Man, I always thought was the most evolved creature on the evolutionary spectrum (For the feminists - it’s a biological term with no sexual connotations whatsoever !!). A product of fortuitous events that happened over billions of years that will probably never happen again. with the same consequence. A conscious and sentient being living within the paradigms of morality. A creature who had immense potential and possibilities, to think and to create. I have spent most of my life so far with this belief… However, as I open my eyes to the world around me and let the experiences alter me, I find a strong urge to alter this belief….
What does one do when you hear of the situation in Africa - of massive civil wars and genocide ? Cold blooded murder and assault. Rampant rapes. Children taking up arms. Female genital mutilation. Ethnic cleansing. I can imagine how I sound - like a yuppie, a neo-radical wanting to make a difference but not wanting to move out beyond the comfortable confines of her yuppie world, talking about the world's problems and wanting to solve them with not even a clue about how to go about it…. But I am still going to vent …. !!!
I have often started on this trail of thought… in fact, I get on this trail at the mere mention of casteism, gender discrimination, honor killings and rape… but then a lot of times you know things but they don’t really hit you hard…you manage to just block them out from the rest of your world and carry on with minimum discomfort… but, there comes a time, when the mind registers, its acknowledges the problem, feels the problem, aches and bleeds, you feel the problem !!!
This happened to me once, a few months back, when i sat in a coffee place reading an editorial in Hindu detailing the plight of the people in Congo… the heart wrenching, gut wringing, mind numbing tales of horror, of over half a million people or more wiped out from the surface of this earth because of a civil war for socio-political and religious reasons… half a million or more over the last five years or so… Tales of young girls raped repeatedly even before they had their first periods, to the point of having their internal organs torn apart, tales of doctors working to repair these ravaged bodies with stitches and sutures, of girls being mutilated (Female circumcision is rampant in many parts of the world) for cultural reasons, of women being rampantly raped while they go to collect firewood, of the breasts of nursing women being chopped as they are repeatedly raped, killing the children in front of the parents and killing parents in front of the children, of starving children scavenging for food, of headless bodies strewn, of entire villages burnt…. And the horrors continue. I was deeply affected, horrified and I felt abused by just reading the facts! I Cannot even begin to imagine the plight of the people who have to live through these horrors.
Is this what man is ? Is this all we are capable of ? I of course went back and looked up for the reasons for the civil war which was drawn out for almost a decade now and that shocked me further. All this was going on because of opposing militia avenging for the deaths on their side in a war that was politically motivated for economic reasons such as sharing of natural resources. Deaths paying the price for more deaths ?? How can we not realize that deaths do not bring back life…. They only bring more deaths…. ! It is only the start of a vicious cycle that makes us more animal and less human each time. !! Of course, true to most people, I reacted emotionally, shed a few tears, was disturbed for a few days and then moved on with my concerns of the everyday mundane. Somehow the two hours of water supply in the hostel seemed more important over a period than the killing of half a million people !!
However, I ended up reliving the horror not very far from then, when I ended up seeing a movie - Tears of the sun. A very typical action flick reinforcing the "good American" image, set in the war ravaged Nigeria. Americans end up being the saviors, the men of conscience who fight the war for the native Africans in the throes of yet another genocide (but one must try and ignore nationalities and just focus on the bigger picture). There is something about Africa that is so wrong or perhaps there is hardly anything about Africa that is right !! This is a huge continent full of prospects, the cradle of human civilization and yet you look at its plight today and there is hardly something that seems right. Sudan, Nigeria, Kenya, Congo, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone…. The tales continue… It is a sore which has been festering for too long that it has now been neglected… but the problem is that at this rate, it will just blow up in your face one day like a gangrene with no easy solution… !!
Well, reading tales of distress has an impact but not like when you 'see' the horrors being committed in the garb of nation building, its another matter altogether. All the horrors I read about earlier came back rushing into my mind as the movie just gave me graphic pictures to fit the thoughts in… you 'see' the blood flowing, the fear in the eyes of the people, the crippled trying to fight and run, the headless men, the charred torsos, the children orphaned as they witness the cold blooded killing of their parents, the women being raped and mutilated, the children taking up arms instead of taking up education, the fear of death, the rage of revenge, the menace in the eyes of the evil perpetrator… what drives these killing machines ? What makes men so brutal that they are able to kill an infant forgetting the sanctity of life ?
Are these the people I placed at the vertex of the evolutionary tree… was I wrong..? Is this all we are ?
But then a ray of hope shines through…. Man made these machines, he fought against all odds and invented !! He is skilled. He has the potential. And while there are these battles raging on, there is also hope ! When someone decides to take charge and make things right… to do the right thing despite the consequences, shows courage in the face of death, lives through the horrors and still harbors a hope ! As long as we realize the pain of the other, all cannot be lost ! We should survive and there is hope ! There is probably a solution somewhere that will make us rise beyond our petty parochialism, our greed and our envy - that will make us realize our true potential !!
Some day…
I guess, it is always about the choices we make and I hope (from the very essence of my being) that people learn to make the right choices and be the bigger people that they can all be.....
I have vented and translated my frustrations from my mind to the words here, but that is not enough… the horrors still haunt me and I wish I could change something, in someway and make a tiny little difference… Some day…
As Edmund Burke said, "The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." So, seeing fighters fighting the war gives you the strength and the courage to go on, to fight your battles in your own small way and to be the change you want to make…. I hope the good remains… !! I hope that humanity triumphs...
What does one do when you hear of the situation in Africa - of massive civil wars and genocide ? Cold blooded murder and assault. Rampant rapes. Children taking up arms. Female genital mutilation. Ethnic cleansing. I can imagine how I sound - like a yuppie, a neo-radical wanting to make a difference but not wanting to move out beyond the comfortable confines of her yuppie world, talking about the world's problems and wanting to solve them with not even a clue about how to go about it…. But I am still going to vent …. !!!
I have often started on this trail of thought… in fact, I get on this trail at the mere mention of casteism, gender discrimination, honor killings and rape… but then a lot of times you know things but they don’t really hit you hard…you manage to just block them out from the rest of your world and carry on with minimum discomfort… but, there comes a time, when the mind registers, its acknowledges the problem, feels the problem, aches and bleeds, you feel the problem !!!
This happened to me once, a few months back, when i sat in a coffee place reading an editorial in Hindu detailing the plight of the people in Congo… the heart wrenching, gut wringing, mind numbing tales of horror, of over half a million people or more wiped out from the surface of this earth because of a civil war for socio-political and religious reasons… half a million or more over the last five years or so… Tales of young girls raped repeatedly even before they had their first periods, to the point of having their internal organs torn apart, tales of doctors working to repair these ravaged bodies with stitches and sutures, of girls being mutilated (Female circumcision is rampant in many parts of the world) for cultural reasons, of women being rampantly raped while they go to collect firewood, of the breasts of nursing women being chopped as they are repeatedly raped, killing the children in front of the parents and killing parents in front of the children, of starving children scavenging for food, of headless bodies strewn, of entire villages burnt…. And the horrors continue. I was deeply affected, horrified and I felt abused by just reading the facts! I Cannot even begin to imagine the plight of the people who have to live through these horrors.
Is this what man is ? Is this all we are capable of ? I of course went back and looked up for the reasons for the civil war which was drawn out for almost a decade now and that shocked me further. All this was going on because of opposing militia avenging for the deaths on their side in a war that was politically motivated for economic reasons such as sharing of natural resources. Deaths paying the price for more deaths ?? How can we not realize that deaths do not bring back life…. They only bring more deaths…. ! It is only the start of a vicious cycle that makes us more animal and less human each time. !! Of course, true to most people, I reacted emotionally, shed a few tears, was disturbed for a few days and then moved on with my concerns of the everyday mundane. Somehow the two hours of water supply in the hostel seemed more important over a period than the killing of half a million people !!
However, I ended up reliving the horror not very far from then, when I ended up seeing a movie - Tears of the sun. A very typical action flick reinforcing the "good American" image, set in the war ravaged Nigeria. Americans end up being the saviors, the men of conscience who fight the war for the native Africans in the throes of yet another genocide (but one must try and ignore nationalities and just focus on the bigger picture). There is something about Africa that is so wrong or perhaps there is hardly anything about Africa that is right !! This is a huge continent full of prospects, the cradle of human civilization and yet you look at its plight today and there is hardly something that seems right. Sudan, Nigeria, Kenya, Congo, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone…. The tales continue… It is a sore which has been festering for too long that it has now been neglected… but the problem is that at this rate, it will just blow up in your face one day like a gangrene with no easy solution… !!
Well, reading tales of distress has an impact but not like when you 'see' the horrors being committed in the garb of nation building, its another matter altogether. All the horrors I read about earlier came back rushing into my mind as the movie just gave me graphic pictures to fit the thoughts in… you 'see' the blood flowing, the fear in the eyes of the people, the crippled trying to fight and run, the headless men, the charred torsos, the children orphaned as they witness the cold blooded killing of their parents, the women being raped and mutilated, the children taking up arms instead of taking up education, the fear of death, the rage of revenge, the menace in the eyes of the evil perpetrator… what drives these killing machines ? What makes men so brutal that they are able to kill an infant forgetting the sanctity of life ?
Are these the people I placed at the vertex of the evolutionary tree… was I wrong..? Is this all we are ?
But then a ray of hope shines through…. Man made these machines, he fought against all odds and invented !! He is skilled. He has the potential. And while there are these battles raging on, there is also hope ! When someone decides to take charge and make things right… to do the right thing despite the consequences, shows courage in the face of death, lives through the horrors and still harbors a hope ! As long as we realize the pain of the other, all cannot be lost ! We should survive and there is hope ! There is probably a solution somewhere that will make us rise beyond our petty parochialism, our greed and our envy - that will make us realize our true potential !!
Some day…
I guess, it is always about the choices we make and I hope (from the very essence of my being) that people learn to make the right choices and be the bigger people that they can all be.....
I have vented and translated my frustrations from my mind to the words here, but that is not enough… the horrors still haunt me and I wish I could change something, in someway and make a tiny little difference… Some day…
As Edmund Burke said, "The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." So, seeing fighters fighting the war gives you the strength and the courage to go on, to fight your battles in your own small way and to be the change you want to make…. I hope the good remains… !! I hope that humanity triumphs...
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