It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times

Baitullah Mehsud is a Taliban leader of Pakistan. His claim on the Binghamton massacre may be ignored and the Vietnamese Jiverly Voong’s motive behind the slaughtering may be researched. But the truth is that we have been living in a large slaughter house. People of Pakistan are marked to bleed almost every day. In India, too, genocides are not fewer. The shivering may be felt from Kashmir to Coimbatore. The latest one has been experienced in the Taj-Oberoi of Mumbai. Srilankan government has probably decided to depopulate the Tamil people and one may not be alive among the Tamil community to count the dead bodies. In the subcontinent of India Bangladesh has tasted the same nightmare a few weeks back when a section of the Bangladesh Rifle has taken lives of more than one hundred of the army personnel. There is fire in Tibet and the fire is not going to be extinguished despite and on account of China’s brutal approach. Thanks to George Bush Iraq in the twenty-first century is another name of hell and carpet bombings have not succeeded in Afghanistan finally.

What has happened with us? Where are we moving? Alfred Owen is no more with us to lament in his language: “Is it for this the clay grew cold?” Bertrand Russel is no more with us to interpret the chemistry of power. All the religions, Buddhism to Islam, have been experimented and they have failed to take us to any desirable destination so far. Among the political doctrines a large section of humanity had an eye to the sermons of Karl Marx. But his glorious followers have already transferred their operating regions into burial ground. The proponents of capitalism should shut also their mouth. When their dreaded enemy named ‘socialism’ has been globally finished and when even in Russia one ex-communist Putin has no other alternative save market economy, they find it the most opportune moment to present the Lehman Bros to all the aspirants of free thinkers.

On the other hand, contribution of mankind for scripting the future course of civilization is not idle. Tomorrow or day after tomorrow life may be discovered in an alien planet in any galaxy. In the arena of creativity human effort has not been withdrawn. Good movies are being made, good poem are being written and the painters are busy with their brass and colors.

Simply we lack the visionaries of practical philosophy. We lack persons who may heal the wounds of the time. We have been blessed with treasure created and recreated throughout the centuries. We are sick of violence and we are sick of bloodshed and loss of life and property. We are in need of a Gandhi or someone of his stature. It is the worst of the time, but it is the best of the time too.