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THESE days, writing feels like the debris of a robot infused with AI. The purpose of writing has been lost. Most op-eds, papers and social media posts are filled with dull, unvarying sentences. AI tools make this worse. They offer convenience, but they also spread bad habits. Students and professionals often use them carelessly, ignoring the risks to their privacy.
Google recently admitted that it indexed ChatGPT conversations shared through public links, making them searchable for all. People treat these tools as harmless, forgetting that every word typed becomes data for companies eager to profit from attention. The danger goes far beyond clumsy style. It works its way in until it is no longer outside you but inside, indistinguishable from your own reasoning. Privacy issues deserve their own analysis. Here, I will limit myself to how the political economy affects writing, and how it fails to call a genocide a genocide.
Nowhere is this clearer than in how the world talks about Gaza. Orwell wrote in 1946 that “the great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink”. His warning fits our age.
Let’s review and rewind to see what role the UN played. The lack of clear language in the UN expressed its insincerity. Its statements began with “condemnation” and called for both sides to “exercise restraint” due to the “humanitarian situation”. Later, the term “humanitrain pause” emerged and floated a few months ago. What does a ‘pause’ mean? Is it brief or lasting? Whom does this language console — the people of Gaza under fire, or the leaders who repeat it?
Language matters — it is the first act of justice.
This evasiveness is not confined to the UN. The International Court of Justice, in its advisory opinion on Israel’s actions, acknowledged breaches of Article 3 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Yet the judges stopped short of declaring these actions ‘racial segregation’ or ‘apartheid’. Their opinions reflected this lack of clarity, which ultimately undermined the ruling.
Meanwhile, Israel speaks with blunt intent. Some time back, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared his plan to enter Gaza “with full force”. He did exactly that. At the time of writing, Israel has killed over 66,000 people and injured almost 170,000.
The recent Arab-Islamic summit showed the same burden of political economy. Fifty-seven states issued statements that claimed to support Gaza but simultaneously endorsed cooperation with the US. Their words betrayed their insincerity. By the time the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry, which does not speak on behalf of the UN, found that “genocide is occurring in Gaza”, the phrasing sounded complacent, as if genocide were just another entry in a ledger.
Orwell guides again and says, “As soon as certain topics are raised, the concrete melts into the abstract and no one seems able to think of turns of speech that are not hackneyed: prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated hen-house”. This is no more relevant than in the present abysmal moment, and this is the swamp in which our leaders speak.
The thread is plain: political language corrupts thought. AI, in turn, corrupts prose for profit. From an individual perspective, people look but cannot reflect on what they see. Institutions speak but refuse to mean. Collectively, the statements of the UN and its affiliates have silently crossed the inflection point once reached by the League of Nations, shifting the world order in a new direction. History shows that evasive words are not neutral; they are weapons of delay and denial. It hollowed out the League of Nations, and it now hollows out the United Nations, eroding not only credibility but also the fragile trust of victims who depend on its protection.
The language may be curable, but who will cure our thoughts? The question is no longer whether AI or politics will distort language, but whether we will resist it. To write with clarity is to show resistance against the oppressor. To call genocide by its name is to defend thought itself. Language matters — because it is the first act of justice.
Resisting corrupted language begins with individuals: teachers who insist on clarity, journalists who reject euphemism, and readers who refuse to be lulled by clichés. Only then can words carry truth again.
The writer is a lawyer based in Karachi.
Published in Dawn, October 2nd, 2025
