Repressed

Imagine living life in a prison state. A country where people risk their lives to escape to seek a better life somewhere else. The dictator and his family are worth billions while the regular citizens are barely able to feed themselves.

The government is the thief in the night swallowing up any ability to create wealth and opportunity. They imprison those who complain or caught trying to make their own lives better, political prisoners we call them. A land whose leaders stood against the brutal regime that enslaves you.

Now imagine dreaming of the better place, a land of freedom and opportunity. It is so close to the prison state, yet so far. You know people who have fled, died in the attempt and a few who have made it to the better place. It becomes your dream to escape too.

Now imagine that international celebrities and politicians from that better place come to the prison nation and praise it, saying it is even better than the land of freedom and opportunity. These people are very wealthy and influential yet are using this to encourage your brutal regime, a propaganda coup of the highest order.

It must be extremely dispiriting. It must have brought heartache to those whose loved ones are wasting away in political prisons for the slightest of "crimes against the state". Oh, how the dictator and his circle must laugh. These foreign leaders and celebrities wallow in your sorrows, they enjoy being the toast of the elite and care not one bit about the regular people there.

In no uncertain way, these foreigners are joined in the repression. The repression of the hopes and desperate dreams of the inmates of that prison state. They revel in the musical clangs of your shackles.

That all happens too often in real life and we can apply that to science fiction and other genres.