Sometimes, I struggle really hard to stay away from writing about events that involve violence and human rights violation for a simple reason that such incidents are extremely painful to cope with, emotionally draining and their impact is too deep to shrug off and carry on with life as if nothing has changed just because I am not affected by it!
Yesterday, I read an article shared by one of my Facebook friends about a young mother of two, being stoned to death in Pakistan, for possessing a cell phone! The story is going viral since last two days on internet. I also read couple of articles on atrocities inflicted during recent terrorist attacks in a mall in Nairobi, dormitory in Nigeria and brutal killings in Muzaffarnagar during the recent communal riots. It is beyond my comprehension to understand such abhorrent acts of killings!
On one hand, our national/global leaders talk a lot about "world peace" and on other, we end up being subjected to gruesome acts of terrorism every single day; whether it is at swanky high end mall in Nairobi, Damascus-Syria, Quetta-Pakistan, Afghanistan, U.S.A, India or "religious" extremists gunning down fifty sleeping students in a dormitory in Nigeria. There is a deeply disturbing trend of cult of hatred becoming a global epidemic endorsed by religious extremists.
I fail to understand logic behind any religion that demands people from other religions to be killed! Its difficult to fathom politics of hatred that makes inhuman acts of violence not a regrettable necessity but the whole point and make people who subscribe to their ideologies, barbaric savages. With high stakes invested in terrorism, it has become a new currency to establish religious, political and economic power games for global domination.
I am shocked by the mad fury of blood thirst whether it is the inhuman way people were killed at Nairobi mall or killings in Muzaffarnagar. Why just killing people was not enough that sawing and hacking humans had to happen? What kind of people don't flinch while shooting innocent people, including women and children? We remain savage both as a nation and as a race.
How many of us would have courage to look into the eyes of a terrorist and tell him, "you are a bad man. Let us leave."? Elliott Prior, a four year old kid, one of the survivors of the Kenya shopping mall terrorist attack, found that courage and confronted the armed "jihadi"after seeing his mother being shot in the thigh. Reading story of this little boy is truly inspiring! It gives some ray of hope that its okay to confront what is not right and question it. If a four year old can be brave enough in the most vulnerable situation that could cost him his life, can't we all look within and think if this is the kind of world we wish to leave for our children? If not, then what are we doing about it?
How many of us would have courage to look into the eyes of a terrorist and tell him, "you are a bad man. Let us leave."? Elliott Prior, a four year old kid, one of the survivors of the Kenya shopping mall terrorist attack, found that courage and confronted the armed "jihadi"after seeing his mother being shot in the thigh. Reading story of this little boy is truly inspiring! It gives some ray of hope that its okay to confront what is not right and question it. If a four year old can be brave enough in the most vulnerable situation that could cost him his life, can't we all look within and think if this is the kind of world we wish to leave for our children? If not, then what are we doing about it?
"There is no flag large enough to cover shame of killing innocent people." Howard Zinn .
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