Threat or Theatre: As Leaders Script, the Lot Suffocate

Mujeeb Jaihoon exposes how scripted confrontations and political theatrics suffocate ordinary people under orchestrated power struggles.

In the world’s most vulnerable regions, where borders and ideologies appear as battlegrounds, a troubling pattern repeats with predictable regularity: conflicts erupt suddenly and end just as abruptly, leaving behind trails of unanswered questions. Each time, conflicts arise—leaders appear to be locked in scripted confrontations, while ordinary people pay the price.

One is compelled to question the authenticity of these showdowns which spark overnight and de-escalate with equal haste. Are they genuine acts of defense and diplomacy? Or calculated performances designed to serve political agendas and sustain power structures? This may be a grim possibility, but one that needs our critical thinking.

Behind the chest-thumping rhetoric, it’s the common people—both in oppressive regimes and the oppressed territories—who face the brunt. Lives disrupted, homes shattered, schools closed, travels disrupted and hospitals overwhelmed, the burden of conflicts falls on the heads and hearts of the common men and women. Surely, the cost of war isn’t measured in territorial gains but in the blood of innocents.

Women, children, and the elderly are often reduced to footnotes in post-conflict dossiers. Their suffering, though immense and intense, rarely finds a place in the official narratives. From fleeing ‘obliterated’ neighborhoods to navigating life in refugee camps, these victims endure trauma that lasts a lifetime. Travel and livelihood becomes a gamble. In such chaos, patriotism becomes a handy manipulated currency.

The story repeats itself, with a haunting familiarity: conflicts are manufactured to distract, to control, and to dominate. While they shake hands in peace summits under flashing cameras, the haunting scars remain in the lives of those who were pushed to battlegrounds they never chose. Unless we question the theatre of conflicts, we risk playing the actors unwittingly—again and again.

(Mujeeb Jaihoon is a writer exploring faith, culture, and society in the modern Muslim world. More at www.jaihoon.com)