogans centered on one man," she said.
Trump's insistence that the nation would enter
'Ceaușescu used the exact same phrase to describe life in Romania—saying we were
Trump's
'His contempt for democratic institutions and norms mirrors what I saw in my childhood: a single man trying to rewrite the rules of democracy to serve his personal power,' she said.
Alberto Calvo, a 73-year-old retired engineer from Newton, grew up in Cuba. His father, fearful Calvo would be indoctrinated into
'He killed a lot of people, that's for sure,' he said.
Trump, he said, certainly has an authoritarian bent, but without total control and loyalty of the military, Calvo did not think the United States could become an authoritarian state.
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'I don't think he can establish it here,' he said.
Still, he said Trump is haphazard in his decision-making, adding that he's never seen a president quite like the current one: 'It's interesting times we live in.'
Danny McDonald can be reached at