The Theater of the Absurd: Power, Spectacle, and the Illusion of Order

The Sisyphean Task of Civil Society

In Belgrade, the rock of democracy is being pushed uphill once more, only to roll back down. The Serbian authorities, with their raids on CRTA and other non-governmental organizations, have demonstrated the fundamental absurdity of power: that those who possess it will employ the very mechanisms of order to create chaos. These raids, conducted under the veneer of legality offered by an American Executive Order, remind us that the bureaucracy of oppression often borrows the language of liberation.

One must imagine these NGO workers as modern Sisyphus figures. Knowing full well the futility of their task in a system designed against them, they persist nonetheless. There is something profoundly human in this persistence—this revolt against the inevitable. The attack on these organizations is not merely an attack on civil society but an assault on the idea that meaning can be created through collective action.

”In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.” Perhaps this is what drives these organizations forward, even as the winter of authoritarianism descends.

The Stadium’s Absurd Spectacle

Meanwhile, in a stadium in Stuttgart, another form of absurdity plays out. Twenty-two men chase a ball across a field while thousands watch with bated breath, finding momentary meaning in the arbitrary rules of sport. Bayern Munich’s victory over Stuttgart—is this not the perfect metaphor for our condition? Success defined not by any universal measure but by the artificial constructs we ourselves have created.

The commentary speaks of “team cohesion” and “chemistry” as if these were objective realities rather than narratives we impose upon random interactions. Leon Goretzka and Kingsley Coman are elevated to protagonists in our collective myth-making, their actions imbued with significance beyond the mere physical facts of muscles contracting and a ball changing direction.

The stadium becomes a microcosm of society—a place where we pretend that outcomes matter, that victories have meaning beyond the moment. In reality, it is merely another stage upon which we act out our desperate search for purpose in an indifferent universe.

The Oval Office’s Rebellion Against Meaning

In Washington, the absurdity reaches its zenith. The confrontation between Trump and Zelenskyy in the Oval Office reveals the ultimate truth of diplomacy: it is a theatrical performance where actors demand recognition not for the substance of their actions but for the performance itself.

Trump’s demand for gratitude is the cry of Caligula, who in my play declares, “I have not understood the meaning of things, and so I have made my own meaning.” This is the essence of authoritarianism—the imposition of subjective meaning upon objective reality. When power demands gratitude for its exercise, it reveals its fundamental insecurity.

The “pivotal moment in a new geopolitical era” is nothing more than the eternal return of power’s fundamental nature. There is nothing new in the tyrant’s demand for recognition, nothing novel in the subject’s required genuflection.

The Convergence of Absurdities

What ties these disparate events together? In each case, we witness the human struggle to impose order upon chaos, meaning upon indifference. The raids in Serbia, the football match in Germany, the diplomatic confrontation in America—all are attempts to create islands of significance in an ocean of absurdity.

The tension between Trump and Zelenskyy mirrors the struggle between Bayern and Stuttgart, which in turn reflects the conflict between Serbian authorities and civil society organizations. Power asserts, resistance pushes back, observers narrate, and meaning is manufactured from the collision.

Yet beneath it all lies the stubborn reality: these conflicts have only the meaning we assign to them. The universe remains silent on whether NGOs should be raided, which team deserves victory, or which president’s ego should be soothed.

The Rebel’s Response

What, then, is our response to this theater of the absurd? It must be, as I have always maintained, rebellion. Not rebellion in service of a new order that will inevitably become as absurd as the one it replaces, but rebellion as a perpetual stance against the very notion that final meaning can be achieved.

The true rebel recognizes the absurdity of the situation but refuses to surrender to nihilism. The NGO worker who returns to the office after the raid, the football player who takes the field knowing the arbitrary nature of the contest, the diplomat who engages in dialogue despite understanding its theatrical nature—these are the authentic rebels.

For in the face of absurdity, the only meaningful choice is to create meaning through the act of choosing itself. The raids will continue, the matches will be played, the diplomats will posture, but beneath these spectacles, the human spirit persists in its defiance.

”In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.” This summer is not the promise of victory, but the recognition that the struggle itself is sufficient to fill a human heart.