My Grand Dad

A warm breeze lingers on the cusp of evening in the capital city of XYZ, that ill-starred nation once feted as a thriving democratic beacon on its continent. Street vendors close their stalls, tourists capture the last photo ops of the sunset, and a faint lull seems to settle over the broad avenues. Yet beneath the humdrum activity of daily life, a virulent tension coils like a serpent, ready to spring at any moment. Ten years from now, when forensic teams begin unearthing mass graves along the edges of farmland near the border, many of these same onlookers will curse themselves for not recognizing how the shadows of a free society had already begun to collapse in these early days. They will look back at the throngs cheering the newly elected leader—charismatic, loud, and cunning—and wonder why no one saw the unraveling so plainly written in every gesture, every incendiary word.

Year One is always a carnival. The jubilant faces of the newly empowered stare from giant posters. Stamps and flags carry the newly anointed slogans: “XYZ Is Ours Again,” “Restoring Real Greatness,” “Root Out the Traitors.” Crowds flood the stadiums to hear promises that are barely sketched in policy, yet offered with unwavering certainty. All that matters to these people is that their champion hates the same enemies they do. Minority groups, which in calmer times would have been recognized for their valuable place in the nation’s tapestry, are branded as parasites. The crowd welcomes that labeling. The new leader calls them criminals, foreign agents, and saboteurs who have conspired to undermine the proud heritage of XYZ. This flamboyant orator clutches the microphone, paces the stage with bombastic energy, and whips the masses into a renewed fervor. Adoring fans hold homemade signs urging that certain critics be locked away, or worse. He smiles and nods, indulging the fantasies of a scapegoat-hungry majority. Looking back from the vantage point of the mass graves found in the next decade, the flags, the cheers, and the homemade signs all carry an obscene innocence. Yet in the moment, they are the paroxysm of national euphoria, deaf to the scuttling footsteps of the approaching catastrophe.

The new president’s rhetoric channels a potent blend of alarmism and triumphalism, as if the city is simultaneously on the brink of total ruin and yet also about to ascend to unstoppable glory. The contradictory nature of this message scarcely matters to the cheering hordes. These supporters were battered by years of perceived neglect from the established elites. Their bitterness left them primed to believe any figure who could articulate their frustrations in raw, unscrupulous terms. And so, the flamboyant president excoriates journalists in front of live cameras, referring to them as peddlers of deceit and as mortal threats to the national interest. He singles out certain reporters by name, mocking their personal lives. He insists that an invisible hand of foreign influence orchestrates everything from the subversive editorials in the major newspapers to the academic lectures that question historical triumphs. He even names perceived conspirators in local government offices who he claims have been sabotaging the economy from within. People recoil in shock, but others cheer, seeing at last an unvarnished champion who is not afraid to speak plain truths. At the center of these performances stands a man who has discovered that fear, combined with unbridled anger, is the easiest engine to run.

A swirl of empty promises forms the bedrock of his message. He will wipe out corruption overnight, fix crumbling infrastructure, and impose law and order with an iron fist. The cost is never tallied, the logistics never enumerated. A vow to build monstrous factories and public works for “our real people” leaps from his lips, greeted by a roar of approval. Immigrants, foreigners, or “the undesirables” are singled out as parasites draining the resources of good, hardworking citizens. Whispers begin in the corridors of local radio stations: is he serious, or is this all an act? Some talk show hosts quietly worry about the moral decay that must ensue when a powerful figure openly advocates extralegal crackdowns on entire communities. Others see a business opportunity—higher ratings, a bigger audience, all feeding off the raw sensationalism. Polarization drives a surge in these programs, as the entire nation tunes in to see who will be the next target of the leader’s scorn.

By the end of his first year in office, the warning signs become more explicit. Court justices who hand down rulings he dislikes are publicly derided. A few weeks later, those same justices find themselves accused of graft, or tax evasion, or an unsavory personal scandal. The press starts to notice a pattern: criticize the administration, and you become the subject of investigations that border on witch hunts. Lawyers who attempt to defend those targeted by these spurious charges suddenly face bureaucratic difficulties, intimidation by unknown men in suits, or threatening phone calls at midnight. Meanwhile, select members of the business community strike gold as the new regime hands them lucrative government contracts under the vague impetus of “national revitalization.” In speeches broadcast across the country, the president boasts of how swiftly these new projects will rescue the economy. On the ground, kickbacks and bribes proliferate. To the public, these developments remain murky and easily dismissed as the cost of doing business. So long as their champion remains in power, they would rather not question the underlying corruption.

When the second year dawns, a flashpoint arises. A spate of violent attacks breaks out in the southwestern province—a region traditionally seen as more liberal and ethnically diverse. At least, that is what state media claims: a band of rioters torched a government facility and threatened soldiers. Video footage is blurred and shaky, but the commentary is unambiguous. The state says that paramilitary elements with foreign funding are sowing an insurrection. The facts remain questionable, yet the calls for an immediate response ring loud: the media outlets loyal to the administration proclaim that the government must have special emergency powers to combat this subversion. Low-level officials voice their concerns: is it not dangerous to hand unlimited authority to the executive on the basis of shaky evidence? But they speak too quietly, in their living rooms or in hushed conversations with close friends. In public, the narrative of an existential threat floods the airwaves. The president declares a state of emergency for an initial six-month period, urging that it will last “only as long as necessary to restore order.”

The state of emergency arrives with all the expected trappings: censorship protocols are intensified, gatherings of more than a handful of people are banned unless officially sanctioned, travel restrictions appear. Almost overnight, the southwestern province is placed under curfew. Armed soldiers patrol the streets, stopping residents at random to check their papers. The few local journalists who attempt to document the heavy-handed approach find themselves roughed up or arrested. In many cases, small radio stations simply disappear from the airwaves. The official story is that they were “aligned with terrorist forces.” Those living a hundred miles away, in the capital, barely feel the changes beyond some fluctuations in the news cycle. Life proceeds more or less normally for them. They hear rumors that paramilitary groups wearing brand-new uniforms have begun collecting bribes at improvised roadblocks. Some suspect that local farmers have been forced off their land. Others dismiss it all as propaganda from disgruntled activists or exiles. Residents in the southwestern area, however, encounter the new reality: trucks of masked men in unmarked uniforms show up in the middle of the night, banging on doors, demanding “information.” The slightest suspicion, or even a neighbor’s grudge, could lead to violent interrogations. A climate of terror seeps into everyday existence.

Once a state of emergency becomes law, it rarely goes away as fast as it arrived. After the designated six months pass, the regime claims a necessity to extend it, citing newly discovered threats and conspiracies. This indefinite extension is rubber-stamped by a legislative body that has already been packed with administration loyalists. Meanwhile, top judges have either resigned, fled, or been replaced under the pretext of “national security.” Legal scholars who protest that the constitution prohibits such indefinite crackdowns are marginalized or threatened with sedition charges. As each month passes, the apparatus of authority grows stronger, and the legal channels for redress grow weaker. People who used to write critical op-eds or hold small protests now weigh the odds of being jailed for indefinite periods, with no right to counsel. Fear becomes a form of social control: the best way not to be targeted is to keep silent, or—better yet—to posture as a fervent supporter of the administration.

This is also the juncture where opportunists and sadists find their calling. The modern authoritarian project thrives on giving free rein to those who enjoy punishing others. They join newly formed militias—“civilian self-defense forces” or “patriotic volunteer brigades.” On the surface, these groups claim to protect neighborhoods from crime and infiltration. In reality, many members simply want a license to torment those they have always despised. Racists, xenophobes, and angry individuals with chips on their shoulders discover that they can now funnel their hate through official channels. Bystanders look on helplessly when masked militiamen publicly humiliate local activists. They hold them at gunpoint, force them to apologize for “crimes against the nation,” sometimes making them wear signs that mock their ethnicity or beliefs. People who might otherwise decry such actions shrug and say that the activists clearly stepped out of line. The cultural acceptance of cruelty expands step by step, as each new boundary is tested and found flimsy.

Amid this creeping normalization of brutality, the president’s popularity remains high among loyal segments of the population. He holds huge rallies replete with stirring anthems, triumphant slogans, and carefully choreographed military salutes. Supporters wave flags with a fervor that verges on religious devotion. The fact that arrests and censorship have decimated opposition voices is not considered. What matters is the spectacle and the sense that, at last, someone is doing “something.” Infrastructure projects, though half-baked and rife with corruption, provide a veneer of progress. Large construction sites pop up across major cities, and loyal contractors reap staggering profits. Meanwhile, the agricultural sector struggles under the weight of expropriation, mismanagement, and nepotism. The regime is too fixated on controlling dissent to bother with long-term economic planning.

By the end of the third year, extralegal kidnappings have become so commonplace that few even question them anymore. In some neighborhoods, it is not unusual to see a dark SUV or unmarked van pull up to a house. Armed men in paramilitary gear hop out, forcibly drag someone inside, and speed away. It might be a journalist, a teacher who expressed doubts about the official narrative, or even a petty thief used as an example. Local law enforcement, which has been thoroughly infiltrated, says nothing. Lawyers who attempt to investigate these incidents often face personal threats; some vanish themselves. Rumors of secret detention centers swirl—vast, cold facilities where suspects are beaten or made to confess to plotting insurrections. Sometimes the detainees reappear a few weeks later, gaunt and traumatized, swearing to remain silent. Other times, they vanish entirely. Families are told that these missing individuals joined terrorist organizations or fled abroad. Behind closed doors, the phrase “disappeared” takes on a chilling finality.

The propaganda machinery consistently churns out justifications for these actions. Government spokespeople brand any critics as traitors or foreign agents. They claim the detainees were caught red-handed scheming to topple the regime. The atmosphere crackles with paranoia, prompting many to reexamine their relationships. People avoid confiding in neighbors or even family members, not knowing who might be an informant. The paramilitary squads, now given official recognition as part of the security apparatus, conduct routine sweeps in high-density urban areas. They set up checkpoints on highways, controlling who enters or leaves the capital. Intimidation becomes the order of the day. The initial shock has long worn off, replaced by quiet resignation and the faint hope that if one follows the rules, the midnight knocks will never come.

As time marches on, the cult of personality around the president shifts into overdrive. Giant banners bearing his portrait hang from government buildings. School curricula are rewritten to emphasize loyalty to the regime. Children in lower grades learn an updated version of national history that lionizes the administration’s founding father. Anyone who complains about such measures risks losing their job, being labeled as an “enemy collaborator,” or simply getting ostracized. Senior officials, even if privately unsettled by the turn of events, continue to mouth empty praise for the administration, desperate to protect their positions. Fearful that any expression of dissent might result in a swift and ugly downfall, they recast themselves as unconditional believers in the new order.

In the sixth or seventh year, particularly brutal episodes in rural parts of the country rise to attention. Entire villages are displaced overnight. Some are forcibly relocated “for their own safety.” Others simply vanish without any official announcement. Farmers begin to discover random human remains in remote fields, as though someone performed hurried, clandestine burials. The regime’s press outlets claim that these macabre findings are staged by anti-government rebels to discredit the administration. Yet the rumor spreads that paramilitary convoys are wiping out pockets of resistance or perceived undesirables, then burying the evidence deep in the countryside. International human rights groups attempt to investigate, but their access is heavily restricted, and the regime rails against “outside meddling.”

The city dwellers in the capital remain partially insulated from these horrors, though a creeping sense of dread seeps into daily life. People prefer to avoid speaking about politics in public. Even the glimpses of normalcy—holiday celebrations, sports events—become overshadowed by the knowledge that a parallel nightmare unfolds away from the spotlight. Still, as long as the economy staggers onward and the regime can blame periodic crises on saboteurs or foreign sanctions, the status quo persists. The level of disinformation is so pervasive that many sincerely believe the regime is a bulwark against chaos. The propaganda machine underscores that the authoritarian measures have brought stability, that the trains run on time, and that the only ones who suffer are criminals and subversives.

There are, of course, pockets of resistance. In certain intellectual circles—universities, art scenes—people gather clandestinely to share what they know, to debate whether they should organize demonstrations or sabotage. Underground networks spring up, smuggling out video footage of paramilitary atrocities to foreign journalists. Some activists talk about the possibility of armed insurrection, citing examples from other revolutions. But the chilling reality is that the state possesses infinitely more resources and firepower. Meanwhile, infiltration remains a constant threat. More than one would-be revolutionary is unmasked by secret agents embedded in these groups. Soon afterwards, those naive idealists vanish, their fates sealed in unknown cells or freshly dug pits. The scale of repression outpaces the capacity for organized revolt.

Nine or ten years into this spiral, the mass graves become too numerous and too obvious to conceal. Perhaps the spark for their discovery is a drought that erodes topsoil near farmland. Perhaps an eyewitness escapes and leads international observers to the location. Whatever the cause, the revelations tear at the nation’s carefully constructed facade. Skeletal remains are found with bullet holes in the skulls; personal identification cards and scraps of clothing offer heartbreaking proof that entire families died in these clandestine executions. Some of the dead are recognized as dissidents who disappeared years before. Others are ordinary villagers or members of the persecuted groups that the regime had labeled as “illegals,” “terrorists,” “traitors.” Images of these atrocities shock segments of the population who had swallowed the official line that such rumors were lies. Yet, the regime doubles down, calling the uncovered graves a hoax, accusing foreign intelligence services of staging a farce to undermine the fatherland.

This is the point of no return. Even if some internal factions—generals or politicians—harbor regrets, they have gone too far to turn back. Their fortunes, their status, and often their very lives are bound to the continuity of the regime. Purges of upper-level officials suspected of disloyalty intensify. Paranoia consumes the leadership, which fears a coup from within. The leader, aging but still potent in his theatrical speeches, rages about conspiracies orchestrated by exiles and foreign saboteurs. Meanwhile, whole swathes of the rural population endure a kind of open-air prison environment, subject to random crackdowns and mass arrests. The state of emergency, which had been declared in the second year under the guise of quelling unrest, is now deeply entrenched. For many younger citizens, emergency powers are all they have ever known. What was once a radical deviation is now woven into the basic tapestry of life, a permanent tool to stamp out any flicker of dissent.

What options remain for those who oppose this monstrous system? Some gamble on peaceful demonstration, hoping that sheer numbers might force a shift. They plan strikes, boycotts, and symbolic acts of civil disobedience. In certain historical contexts, these strategies have proven effective, but only when the security forces are unwilling to gun down large crowds or when the regime’s internal cohesion is cracking. Here, the regime has stifled every avenue of peaceful assembly for years. Protesters risk immediate arrest or worse. The national media ridicules them as paid provocateurs, while militia squads stand ready to open fire at the slightest hint of mass mobilization.

Others contemplate sabotage or armed rebellion. They know that violent acts would play into the government’s narrative of “terrorists” lurking everywhere, yet the logic of desperation drives them to consider extreme measures. If the state can mow down entire communities with impunity, what choice do people have if they want to save their families, their neighbors, their country’s future? But the regime, bloated with funds from pillaged resources and inflated budgets, possesses a sophisticated array of weaponry and surveillance technology. Any nascent rebel faction is often swiftly eradicated. The horrors that ensue—collective punishment, scorched-earth raids—ensure that locals fear giving shelter to insurgents. The possibility of a full-blown civil war emerges, which threatens to reduce entire regions to ruins. And the regime, always seeking new scapegoats, capitalizes on this, declaring that the insurrection is proof of the deadly threat within. Thus, the cycle of violence intensifies, and with each turn of the wheel, more bodies pile up in hidden graves.

In the capital, where bureaucrats shuffle papers and well-to-do families still dine in upscale restaurants, the war or insurgency might initially feel distant. Yet, everyone with a glimmer of conscience can sense the stench of moral decay. Rumors filter in of atrocities committed in rural provinces, or of neighbors vanishing after voicing criticism at a dinner party. Some people quietly plan to escape. They look to Europe or to the stable democracies that might grant asylum. But the lines at embassies grow interminable, visas ever harder to procure, and emigrants are often forced to leave loved ones behind. Guilt tugs at them, but so does the primal urge to survive. Some families decide that only one member will flee to build a safer life, possibly to send money back or sponsor others later. The heartbreak of separation weighs heavily, and the knowledge that a spouse or aging parent could be left to face indefinite detention, or possibly end up in one of those mass graves, injects a cold terror into the entire plan.

Meanwhile, those who remain must weigh the cost of complicity. The courts, such as they are, serve only as a stage for show trials. Laws are bent or ignored. Citizen journalism flickers in dark corners of the internet, fleetingly exposing new outrages, but state censors clamp down swiftly, and the brave souls who leak information often pay dearly. Small pockets of activists cling to the notion that if the masses finally see enough evidence of cruelty, they will unite in defiance. But the psychological manipulations are so deeply entrenched that many citizens simply refuse to believe any narrative that conflicts with the official version. A fierce form of nationalism, stoked by years of propaganda, blinds them to the atrocities unfolding in their own backyard. They blame foreign agitators for forging the gruesome images of torture victims. They insist that any horrific allegations must be a ruse to discredit their heroic leader.

There comes a point in the timeline, around years eight to nine, when the country’s internal tensions threaten to rip it apart. Sections of the armed forces become fractured. Certain generals, fatigued by the endless brutality, wonder if they should mutiny and restore some semblance of normalcy. Others remain fiercely loyal to the charismatic president, whose grip on them is absolute. The economy starts to falter under the weight of corruption and cronyism. Disaffected youth, no longer starstruck by the regime’s message, become a volatile element. They watch as older generations indulge in false hopes while entire communities live under paramilitary terror. International sanctions or interventions loom, but the regime has powerful foreign backers who want to maintain influence. The black market thrives. Public resentment simmers behind the façade of rallies where supporters still wave flags and chant carefully orchestrated slogans.

Then, the revelation of large-scale mass graves happens abruptly, perhaps reported by a brave photojournalist or a defector from the paramilitaries who can no longer stomach the horrors. Images leak to the outside world—skulls, rotting limbs, battered corpses dumped in hastily dug pits. Investigators find personal documents that confirm these people were not foreign terrorists but mothers, fathers, even children from the southwestern province or from the minority groups demonized since year one of the new regime. The scale is unthinkable: thousands of bodies scattered across multiple sites, reeking testimonies to systematic liquidation. The government scrambles to discredit the evidence, but the images are too widespread, the eyewitness accounts too numerous, the physical evidence too damning. A wave of shock briefly convulses the nation. Some of the leader’s supporters recoil, or at least pause to wonder if they have been lied to. Yet, fear remains the dominant currency. The regime intensifies its clampdown, claiming that enemies are manufacturing illusions to spur a foreign invasion. They double down on the state of emergency. They enforce new rules that make even private discussions about the mass graves a punishable offense. The majority of the population, terrified or exhausted, falls silent again.

Individuals who do try to resist, either through nonviolent or violent means, find themselves trapped in a labyrinth of unstoppable force. Nonviolent protest draws bullets. Strikes are declared illegal under emergency laws. Underground sabotage triggers draconian reprisals, entire villages burned to the ground. The concept of secession arises in outlying regions, but that too escalates into local rebellions that the central government savagely suppresses. The country descends into a patchwork of militarized zones and pockets of utter lawlessness, reminiscent of the worst civil wars in history. Families find themselves displaced, crossing the border in caravans if they can, leaving behind their homes, properties, and sometimes the injured or elderly who cannot travel. Or they attempt a more distant flight, hoping to secure asylum in Europe or in some stable nation across the ocean. In that frantic journey, many families become permanently fragmented, never to reunite. The tragedy compounds as children lose their parents, siblings lose each other, entire genealogies are severed by war, detentions, or the simple brutality of distance.

At some point, reflection sets in for those who lived through the entire decade. They recall the first outrages—the early demonization of journalists, the casual talk of “locking up the traitors,” the repeated declarations of a national crisis requiring extraordinary measures. They remember how trivial these warning signs once seemed, how the prospect of mass graves near farmland or somewhere near “Nebraska” in the country’s interior might have been dismissed as a grotesque impossibility. Yet in hindsight, it all appears preordained by the regime’s methodical consolidation of power. Those who might have done more to stop it are haunted by a single question: what could I have done differently? Some blame themselves for lacking courage. Others lament that they used the wrong tactics, responding to force with force and only fueling the regime’s narrative. Many sink into a private despair, tortured by images of lost loved ones. A father sees the face of his vanished daughter in every dream, wonders if she died alone in a secret cell. A friend recalls begging a local judge to issue a writ of habeas corpus, only to be stonewalled by a legal system long since compromised.

This cycle of remorse and regret grows especially bitter when one imagines the day an international commission starts exhuming graves, collecting thousands of excruciating stories of torture, forced disappearances, and methodical extermination. Neighbors who lived just a few kilometers from a mass burial site realize that they heard the trucks, or smelled the faint odor of decay, yet did nothing. They lived their lives, turned on the television, ate dinner with their families, and tried not to think too much about politics. Now, in the aftermath, they grapple with the moral weight of inactivity. They question whether their tepid protests, their occasional social media rants, or their attempts at quiet, behind-the-scenes lobbying were ever enough to prevent the monstrous machine from fulfilling its course.

Each day the regrets expand: I should have marched in the streets despite the fear; I should have sheltered that journalist on the run; I shouldn’t have posted that hateful meme that helped normalize violence. But this is the grim nature of authoritarian systems: they feed on every ounce of weakness, cynicism, and apathy in a society. By the time the population realizes they must unite, they have already been crushed or scattered. Families are shattered, buried in unmarked pits. Those who managed to flee the country live in a haunted exile, plagued by guilt for leaving friends and relatives behind. Children grow up in foreign cultures, speaking new languages, remembering their homeland only through their parents’ bitter recollections of how it all went wrong.

For those inside, the question of resistance remains fraught with peril. A handful of defiant souls might insist that armed revolt is the only path to redemption. Others caution that such violence would only harden the government’s brutality, leading to mutual destruction. Some cling to illusions about diplomacy, hoping for peace deals or for the regime to self-destruct under its own weight. But as the highways fill with military convoys and the news broadcasts recycle endless footage of “rebel atrocities,” the cold facts stare the watchers in the face: the regime has the bigger guns, the bigger budget, the entire apparatus of state propaganda at its disposal, and the paramilitaries’ thirst for violence has turned them into savage enforcers. Any form of insurgency is drowned in blood. Any attempt at peaceful protest is repressed before it can spark an uprising. The rest of the world may watch in horror or impose half-hearted sanctions, but seldom does foreign intervention arrive swiftly or effectively. By this late juncture, XYZ has torn itself apart, bit by bit, until mass graves simply become the punctuation on an international tragedy.

Nothing about this scenario is particularly unique in the broader sweep of history. One finds echoes in countless places—Chile, Argentina, Syria, Guatemala, Rwanda, Ethiopia, and more. The blueprint for dismantling a democracy follows a recognizable pattern: incitement of hatred against minorities, strategic use of crises to impose emergency measures, the harnessing of sadistic loyalists, the creeping infiltration of all branches of government, the normalization of cruelty through relentless propaganda, and the final meltdown into widespread atrocities that the majority never believed could happen. It is not a secret formula. Scholars, journalists, and survivors from earlier nightmares have documented it time and again. The greatest shock is how quickly it can happen, often within a span of four or five years, culminating a decade later in the monstrous reality of thousands of corpses lying in unmarked graves.

For the individual trying to live through it, the choices become heartbreakingly stark. One might attempt to protest, risking immediate arrest or disappearance. One might look for ways to sabotage the system, thus painting a target on oneself and everyone connected. One might choose to flee, leaving behind friends, siblings, perhaps elderly parents who cannot travel. Or one might attempt the precarious route of quiet survival, hoping to protect those closest, and living with the knowledge that in doing so, one has tacitly condoned every abuse. Each path is colored by the primal human instinct for self-preservation set against the ethical imperative to protect justice and human dignity. There is no easy moral clarity in such an environment. Those who remain to fight often die or bear witness to horrors that break their spirit. Those who depart may be spared physical violence but end up tormented by guilt. Society at large fractures into a mosaic of survivors, collaborators, silent enablers, and perpetrators, each group locked in a cycle of bitter accusations and desperate justifications.

In the nightmares that follow, one might see the face of a tortured loved one, imagining their final moments in a clandestine prison. The mind conjures unstoppable scenarios of pain, where paramilitary officers or soldiers, high on righteousness and hatred, inflict unspeakable acts just because they can. And then, in the subterranean hush of a wind-swept farmland, a backhoe or bulldozer quietly covers the remains. Ten years on, when forensic teams arrive to dig them up, the bones are jumbled, intermingled with others. A ring, a pair of glasses, a distinctive piece of fabric might be the only markers of identity. Those images, broadcast around the world in short documentary segments or harrowing photographs, will spark fleeting global outrage. Yet, the greatest heartbreak belongs to those who recall the day they stood in a stadium, cheering for the man who promised to make their country unassailably strong, never imagining that their own relatives would be discovered years later in a mass grave near farmland or in that nondescript field near a place ironically nicknamed “Nebraska” in the national backcountry.

In the immediate aftermath of these revelations, there may be talk of tribunals or truth commissions. Some high-ranking officials, sensing the end is near, might attempt to strike deals or flee themselves. The cycle of blame and denial goes public. Propaganda regurgitates the line that any atrocities were the work of rogue elements, that the leader himself never gave such orders, or that these actions were a sad necessity in the face of an existential threat. Survivors and human rights investigators scramble to piece together the chain of command, to gather evidence for prosecutions. But the psychological damage and social fragmentation run deep. Mistrust saturates the air. Families discover that siblings informed on each other, that neighbors colluded with militias, that old friends turned away at the crucial moment. Those who endured the crackdown, especially if they lost loved ones, harbor a seething anger that cannot be easily calmed. They wrestle with the question of vengeance versus justice. Meanwhile, thousands of exiles scattered across continents wonder if it is safe to come home, or if the regime—or some new iteration of it—still lurks in the corridors of power, waiting to devour them in the shadows.

Even in a best-case scenario where the regime collapses under the weight of its crimes, the reconstruction of democracy will be agonizing. The institutions that once guaranteed civil liberties are in tatters. Generations have grown up under a state of emergency, never knowing what a normal, free society looks like. The wounds of mass violence, forced disappearances, and grotesque impunity will not vanish simply because a few figureheads are removed or replaced. The question of accountability will hang over every conversation, as survivors demand answers and the new leaders, seeking stability, prefer to brush aside the past for the sake of national harmony. People will argue that pursuing justice for so many crimes is impossible without tearing the country apart again. Others will retort that ignoring the atrocities is a betrayal of the dead. The arguments swirl in endless circles, ensuring that the shadows of the authoritarian era remain firmly imprinted on the national psyche.

And so, a sense of profound regret emerges as the final stage. A bitter admission that, in the earliest months and years—when alarm bells first rang about the toxic rhetoric, the wave of scapegoating, the predatory use of a perpetual state of emergency—something more could have been done. Perhaps a massive general strike or a united front of civil society might have stymied the regime’s power grab. Perhaps if the politicians in the opposition had not been so fractured or naive, they could have formed alliances to protect core democratic norms. Perhaps if more citizens had simply refused to believe the hateful slogans, had shown solidarity with minority groups, or had recognized that the demonization of neighbors invariably paves the road to bloodshed, this future might never have come to pass. But after mass graves come to light, these what-ifs are the tormenting refrain of an entire population.

The tragedy is that the pattern is stark and well-documented. There is nothing new about a demagogue railing against perceived enemies, a legislature caving to populist mania, paramilitaries enforcing cruelty with sadistic glee, and an eventual wave of murders and disappearances culminating in hidden burial sites. These lessons have been spelled out by historians, survivors of past regimes, and wise observers. The problem is that each new generation confronting a would-be tyrant finds novel ways to justify inaction or to succumb to fear. They hope, at the outset, that it will not be as dire as some claim. They assume that institutions will withstand the assault. They do not want to risk their own livelihoods by speaking up too strenuously. Before long, the democracy they cherish has transformed into a monstrous apparatus that devours its own citizens. The sight of bulldozers dumping mangled corpses into unmarked trenches becomes the final punctuation on a story that might have been halted had more people acted decisively at the earliest moment.

When asked, “What can be done?” the bitter truth is that none of the possible courses of action are simple or guaranteed. Peaceful resistance—strikes, protests, civil disobedience, creative dissent—is always best attempted before the repressive machine fully consolidates. Once the paramilitaries and secret police are deeply entrenched, the cost of even a small protest can be lethal. Armed resistance, sabotage, or calls for rebellion may appear logical if the regime is murdering entire communities, yet such steps can unleash cycles of violence that crush all remnants of civil society. The state nearly always has more guns, more money, and the advantage of controlling the narrative. Secession or regional autonomy might become a desperate last resort, but that, too, births new conflict zones and opens the door for warlords to take hold. Emigration may preserve individual lives, but it means abandoning family or friends who cannot leave, and it hollows out the societal capacity for reform. Every path is strewn with heartbreak and moral compromise, the national territory carved up by fear and grief.

All of this is a slow-motion apocalypse. An apocalypse, because the shared bonds and principles that once made XYZ an open society get corroded, leaving behind a husk of lawless power plays. A slow motion, because each incremental step—an insult here, a crackdown there—never quite feels like the end of the world, until at last the world you knew is unrecognizable. While the public sleeps, the architecture of total repression is erected. By the time the bones in the ground become too numerous to ignore, the journey to that point has spanned years of silent complicity or impotent alarm. Onlookers across the oceans will watch glimpses on their television sets but they’ll angrily claim “this is not our war; they did it to themselves; these people were always a bit strange; it’s just how these people are.”  Perhaps some will recall the days when XYZ was still a functional, if flawed, democracy, occasionally praised in international forums for its progressive constitution. That memory becomes a grim joke as the bulldozers unearth pit after pit of nameless remains.

One can frame it all as cold analysis, but the moral horror is inescapable. Each life in those pits was, at some point, an individual with hopes, families, maybe even small personal dreams that had nothing to do with grand politics. Children are among the bones. Parents who loved them are among the bones. And those who survived will live out their days haunted by the knowledge that these horrors happened just down the road, that so many people saw the early signs and believed they could do nothing, or believed it was not their fight, or actively cheered because they had embraced the hatred fueling the new regime. These regrets form the poison of memory that lingers long after the last body is identified, if it ever is.

In the end, the story of XYZ, or whichever name one wishes to give this hypothetical land, stands as both a universal cautionary tale and a reflection of real events that have recurred throughout modern history. From the vantage of mass graves discovered a decade later, the arc seems almost predictable. The unscrupulous populist harnesses a wave of anger. Freedoms erode under states of emergency. Loyalist militias push boundaries of cruelty, fully encouraged by the top. Corruption flourishes, illusions of normalcy persist among the urban middle class, and the targeted communities are methodically broken. Resistance, too little and too late, fractures under the regime’s might, culminating in the unspeakable. So the question remains: when the seed of demagoguery is planted in any nation, do its citizens recognize the shoots of tyranny early enough to yank them out? Or do they wait, trying to keep their heads low, until the entire garden has become a poisonous jungle in which only monsters thrive?

For those reading this who still have a window of freedom, the reflection is urgent. Perhaps you see parallels in your own society: a leader who demonizes the press, who encourages violence at rallies, who casually demands indefinite authority under the guise of a crisis. Perhaps you notice that small signs of viciousness—calls to imprison opponents, encouragement of mob intimidation—are met with applause. Maybe you sense that an undercurrent of malice runs through half the political discourse, overshadowing the old norms of decency. If so, you stand on the threshold that the citizens of XYZ once occupied. Knowing how that story ends, you must decide whether to speak out or to remain silent, whether to mobilize or to retreat. The price of inaction is measured in the moans of tortured prisoners, the tears of families who never see their loved ones again, and eventually in the countless bones discovered a decade from now in mass graves that stretch far beyond anything you once thought possible. And if that day arrives, and you find yourself explaining to some foreign journalist why you did nothing, your words will ring hollow against the cold wind sweeping over the fields of the dead.