Enemies By Design: How The US And USSR Shaped Each Other's Identity

By Emeka Chiaghanam

Let me tell you a story, not the kind you skim through during a lunch break, but the kind that grabs you by the throat and refuses to let go.

It begins not in a palace or a battlefield, but in a quiet village where a boy named Tobe was born beneath a sky that didn’t know whether to rain or shine. Tobe was no saint, he could be selfish, sometimes sharp-tongued, but his heart? Golden. The kind that beat louder when someone else was hurting. He’d give you his last morsel if it meant your belly wouldn’t ache. And yet, in a world wired for wolves, Tobe’s kindness was seen as weakness.

He grew up washing wounds, not inflicting them. In school, when the rich kids mocked his patched clothes, he smiled. When a drunk teacher slapped him for asking too many questions, he didn’t raise a finger. He studied harder. When an old widow couldn’t fetch water, Tobe carried it. Not once. Every morning. For three years.

And then came the fall.

The village chief, a man drunk on power and palm wine, framed Tobe’s father for stealing community funds. The punishment? Public disgrace. A stripping of land rights. The family thrown to the fringe like lepers. Tobe’s father died of heartbreak six months later. His mother? Silence swallowed her voice. Tobe? He didn't curse. Didn’t scream. He just... left.

He vanished like a ghost. Some said he died in the bush. Others said he went mad. But the truth?

Tobe became fire.den. The kind that beat louder when someone else was hurting. He’d give you his last morsel if it meant your belly wouldn’t ache. And yet, in a world wired for wolves, Tobe’s kindness was seen as weakness.

He grew up washing wounds, not inflicting them. In school, when the rich kids mocked his patched clothes, he smiled. When a drunk teacher slapped him for asking too many questions, he didn’t raise a finger. He studied harder. When an old widow couldn’t fetch water, Tobe carried it. Not once. Every morning. For three years.

And then came the fall.

The village chief, a man drunk on power and palm wine, framed Tobe’s father for stealing community funds. The punishment? Public disgrace. A stripping of land rights. The family thrown to the fringe like lepers. Tobe’s father died of heartbreak six months later. His mother? Silence swallowed her voice. Tobe? He didn't curse. Didn’t scream. He just... left.

He vanished like a ghost. Some said he died in the bush. Others said he went mad. But the truth?

Tobe became fire.

Ten years passed. The village changed, but not much. The chief grew fatter, his corruption slicker. The people more cynical, their dreams diluted with daily survival. And then, on a day like any other, sleek SUVs rolled in. A film crew. Foreigners. Armed men. And behind them, stepping out like a lion in polished skin, came Tobe.

Except he wasn’t Tobe anymore.

He was Dr. Tobenna Anigbo, international conflict resolution expert, founder of the human rights organization Light for the Lost. The man who dined with presidents but never forgot the taste of yam cooked in firewood. And he had returned, not with revenge — but with receipts.

He didn’t need to yell.

He simply presented documents. Evidence of the chief’s theft, land grabbing, and secret dealings with oil cartels. He paid the legal fees for every displaced family. Bought the widows new homes. Set up a free school and clinic. The chief? Hauled off in handcuffs, weeping like a thief caught in daylight.

And still, Tobe didn’t gloat.

When asked why he returned, he said: "Because I couldn’t sleep in peace knowing the place that raised me was still burning."

He didn’t return for revenge.

He returned to remind them what humanity looked like.

Now let’s lift our eyes from the fire and look toward history’s giants, Napoleon, Stalin, men who once made the world tremble

Napoleon, the Corsican eagle, rose from nothing, a military savant, a revolutionary child, a man who rewrote maps in blood and brilliance. France adored him, feared him, and worshipped him. But what did he want? Peace? Freedom?

No. He wanted power, and the world.

So he crowned himself emperor.

From Italy to Egypt, from Russia’s frost to Spain’s rage, he thundered. But thunder without rain becomes noise. His ambition curdled into arrogance. He invaded Russia, in winter. He exiled himself with his own hubris. Died lonely. No glory in a bed far from home, his empire in ruins, his name tarnished.

What goes around...

Then Stalin, the man of steel. He wasn’t born a monster. He was once a seminarian, dreaming of God. But dreams rot when fear takes root. Paranoia became his creed. He saw enemies in shadows, traitors in truth. He killed friends, silenced poets, starved millions. His power didn’t make him great.

It made him monstrous.

He died, not mourned, but feared. Even his own guards waited hours before checking on him as he choked on death. Power had isolated him like a plague.

You see it now?

Kindness isn’t weakness. It’s a choice. A strength rarer than gold. Power, when used selfishly, eats itself alive. But compassion? Compassion builds legacies.

You might be thinking, "But the world is cruel." And you’d be right. The world is cruel. But that’s why kindness is revolutionary. Because it refuses to mirror cruelty. It stands in defiance.

What did Napoleon teach us? That a mind without a heart becomes a blade without a sheath.

What did Stalin show us? That fear builds empires with quicksand.

And what did Tobe prove?

That the boy who fetches water for a widow can grow up to rewrite history.

Ever wonder why people remember the Nelson Mandelas, the Mother Teresas, and the Gandhis? It’s not because they dominated. It’s because they served. Because when the story ends, no one remembers how loud your voice was — only how you made them feel.

In the long, unforgiving arc of time, cruelty may rise faster. But kindness? Kindness lasts.

Here’s the truth no one likes to say aloud:

You will be wronged. People will mock you, step over you, lie about you. But don’t let them turn your heart into stone. That’s how evil wins, not with war, but with erosion.

Stay soft.

Be fierce with your principles but gentle with your hands.

Forgive, not because they deserve it, but because you do. Because bitterness is a chain. And you weren’t born to drag dead weight.

Tobe could’ve burned his village to ash.

Instead, he built a lighthouse.

Because he knew: what goes around comes around. But what you send around?

That’s your legacy.

So today, choose decency.

Not because the world is fair. But because you are.

And if history ever forgets you, let it be because you lived too kindly, not too cruelly.

Because in the end, palaces collapse, empires fall, tyrants die.

But kindness?

Kindness lives forever.