How Divide and Rule Works

It is impossible for a few thousand officials to govern a huge territory directly. So intermediaries are needed: people who collect taxes, recruit soldiers, and maintain order locally.

From there, the mechanism runs on its own. The intermediary clings to its position because losing power means losing everything; everyone else sees the intermediary as the oppressor because that is who comes to collect taxes and stands between them and the decision-makers.

The key step is to formalize the difference in writing. As long as group membership remains fluid, the divide stays blurred. Once it appears in a document, a census, or a separate electoral roll, the boundary becomes rigid and hereditary.

All these cases have one thing in common: the differences already existed, but they were not rigid. The administrative machine turned them into categories with different rights, and in doing so made them real.

The worst part began after the metropoles withdrew. Control of the state fell to the group that had been kept at the top or, conversely, at the bottom for decades, and the struggle for power immediately became a struggle over who truly belonged.

The tactic outlived the colonies. The exact same pattern works wherever it is useful for people with a shared problem to blame one another: the neighboring department, newcomers, people of another generation, anyone but those who control the distribution.