A FAMOUS playwright by the name of William Shakespeare once wrote: “All the world’s a stage” and that we are “merely players”. The character in the play that utters this line, like so many in the Shakespearean pantheon, is pondering over the strange journey that is life, which progresses from childhood through adulthood and eventually ends “sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything”.

There is indeed something absurd about the fact that the life cycle of every human being sees us start and end in more or less the same place; dependence, and even helplessness, are experiences shared by both children and the old. In between childhood and senility we are less aware of our mortality (or at least those who enjoy relative freedom from want and suffering). Only when we experience loss — of loved ones and health in particular — are we reminded that life is not forever.

Yet there are some people in this world who, even in the prime of life, recognise that they, and indeed, most of the people in this world, are not free. Not only because there is hunger, or want, or disease. These material deprivations are indeed one major cause of unfreedom in the world. But there is something else — often related to material deprivations — that keeps us enslaved.

In fact, those in power are incredibly fearful.

It is called fear.

Look around you — most people in the world are afraid of someone in power. Children in this society generally fear their parents. Women generally fear men. Those hailing from relatively underrepresented ethnic backgrounds or minority religious sects fear majoritarian tyranny. The poor are paid slave wages by the rich that employ them and live perpetually in fear that even that will be taken away from them. But perhaps the biggest repository of fear is the very institution that is otherwise supposed to protect us: the state.

I suspect even those who are its biggest propagandists are afraid of the state — I mean those who continually give the state a blank slate under the guise of unmasking and defeating the proverbial ‘enemies of Pakistan’. It is indeed a fact of life that all states in the modern world have — as international relations theory teaches us — no allies, only interests. It is thus that all states are at best trying to outwit and at worst trying to undermine one another.

But that doesn’t explain away the fear that those without wealth and influence experience crossing a police check post in the middle of the night (especially if we don’t have enough of the money necessary to buy our way out of trouble). Or the fear of getting caught up in a case at the local thana or kutchery. Or the fear that a patwari can collaborate with real-estate moguls and leave us without formal claim to the home we have occupied for generations.

My experiences with fear are plentiful, but what stands out as much as anything is my interactions with students who actually fear thinking for themselves; they have been brought up to think only as those in power (read: teachers, parents and employers) want them to think.

We tend not to think about the other side but generally the assumption is that those who terrorise us are themselves immune from feeling fear. That they are completely comfortable in their positions because they exercise power, monopolise wealth and control the means of producing and disseminating information in society.

But, in fact, those in power are incredibly fearful. They fear that their efforts to mute any and all independence of thought and action will always be subverted. They fear that their claims to being the most patriotic and making the biggest sacrifices will be exposed. They fear that those who they shamelessly criminalise will continue to speak their minds.

This is why they resort to the use of force. They think that by using force a new wave of fear will descend upon society, and their positions of power will be secured. Status quo having been established, they then encourage their lackeys to intensify the propaganda campaign against the ‘enemies of Pakistan’ so as to cement the environment of fear.

Do they succeed? Sometimes, yes. But not always, and definitely not forever. History is testament to this fact, both in Pakistan and around the world.

So it is true: all the world’s a stage, and we are but players. Those with power will continue to terrorise, exploit and oppress. But those who resist will not disappear. On the surface the powerful win; their names are written in history books because they have the bigger guns and can scare most of the people into silence. But when these ‘winners’ reach their own end “sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything”, it is those who have stood up and spoken the truth that will be without fear.

So, I ask: who fears who?

The writer teaches at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.

Published in Dawn, January 13th, 2017