a good wholesome rant

Nobody's free. We are all the slaves of our prejudices, dogmas and habits. Yet some can afford to be such a slave without being a slave to poverty, hunger and disease. That distinction is where most of this world misses out.

Its easy for the "free" world, ably led by the United States and the rest of the WASP congregation, to portray themselves as the epitomes of a free, just and modern society, mainly because they can boast of a life mainly bereft of the poverty, hunger and disease that I just talked about. For the rest of the world, well, they have to just grin and listen to the homilies of these developed nations. There is a very famous saying, which can be applicable to any religion in this world - you can't preach the Gita/Bible/Quran/Torah/etc to an empty stomach. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of good samaritans in this world, who collect money from society and work hard to bring relief to at least a few thousand of the world's millions of destitutes. But more than the good samaritans are the good samaritans working on a quid pro quo basis. You can have this food I am offering you, but you must do something for me. For the poor African in sub-Sahara Africa, its about accepting Christ as his savior. For another poor bloke somewhere else, its about accepting Allah as the beginning and end of all things.

And then there's war. humankind still can't come to the terms with the fact that whether a group of people, together as a race, ethnic group, caste, religion or sexual preference, want to live their lives in whatever way they want, have no choice but to live with other groups of people who may not share their beliefs or habits. This example is too stereotypical and too mild, but one can't deny the fact that humankind loves to fight for all sorts of reasons. In fact, some kill to protect human freedom! This reminds me of what Prince Hamlet said when he was on his way to meet his mother in the chamber scene - "I must be cruel, only to be kind."

While the middle east is already chasing this elusive bird called freedom, I can't help but wonder if the people of Afghanistan and Iraq are free yet. Keeping aside my cynicism, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that most societies in the world today are slowly becoming more extremist in their views, more unwilling to listen to others, and increasingly under the belief that they know what is right for others. This is true for societies today in all parts of the world, and in all states of economic progress. Unfortunately, the way the world has shaped, certain societies have a greater power in enforcing what they think is right upon the others.

If I look at an even higher level, its amazing that humankind has survived with such an intense level of conflict throughout its known history, and still continues to look forward to the next day and is still striving to achieve new feats. Theres people fighting for freedom from their government, people fighting for their basic rights, people fighting for freedom from somebody else, people struggling to cope with nature's fury, and the mistrust among races, among religions, among regions, among language groups - how can one believe there is a God, one who is supposed to be in charge of such a strange planet. Or perhaps God is laissez faire, and that letting things happen the way they are is the best way to go. Hmm, we shall never know.

I sometimes have very high opinions of myself - I consider myself decently well-read, decently well-traveled and somewhat of a high thinker, but I find it hard to fathom how difficult it can be even for me to think with an open mind sometimes. Its true for me as well - I am a slave of my prejudices and habits. And despite all the times I tell myself to rise above them, I can't help but be drawn to random issues that plague this world.

I was having this conversation with a few people about "the futility of it all", and somebody raised a very valid point. Ah, I remember, the conversation was about today's media, and its love for sensationalism and yellow journalism, and somebody said that the people have always been dying in the world, even in the most brutal way, its that with this generation's achievements in communications, we come to know of them at once! Our achievements in matters of speed (planes, cars, mobile communications etc) have reduced our patience, and our attention spans to nano-seconds, and we have absolutely stopped debating or pondering on issues. This perhaps explains why today's human shows no conviction towards anybody or any issue but themselves.

Oh and I haven't even began to talk about the way we are raping nature! It breaks my heart to imagine some of the most majestic of species will be wiped out from the face of this planet because they just can't survive humankind's onslaught and greed for more resources. We'll all be living on barren land soon, without forests, with polluted rivers, smoggy air and still fighting.