One does not need to be Mao Zedong’s eyes to see that ‘everything under heaven is in utter chaos’ . There is no continent in the world (except perhaps his China) where conditions are in the control of its leaders.
In France, for example, students in the country’s lycées or secondary schools are demonstrating against ‘long school days, overcrowded classrooms, outdated facilities and teacher shortages’. The protestors are 15 to 18-year-olds. They are too young to vote. Yet their anger threatens to detract from the presidential election in early 2027, when France decides who is to replace Macron.
In South America, countries with valuable natural resources and precious minerals are bracing themselves for a raid by the United States. If oil-rich Venezuela can be decapitated overnight, can Brazil, Chile and Argentina be far behind?
In Ukraine, an embattled Zelenskyy finds he now has two adversaries – a determined Putin, and a mercurial Trump who has suggested that the war-worn Ukrainians ‘get a new leader who can make a deal’. The sudden abandonment of Zelenskyy came a day after Trump agreed to buy diesel from Putin.
Historians who will chronicle the decline and fall of Trump’s presidency may do worse than rely upon Edward Gibbon’s memorable analysis: ‘The decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness [.] Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the cause of the destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest [.] Instead of inquiring why the Roman Empire was destroyed, we should rather be surprised that it has subsisted for so long.’
In and around the Arabian peninsula, the U.S. and Israel vs. Iran conflict has taken a sinister turn. Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan have entered into a defence pact. Saudi petro-dollars have linked arms with Türkiye’s armament capacity and Pakistani martial manpower. It is less a tripartite alliance than a macabre pas de trois of death.
Few realise that this tripartite pact has in-built weaknesses. The three countries are not territorially contiguous, unlike the former Türkiye-Iran-Pakistan RCD pact (1964-79). This new pact purports to imitate the collective defense clause of Article 5 the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, which means that should Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, or Türkiye be individually attacked, the other two will have to spring to the victim’s defence.
Türkiye is a card-carrying member of NATO. If it is involved militarily, all other NATO member countries will be bound to ‘defend’ Türkiye, and therefore by extension Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
That is the legal theory. Practically, NATO’s selectivity has already been tested during the Ukraine crisis. Even though NATO did not extend the umbrella of membership to Ukraine, it chose to defend Ukraine (a non-NATO country) against Russia. Obviously, NATO members and Trump follow Machiavelli’s precept: ‘He who has the power is always right’.
Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan share some disturbing commonalities. Each has a Sunni majority, and all three currently have governments that are intolerant of domestic opposition.
Erdogan's government in 2025 imprisoned his most popular rival – Istanbul’s mayor Ekrem Imamoglu. In 2017, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the detention of over-rich princes and government ministers in the five-star Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Riyadh, where many were allegedly tortured. In 2018, Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi was strangled and dismembered by a squad of fifteen Saudis (allegedly on the orders of their crown prince) in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
And here in our country, a leader and his party members – regardless of their gender or ages – have been sentenced to imprisonment, without the hope of an amnesty.
Our Federal Government is in opposition with smaller provinces. It has imposed Governor’s rule in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and is at odds with Balochistan. An ostensibly Azad state of Jammu & Kashmir has had governments drawn from two Pakistani mainstream political parties. It seems like a replay of 1971. That tragedy was caught in these lines from Khalil Gibran’s poignant poem Pity the Nation: ‘Pity the nation divided into fragments / each fragment deeming itself a nation’.
Not many leaders have the time nor the wit to read Gibbon’s six-volume work on the Roman empire, or the Meditations bequeathed by the emperor he admired most - Marcus Aurelius. They should. Here are Aurelius’ five signs of a weak mind: ‘Surrendering control to external circumstances; Complaining and playing the victim; Seeking external validation and obsessing over others’ opinions; Letting uncontrolled emotions dictate actions; and Resisting the present moment and avoiding duty.’
How many leaders – or even us common folk - would survive such a litmus test?
Many regard the chaos prevailing everywhere as deeply ominous in its implications. The pin has been removed from the grenade. It is only a matter of time before a doomsday detonation.
F. S. AIJAZUDDIN
[DAWN, 15 Oct. 2026] |
