A call to conscience

THE US-based NGO Freedom House recently observed that, among the 88 countries categorised as ‘free’, the US had experienced the sharpest fall, dropping to its lowest level since the organisation began publishing its scores in 2002. Meanwhile, Sweden’s V-Dem Institute lamented that America was witnessing the most “severe magnitude of democratic backsliding ever”, could no longer be described as a “liberal democracy” and was in the midst of the process of “autocratisation”.

Political scientist Giuliano da Empoli in The Hour of the Predator (2025)says that “in the new world, everything that needs to be settled will be settled by fire and sword”. Currently, the most violent characters “find meaning in life only when they are in conflict”. War is back in fashion and “leaders who rattle sabres win elections, and some of them follow through on their threats”. It is noted that over “the last five years, global military spending has increased by 34 per cent”.

In a prescient declaration, Empoli wrote about the current US president being “at the head of a motley procession of shameless autocrats, tech conquistadors, reactionaries and conspiracy theorists, all spoiling for a fight”. He warned that the era we were living through was Machiavellian, wherein modern-day princes care least for the norms of legitimate power. The author of The Prince haddepicted “how power can be asserted amid chaos”. “The hour of the predator is upon us,” says Empoli. The current lot “draw their strength from instability, unpredictability, aggression”.

The world has entered an era of “wrecking-ball politics”, the 2026 Munich Security Report proclaims. “Ironically, the president of the United States — the country that did more than any other to shape the post-1945 international order — is now the most prominent of the demolition men”. New policies may create an unsafe, less prosperous world “shaped by transactional deals rather than principled cooperation, private rather than public interests, and regions shaped by regional hegemons rather than universal norms”. The report concludes that the US has largely abandoned its role as ‘leader of the free world’.

We are seeing a pattern of increasing restrictions on freedom of expression, association and assembly.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt passed away in 1945 before he could deliver his speech in honour of Thomas Jefferson. FDR had written: “Today we have learned in the agony of war that great power involves great responsibility. … We seek peace — enduring peace.” “If civilisation is to survive,” he wrote in his unaddressed speech, “we must cultivate the science of human relationship — the ability of all people, of all kinds, to live together and work together, in the same world, at peace.”

Albert Einstein’s final words were also about peace, and how to achieve it. Though sympathetic to Zionism, he stressed Judaism’s humanism, “the democratic ideal of social justice coupled with the ideal of mutual aid and tolerance among all men”. His last speech written and not delivered in 1955 due to his sudden death invoked humanity, truth and justice in the conflict between Israel and Egypt that he termed “an old-style struggle for power … presented to mankind in semireligious trappings”.

Prof Timothy Snyder, whose 2017 book On Tyranny listed 20 lessons from the 20th century, published a new book On Freedom last year. He says that “a big lie can bring down a whole country,” adding that “the 20th century should have been Germany’s century, but the Germans got caught in a story. The 21st century could be America’s, but the Americans…”voted for a big liar.“Believing a lie means serving a master, living or digital,” says Snyder. Freedom of expression means creating “circumstances in which facts ennoble the individual and challenge the powerful”. Reporters of truth are heroes to be defended, not just praised. Freedom of speech, according to Euripides, is a “fair-flowing fountain” defined by truth and risk. Tyranny is born of lies.

In Pakistan, we see a pattern of increasing restrictions on freedom of expression, association and assembly. A critical social media post resulted in a harsh sentence and conviction under the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act of a lawyer couple — Imaan Mazari-Hazir and Hadi Ali Chattha — in Islamabad. Seventeen years of rigorous imprisonment with a fine of Rs36 million is preposterous and sheer vendetta. Usama Khilji, writing in this paper, rightly pointed out that “the lack of proportionality is jarring … and the overstepping of legality clear”. What was the couple’s crime? Raising a voice for missing people and campaigning against the reprehensible practice of enforced disappearances. The message is clear: no one should question the state’s counterterrorism policies and enforced disappearances, or the violation of due process and fundamental human rights.

UN special rapporteurs were alarmed by the severity of the conviction “for simply exercising rights guaranteed by international human rights law”. They rightly observed that “the exercise of this right should never be conflated with criminal conduct, especially not terrorism”. This drastic action has had a “chilling effect on civil society” as rightly reported by this paper; the allegedly 10 criminal complaints since 2022 against the couple smack of venom by the deep state. The FIA and National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency, unfortunately, appear to be acting as tools of repression. Antiterrorism courts have been compared to kangaroo courts, violating the Supreme Court’s verdict in 2019 on the misuse of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997, and invoking this draconian law against political opponents and civil society activists.

Corruption has seeped into the body politic. According to the recent Ipsos-FPCCI Index of Transparency and Accountability, a widening gap exists between public perception and the reality of corruption in Pakistan. Bribery, nepotism and enriching oneself through illegal ways are widespread. There is a trust deficit between the citizens and “public institutions burdened by a reputational loss”. The state has failed to provide adequate security, justice, dignity and economic opportunities for its citizens. Ibn Khaldun said that taxes depended on prosperity; prosperity, which depended on good governance; and good governance depended on a just sovereign.

The writer is a former police officer.

Published in Dawn, April 10th, 2026

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