Aqeel Haidar, MD, PhD, Philadelphia

The dictionary defined the term tyrant as a usurper of sovereign power who makes “his subjects the victims of his passions and unjust desires, which he substitutes for laws”. Over its lifetime, Pakistan has seen all sorts of tyrannies. From tyranny of one in martial laws to tyranny of oligarchy to tyranny of the manufactured majority. The first part of Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy describes tyrants (“who laid hold on blood and plunder”) in the seventh level of Hell, where they are submerged in boiling blood.

Our current situation is like in Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, wherein Augustus (Asim Munir) is shown to assume the power of a tyrant while sharing power with the reformed senate.

The saddest part is not what the tyrants did or are still doing. Our greatest tragedy is that we are a spineless nation which has given up its will to stand up for its rights and has fully succumbed to the order imposed by the tyrant. And therefore, there is no end in sight!