We are told that technology liberates us. It makes life faster, smoother, more efficient. It connects the world, democratises opportunity, and places unprecedented power in the hands of ordinary people. But beneath this comforting narrative lies an increasingly uncomfortable truth: modern society has quietly surrendered its autonomy to systems it neither controls nor fully understand. From banking to healthcare, transport to communication, technology no longer merely supports daily life, it governs it. And like all forms of concentrated power, it carries the seeds of coercion, fragility and abuse.
The question we rarely ask is not what technology can do, but what happens when it fails, or when it is deliberately denied?
Is our civilisation balanced on an underwater cable or madman-owned satellites? The modern world runs on an invisible infrastructure: undersea fibre-optic cables, server farms, satellite networks, foreign owned and licenced software and centralised and decentralised data centres. Destroy a cable. Shut down a network. Lock out an authentication system. Everything comes to an end. And frankly, very few would know what to do because there would be no toll free number to call. The consequences are not hypothetical.
If access to the internet were lost, whether through some or other natural phenomena, cyberattacks, sabotage, state action or systemic failure, bank accounts would become inaccessible in an instant. Digital currencies, which include everyone’s bank accounts, would not merely fluctuate; they would vanish. Payment systems would freeze. Salaries would not arrive. Savings? Savings would exist only as corrupted entries on unreachable servers.
We are reassured that backups exist. And they do, until they don’t. History shows that no complex man-made system is immune to cascading failure. Redundancy is not resilience when every layer relies on the same technological foundation. When wealth exists primarily as data, wealth can disappear. Cut access to monolithic data centres and see what happens. So, under the current regime is ownership an illusion? Are assets really real? Technology has redefined ownership into something conditional. You do not truly own your money if access depends on software you do not control. You do not truly own your identity when it exists as a profile governed by terms of service. You do not truly own your voice if it can be silenced by a platform switch or a government order. A society where emails, social media, cloud documents and even medical records can be blocked or erased with a keystroke is not free in any meaningful sense. It is managed. And management drifts naturally towards authoritarianism, not always with malice, but with design.
There is a fear of technology being a possible form of fascism. Fascism does not always arrive in marches or shouted slogans. In its modern form, it can emerge quietly through systems that normalise mass surveillance, restrict movement and enforce compliance, while insisting they are neutral, technical, or “for your safety.”
Mobile phones track location, behaviour and social networks. Drones extend the reach of monitoring and enforcement beyond human presence. AI algorithms decide who is visible, employable, insurable or, believe it or not, suspect. All of this could lead to overt tyranny. It requires only dependence by us on ‘them” not knowing who the “them” may be. Tried call centres lately? All the operatives are automatons. You will seldom reach the same “person” who assisted you the last time. When participation in society requires constant digital authentication, refusal is no longer an option. You leave out one digit in your password and you are sure to have major issues. Opting out simply becomes the equivalent to exile. Ask those who are addicted to social media…
This is not a conspiracy. It is a structural reality.
Ever thought of healthcare, transport and the fragility of life? Nowhere is this dependence more dangerous than in healthcare for example. Medical records increasingly exist only in digital form. Diagnostics, prescriptions, insurance approvals and hospital logistics depend on software systems vulnerable to outage or attack. If those systems fail, care does not merely slow; it stops.
Then, transport systems are similarly exposed. Software controls traffic, aviation, shipping, rail, and fuel distribution. A failure in one sector propagates rapidly to others. When technology collapses, mobility collapses. When mobility collapses, food, medicine, and emergency services follow. What we call “efficiency” is often just the removal of slack, the very thing that allows societies to absorb shocks.
We now have given power without accountability to, in most cases, faceless operatives who could just block your number. Real? Of course. Happens many times.
Perhaps the most troubling aspect of this technological regime is that those who control it are rarely accountable to those who depend on it. Private corporations govern platforms used by billions. Governments can assert kill-switch authority over networks often witnessed when regime change is implemented. Venezuelan President Maduro may have been kidnapped by jamming signals so no one was aware what had occurred until it was too late. Decisions that shape global life are made in boardrooms and security agencies, shielded from any oversight. The rogue Trump government is one example of modern-day fascism on show. The individual, meanwhile, is reduced to a user, licensed and monitored. This asymmetry of power would alarm us in any other context. That it arrives wrapped in convenience and innovation makes it more dangerous, not less.
The rapid rise of technology has outpaced our ethical, legal and, sadly, social frameworks. We deploy tools before we understand their consequences. We normalise dependency before we ask whether it is wise. We trade resilience for speed, our rights for simplicity. And when concerns are raised, they are dismissed as fear of progress.
But scepticism is not technophobia. It is civic responsibility. An issue that must be debated, discussed and addressed before it may be too late.
The solution is not to reject technology, but to resist its monopolisation. We must demand decentralisation, offline alternatives, human overrides and genuine ownership of data and assets. Should we preserve analogue systems not as nostalgia, but as guarantees? Most importantly, we must reassert a simple principle: no system that society cannot live without should be controlled by interests society cannot control.
Technology should serve humanity, not quietly rule it. Because a world that can be switched off is not a world that is free.
Is it too late? I told you so…
* Shabodien Roomanay is the board Chairman of Muslim Views Publication, founding member of the Salt River Heritage Society, and a trustee of the SA Foundation for Islamic Art.
** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of or Independent Media.
