"Be safe", I say nervously to my
son, who is leaving for his college, holding him bit longer than usual in
embrace. It is a matter of few hours when he would be home but I am bit
restless. That anxiety is uncalled for but it happens every time I learn about
tragic events of terrorist attacks in any part of the world.
I struggle really hard to stay away from
writing about events that involve violence and human rights violation because
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! There is a deeply disturbing
trend of cult of hatred becoming a global epidemic endorsed by religious
extremists.
What kind of people, don't flinch before
committing heinous, barbaric sins of taking innocent lives? What kind of
religion endorses killing in name of its God and honours the culprits as
martyrs/heroes? I fail to understand logic behind any religion that
demands people from other religions to be killed! It is 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.
The photograph of the dead child's
face in the coffin that many photographers documented in recent Peshawar
terrorist attack symbolizing the horror of butchered innocent lives of 132 children, is still on my mind giving me sleepless
nights!
The photographs, media covering of the
Peshawar attacks would remain just an archival data for those who dispense
justice. The candle marches, protests, signature campaigns, angry intellectual
debates, political blame games have already started waning as other headlines
have taken over the eye balls. The calls for world to unite strongly and
decimate those "inhuman species" out of our life" are getting
feeble. We are done with discussions at the cocktail parties of how Peshawar
attacks are "a rude awakening to the perils of religious fanaticism".
We would soon forget about this gruesome tragedy, the pain will dilute or
remain just a sad memory till such tragedies occur in our own backyard.
Yeah, we still remain savage as a race
bereft of any conscience and this realization is making it difficult to
have faith in humanity any more.
"There is no flag large enough to
cover shame of killing innocent people." Howard Zinn.
