A WHITE MAN IS A KIND MAN; A COLORED MAN- A TERRORIST.

Religious wars are basically people killing each other over who has the better imaginary friend.

-Napoleon Bonaparte

It’s Sunday. Like every other Sunday, I woke up and religiously started to go through all the social networking sites I am active in, to see what I missed out on in the entire week; even before I’m out of bed. Once in a while though, I come across posts from different pages that make me stop, not scroll down, and think. And I came across one today.

A Muslim shooter means the entire religion is guilty.

A Black shooter means the entire race is guilty.

A White shooter means he’s a mentally troubled lone wolf.

Now this might seem like just another post to few people, some might even comment LOL on it. But it is so much more than that. We often relate terrorism to Muslims. We relate rage and destruction to the Blacks. But we relate civilization, sane behavior and judgement to the Whites. You might oppose this, but you and I both know that this is true. When I say ‘close your eyes and imagine a terrorist’, I am sure as hell you would never imagine a white man holding a gun and shooting people. Why is it that when you are asked to imagine a terrorist, you never imagine a person whose face you cannot see; that you can just see a figure- just see him holding a gun and shooting innocent people. No, I am not excluding myself from this question; I belong to the same society that includes you in it too. 

Race, religion, and geographical set ups; they are not platforms on which we can judge people. What if none of these existed? What if there was no religion? Who would you blame? On what basis would you blame them? Would you accuse them of being a stone hearted insane inhumane person, or would you simply say “you’re Muslim”? If you do some research on it, you’ll know that most of the terrorist activity in the U.S in recent years has not come from Muslims, but actually from radical Christians, militant groups and White supremacists. After 9/11, every attack had been associated with Islam, and what it preaches. So much, that media gives it a week’s coverage and highlights every possible link and connection, cause and effect; even if the number of casualties ranges from 1 to 1000. But how often is the terrorism by any other religion highlighted so much? When a Sikh man was killed in the Wisconsin Sikh temple massacre on Aug 5th of 2012, by a White supremacist- Wade Michael Page- who mistook him for a Muslim, the media didn’t highlight this much, did it? Not a lot of people know about this, because I was one of them. 

The murder of Dr. George Tiller, May 31, 2009; everybody imagined that a physician had been the victim of an attempted assassination by an Islamic jihadist in 1993, and received numerous death threats from al-Qaeda after that, before being murdered by an al-Qaeda member. Yes, the physician was the victim of a terrorist killing that day, but neither the terrorist nor the people who inflamed the terrorist were Muslims. Dr. George Tiller, who was shot and killed by anti-abortion terrorist Scott Roeder on May 31, 2009, was a victim of Christian Right terrorism, not al-Qaeda. There are a lot of other examples like this, but why does it never come to the limelight? Why are Muslims the first people to be examined; judged? Why the Blacks are considered shooters? Why is it that they all in the same category, just because one man couldn’t think straight and choose between what is right and what isn’t. 

And why is it that a White man’s crime doesn’t lead to his whole race being blamed? 

Whatever the reason is, it is wrong. It is wrong to blame anybody for a mistake they didn’t do. Things like caste, creed, race and religion are not something nature did, it is something we created. We are born into it, and not born with it. Even if you’re a Muslim, Hindu, Sikh or a Christian, think twice before categorizing the an entire religion as bad, because the Holy texts and the religions are the solutions and not creators of the problems, if one truly understands that in the end, no matter which religion or race you belong to, peace is the only thing that’ll keep you going. Wars and judgements based on religion is nothing but useless in the end, because if you didn’t have  religion to follow, who would you truly be? 

Something to think about; make your conversations count.

R.I.P: REST IN PIECES?

“What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy name of liberty or democracy?” 

― Mahatma Gandhi

The only child to survive, standing in the middle of ruins, searching eagerly through the rumbles; dusts, dirt, smoke and blood. She is searching for her brothers, who took care of her. Her mother; where was she? She was supposed to serve lunch. After all, Ma had promised to cook her favourite dish. She doesn’t search for her father; she knows he is in a place she can’t go to. Crying and frightened, she’s going in circles. Searching for anything she can find; aimlessly, madly. She finally finds a hand sticking out in the ruins, and she runs for it. Her mother’s hand; she holds it, she feels safe. But something was wrong. Why wasn’t Ma holding her back? She carefully bends down, to look at Ma’s face, and ask her why. But she doesn’t look at her mother, she looks at a face; eyes open, staring back infinitely, cold… dead. The girl screams. She falls back, stands up, and screams; there is nothing else she can do. This place was her home; now, a graveyard. She turns to run, but she freezes at the sight of a rifle pointing at her. Her killer looks at her, forgets her innocence; forgets his. He aims at her, searching for a blank space. Ah, her forehead.

She breathes her last.

Now, go back to the first sentence. What if that child was you? What if you were the one instead of her? What if it was your child in that place, and you could do nothing about it? How would you feel? 

Trying to think of an answer? Don’t bother, because you are no way near to what it actually must have felt like to the thousands who face such situations every day when their countries go on wars for peace. What you know, is how it feels to be still sitting on your couch, reading this article, a roof above your head, and some food to eat. But not everybody lives a blessed life like yours. 

Perhaps the biggest irony that was ever existed lies in the famous quote, “War for Peace”; none of us truly understand it though. No, I’m not saying the Defence isn’t necessary. After all, to a soldier, what’s standing in front of him doesn’t matter; he’s fighting for what is behind him. And there must be a reason. But funnily enough, nobody can understand what that reason is. No one can see the reason. Thousands of Dollars/Rupees/Euros go into building the army of a country; even quarter of which doesn’t go the poor and starving of the same country. Personally, I don’t understand the point of this. Each country invests millions of Dollars in nuclear weapons. Thousands of weapons lie around; some are not even accounted. There are an estimated total of 20,500 nuclear warheads in the world today. If the average power of these devices is 33,500 Kilotons, there are enough to destroy the total earth landmass." And why do we need so many of these things again? Who is going to stand here and witness the amazing after effect of war, and everything you’ve conquered if there is nobody alive? No, I’m not going to talk about war, and the causes of war, because we know there are many; religion, land, oil, terrorism, ‘combating terrorism’, the list goes on. Name the causes of peace? The one and only cause is war itself. Without rain, there wouldn’t be sunshine. Without dusk, there wouldn’t be dawn. Without war, nobody would ever know what the value of peace is. And today, we’ve had enough wars to show us that now is the time we need to start respecting the place of peace in our lives. I’m not here to talk about war and its effects. I’m here to talk about peace.

It’s not easy as you think it is; peace is harder than war. The day you drop those rifles, the day you give your children flowers instead of guns; that is the day you’ll find peace. But who would make them drop the guns in the first place? Nobody. Everyone wants change today; nobody is ready to change though. We see war on television, we see number of deaths, number of injuries, but not once we do think of what happens after the war has ended? Those who survive war do not see life the way we do; they’re scarred forever. You think terrorists are born? No, terrorists are made! And situations make them that way. Wars make them terrorists. Their parents were innocent people, killed in war for oil, killed due to religion, killed in search of one man, who wasn’t related to them in any way. If you hadn’t invested on war, but instead invested on their education, they’d know what their religion truly meant. They’d have the power to sit and think straight, like you and I. The war for peace is itself a form of terrorism. By killing millions of innocent people every year, how are you restoring peace? By not feeding the poor, the needy and the backward, how are you restoring peace? By not providing education, by not showing what love is, for not letting them live to feel love, how are you restoring peace? 

I wouldn’t say war isn’t necessary; but how long? Do we- the civilized people, the ones who know how to care, nurture and cherish- need war for this long? Is it really victory? In war, the only victory you claim is over a million dead bodies, which will rot eventually. What was the use of war all along, if the result doesn’t last even a few days? But peace; it gives you the power to let a person live. You are gifting a person the most precious thing on earth: life. Peace is not a philosophy. Peace is something that has to be experienced. No matter what you have achieved in life, if you have not experienced peace, then everything feels empty; incomplete. This is not for someone else. This is for you. You need peace, and the person next to you does too. Every human being can fulfil their heart, can fulfil this life. Gift a mother another day with her child. Gift a young girl another day with her brother. Gift a father another day with his family. Gift a lover another day with his reason to live. Gift a baby another reason to smile, to grow up, and to look forward to being a part of this world. It is the most beautiful thing possible in this short life. Why can’t we be a part of it?

SINCE WHEN DID SPILLING INNOCENT BLOOD BECOME THE ONLY SOLUTION?

“An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.” – Mahatma Gandhi

We come across this quote more than often. We see it, we hear it, but do we understand it? The answer we received came as no shock when we saw the headlines read out “132 children killed as Taliban gunmen storm Peshawar school” on the 16^th of December, 2014.

And that answer is ‘No.’

When one talks about the gruesome killing that took place in Peshawar, Pakistan, we are immediately reminded of the headlines the news show us, the information they provide, the statistics showing the number of deaths, and probably a moment or two of sadness that we are duty bound to express. We post statuses, write blogs, discuss all about these killings, but do you really think the terrorists groomed by Taliban care about your opinion? No, they don’t. But do you think you can change one human’s view about revenge, about terrorism? Then don’t think twice before posting a status against it. The slaughter, carried out by six Taliban terrorists, is the single worst terror attack in the country's history and one of the most brutal assaults on a school anywhere. Even in conflict-driven Pakistan, it came as an unprecedented act.

The Pakistani Taliban took responsibility for the massacre, calling it retaliation for the military's ongoing campaign against the Taliban militants' strongholds in the tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan. Mohammad Khurasani, the spokesperson of Taliban, accused the Pakistan Army of killing innocent children and families of Taliban fighters, and warned the world that more is yet to come. For the Pakistani Taliban, schools are vulnerable, or often called "soft targets." By some accounts, Taliban has struck at more than 1,000 schools in the country since 2009. All of this is merely to feed one word; revenge. Revenge is an immortal word with its root dug deep into our minds. Often, it is worse than the word ‘terrorism’. The description of terrorism is vague, because to the world, Taliban are terrorists; to them, we are. But the meaning of revenge stays constant throughout. As hard as it is to ignore the fact- even for a split second- that the Peshawar killing took innocent lives of children who deserved to live a beautiful life; we cannot overlook the hundreds who suffer and die due to public health crisis. Polio has paved its way back among children after the Taliban militants banned health workers from distributing vaccines, which was a consequence of the vaccination gambit by the CIA, in its search for Osama bin Laden. This has not only affected the civilians of Pakistan, but has also taken its toll on the Taliban families.

The Pakistani Taliban came into existence as a loose coalition of militant factions in Pakistan's restive border areas around 2007. It is an indigenous movement that largely targets the machinery of the state and Pakistani citizens, and its motive is to impose Shariah law on the country. Defeating the group, though, has proved to be extremely difficult. Complex geopolitics and funding from other terrorist groups, political appeasement, conspiracy mongering and denial serve as factors that feed the existence of Taliban.

In a world full of hatred and misery, bloodbaths and seclusion, helplessness and loneliness, one can only hope for a ray of happiness or a fragment of peace to settle on their lives; not the ashes that are carried in the air- ashes from the thousands of innocent human beings killed every day. Ashes of people who didn’t deserve what they got. Ashes of people who looked at the killer, right in the eye, and hoped for nothing except a peaceful world. Another day to look forward to; but were never granted their wish.

When the photos of the terrorists who carried out the massacre were released, the terrorists were seen holding automatic assault rifles and rocket launchers. We can never imagine what it must have felt like, but we can surely imagine the gaze of those cold eyes fixed on the child. The child, helplessly looking at his killer, with hopes to find mercy in those eyes, hopes to see his parents again, hopes to play with his sister after school, hope that he would survive. Instead, he was shot in the head at point blank range, and was tossed into the pile of other children, lying drenched in blood; cold. Dead. We can imagine the pain of the teacher who was burnt alive. We can imagine the state of the children trying to escape the militants, who went from one classroom to another, shooting indiscriminately. We can imagine the horror one boy has to live with, because he was the only one to survive out of the 10 friends who tried to escape. We can imagine the terror on the face of the woman whose daughter had escaped because her clothing was covered in blood from those around her and she had lain pretending to be dead. We can imagine the scores of survivors who were being treated in hospitals as frantic parents searched for news of their children. We can only imagine the same happening with the families of the Taliban militants. 

We can never feel it, we can only imagine.

It is harder to keep someone alive, than to kill them. It is harder to instil peace, than to declare war. It is hard, but not impossible. We may not be able to stop Taliban today, but we can teach our generation to value human life. We can teach them that love is a greater weapon than hatred. We can teach them that issues can be solved without violence if one can listen to the problem and search for a solution. We can try, not by telling them what or how to think, but to just think.

We can teach them that the best revenge is to not be like your enemy.