Detention remains the weapon of choice

I saw them take her phone right there in the street. No explanation, no court order, just a grab and a demand to come to the station to 'find out' why. We stood watching, our own phones silent in our pockets, afraid to record, afraid to speak. This is how it happens now—not with dramatic raids in the night, but in small, public acts of control that say, 'We can do this, and you cannot stop us.' They call it the 'Respect Campaign,' but what does respect mean when grown men celebrate scoring against a child? When institutions act without moral compass, as willing accomplices? We used to know each other here. The policeman was someone's cousin, the woman his neighbor's daughter. Now they are just roles in a play where the script is written somewhere else, by people who see us as problems to be managed, not people to be served. It's all so predictable, this zeal for PR while the real work of intimidation goes on quietly. They spend millions on detaining people arbitrarily instead of building monitoring systems that let us live our lives. It's a choice, not a lack of resources. A choice to wield power as a tool, to sacrifice an entire people at the altar of political expediency. I'm not giving in just yet. But some days, walking past the station, seeing who's being brought in now, I wonder how long we can hold on to the memory of what justice felt like. When the law was a shield, not a weapon. When we knew the difference between order and oppression. Maybe that's the rot they talk about—not just in politics, but in us. The way we've learned to look away, to accept that this is just how things are now. The foundations were always shaky, but we used to pretend they were solid. Now we can't even pretend.