By - Imlisanen Jamir
We owe our readers an apology. This week’s editorial was meant to explore the beauty of disagreement, but somewhere between the drafts and phone calls, we discovered that disagreement has gone missing.
It vanished quietly, without headlines. One day it was standing at the back of the assembly hall, clearing its throat; the next day it was gone — absorbed, assimilated, perhaps offered tea. We filed a missing person report but the officer said, “That’s not a crime anymore.”
We called for quotes from both sides, but there is only one side now — a perfect circle that applauds itself. Every viewpoint sounds reassuringly familiar, every statement repeats like an echo in an empty gym. We checked our recordings twice to be sure the microphones weren’t looping. They weren’t.
In the newsroom, we have an old rule: balance the story. Quote one for, quote one against. But lately, we’ve been forced to improvise. We run the same quote twice — once in italics to simulate opposition. The effect is uncanny but efficient.
Our editorial board debated whether to proceed. Someone suggested a column on unity. Another proposed an essay on stability. But the truth is, unity has become so absolute that even metaphors feel redundant. The ink dries before it reaches the period.
We tried humor. The jokes read like praise. We tried irony. It came out sounding official. One of our copy editors sighed and said maybe satire is obsolete in a place where the real thing has outpaced parody.
Readers, forgive us — there’s nothing new to report. Every merger looks like déjà vu. Every announcement arrives pre-approved. The chairs change position, the banners change color, but the applause stays the same. Even our political weather reports are recycled: sunny skies, light rhetoric, zero visibility for dissent.
We used to think politics was a contest of ideas. Now it resembles a polite dinner where everyone brings the same dish and congratulates each other for the variety. Our only duty as journalists, it seems, is to describe the table setting.
A colleague joked that we should start an “Opposition Archive” — a digital museum of all the questions nobody asks anymore. The idea was dropped because, apparently, the curator would need clearance from the ministry.
Still, we print this apology because silence feels dishonest. We can’t pretend that nothing has changed, even though everything looks identical. When every party, leader, and slogan begins to sound like an echo of the same voice, journalism becomes an exercise in transcription.
Some nights we stay late, staring at blank pages, hoping the next morning brings contradiction — a dissenting voice, a small act of resistance, anything to remind us that democracy is more than an ensemble performance. But dawn arrives obediently, bringing another press release about progress, signed in triplicate.
So here we are again, trying to write about something that has disappeared. If you find disagreement wandering anywhere — tired, hungry, perhaps wearing last decade’s slogans — tell it we’re still looking for quotes. Tell it we’ll hold the front page open.
Until then, we apologise for the monotony. It isn’t intentional. It’s just the news.
Comments can be sent to imlisanenjamir@gmail.com
