Author: Firdous Syed

Human history is often romanticized as a gradual progression toward enlightenment and justice. The deeper we dig into the history of human civilization, the clearer it becomes: the world has never truly run on principles of fair play. Power – naked, unapologetic power – has always been the driving force. The horrors of industrial-scale atrocity in Nazi Germany and the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki exposed the capacity for cruelty in the modern age. The United Nations was formed in 1945 to promote peace, and three years later, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted – a bold and…