On a typical sunny day in the year of 1827, a guy named Charles Masson left his british regiment at Agra and travelled towards the Indus river. After many days of wandering, he stepped upon something which we all could call "ruins". Later he reported this ruins in his book "Narrative of Various Journeys in Balochistan, Afghanistan and The Panjab". I am not sure whether he realized what he discovered. I am not sure whether he know that those ruins are not just 50 or 100 years old but they time back to some 5000 years. It is the place which we now call as Harrapa. This is one of the most ancient human civilization on earth. We are sure about their eating habits, a few of their rituals and also about their daily routines. But I am not sure whether they had more than one faith among their community. The general archelogical theory is that the Aryans from Central Asia invaded the Indian subcontinent and in the process may have wiped out this civilization. Clash of culture, clash of faith has been among humans since the time they started existing in groups/community. But then man kind has survived. Survived enough to device a democratic, pluralistic society where we seemingly provide everyone the freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to vote etc., but only after taking the entire freedom from us in the first place. The simple law of science is matters exist and you dont create them out of thin air. I think they same hold good for laws too. We cant provide freedom of something to some one without taking something from him in the first place. But then thats how society has been functioning atleast for the past 1000 years.
Norms or rules of a society and the people of the society are just two sides of a coin. Its the people of the society who devices the rules. But then with rules, the society governs/gives a qualitative as well as quantitative amount of freedom. Its simple one man governs another and in retrograde, he is also governed by the one who he governs. Confusing huh..? Yes! But then we are ok with it. We are OK with it to such an extent that somehow we stopped realizing this. But inadvertantly we do use this power that is vested upon us. Sometimes with in the quantitive limit set and sometimes well beyond the limit. In mathematical terms, lets assume the entire world to be a set and all its different groups to be subsets, in which we will have independant subsets, as well as interdependant ones. The only problem is the interdependant or the common ones are not just based on one single parameter. The parameters ranges from region to religion, different languages to different accents and finally from free men to slave men. In such a complex mathematical set, where every subset is chained and restricted by another thousand subset, any offset from the defined inter human societial rules will result in a chain reaction that will be adverse enough to wipe out a few subsets.
OK, now why am I taking so much pains to explain the complexity of our living world? In my opinion, many of the researchers, analysts, and all those who think some thing is wrong with one particular subset or all those who belong to one subset but trying to invoke changes in another, dont understand this simple "complexity". Many among us dont understand that its not just the building that is built using a pack of cards will crumble when you pull one card from the base, but a subset will also crumble when you pull something out of it without understanding where it stands in hierarchial deck. Infact, in case of the real world subset, dont crumble to dust, but retaliates back in the most violent way. Let us now turn our attention to the so called supporters of "Freedom" - to be specific - "freedom of speech" and the now famous Islamic cartoon controversies. Any law that pertains to the human emotions is always subjective and it does not have any specific numerical limits. And this holds good for the freedom of speech. In the name of freedom of speech, a cartoonist expressed his views publishing something which completely digresses into the most sacred belief of a faith. There were some protests, some rallies and ths issue succumbed to time. But then again in the name of freedom of speech, a few other scandinavian newspapers republished the cartoons to express support. That to me is not support for freedom of speech but to instigate something with ulterior motives.
Recently, a speaker came to my university and talked about how much west is more "civilized" when compared to the east. He gave a few examples as of how the west contributed to the east "civilizing". At first point I was hell bent on making on argument there. But then I realized its of no use. Even though he is one of the person I admire, I was sure that his knowledge about the east tends to ignorance. I am not sure whether he has heard about capitalism, imperialism, colonization, slavery, religious wars, apartheid, etc. I am not sure whether he has heard about the death of famous scientists like Galileo or Archimides or about all those secret science socities that existed among the west. Based on my knowledge about Indian and south asian history, I havent heard of any secret socities. Even though we havent had a democratic society set up till recently, members of east didnt have any problem in expressing themselves that they have to form secret societies to do so. People of east didnt go to africa, colonize them, shifted people from there for cheap labor. If that is what he calls being civilized, I hope we better not be civilized. Also, the speaker pointed out a few Islamic protest marchers carrying "death flags" to protest against the cartoons. He called them uncivilized. Living in a country which till now has not abolished capital punishment, I am not sure whether the speaker is fit enough to call these protestors uncivlilized. Yes, even the country from where I am, we havent abolished capital punishment yet. But then we dont go around the world calling these people uncivilized. Any punishment that is handed out for a particular mistake is always subjective and cannot be numerically evaluated. I am not here to justify what the protestors are doing.
We all know that, there is a growth in terrorism. A specific set of people from a specific faith, is using the faith's cause for terror. Instead of solving the problem, we are making it worse. Till recently atleast fifty percent of the members of the faith where not siding towards terrorist means. But if you are going publish such cartoons and illtreat the faith, as well as castigate them in public, then the world will loose the remaing fifty percent too. Years ago, it was just political class that patricipated in rewriting histories, but now Media has a very important role in it. They should act responsible enough. They need not solve the problem, but atleast they shouldnt flare it up.
Norms or rules of a society and the people of the society are just two sides of a coin. Its the people of the society who devices the rules. But then with rules, the society governs/gives a qualitative as well as quantitative amount of freedom. Its simple one man governs another and in retrograde, he is also governed by the one who he governs. Confusing huh..? Yes! But then we are ok with it. We are OK with it to such an extent that somehow we stopped realizing this. But inadvertantly we do use this power that is vested upon us. Sometimes with in the quantitive limit set and sometimes well beyond the limit. In mathematical terms, lets assume the entire world to be a set and all its different groups to be subsets, in which we will have independant subsets, as well as interdependant ones. The only problem is the interdependant or the common ones are not just based on one single parameter. The parameters ranges from region to religion, different languages to different accents and finally from free men to slave men. In such a complex mathematical set, where every subset is chained and restricted by another thousand subset, any offset from the defined inter human societial rules will result in a chain reaction that will be adverse enough to wipe out a few subsets.
OK, now why am I taking so much pains to explain the complexity of our living world? In my opinion, many of the researchers, analysts, and all those who think some thing is wrong with one particular subset or all those who belong to one subset but trying to invoke changes in another, dont understand this simple "complexity". Many among us dont understand that its not just the building that is built using a pack of cards will crumble when you pull one card from the base, but a subset will also crumble when you pull something out of it without understanding where it stands in hierarchial deck. Infact, in case of the real world subset, dont crumble to dust, but retaliates back in the most violent way. Let us now turn our attention to the so called supporters of "Freedom" - to be specific - "freedom of speech" and the now famous Islamic cartoon controversies. Any law that pertains to the human emotions is always subjective and it does not have any specific numerical limits. And this holds good for the freedom of speech. In the name of freedom of speech, a cartoonist expressed his views publishing something which completely digresses into the most sacred belief of a faith. There were some protests, some rallies and ths issue succumbed to time. But then again in the name of freedom of speech, a few other scandinavian newspapers republished the cartoons to express support. That to me is not support for freedom of speech but to instigate something with ulterior motives.
Recently, a speaker came to my university and talked about how much west is more "civilized" when compared to the east. He gave a few examples as of how the west contributed to the east "civilizing". At first point I was hell bent on making on argument there. But then I realized its of no use. Even though he is one of the person I admire, I was sure that his knowledge about the east tends to ignorance. I am not sure whether he has heard about capitalism, imperialism, colonization, slavery, religious wars, apartheid, etc. I am not sure whether he has heard about the death of famous scientists like Galileo or Archimides or about all those secret science socities that existed among the west. Based on my knowledge about Indian and south asian history, I havent heard of any secret socities. Even though we havent had a democratic society set up till recently, members of east didnt have any problem in expressing themselves that they have to form secret societies to do so. People of east didnt go to africa, colonize them, shifted people from there for cheap labor. If that is what he calls being civilized, I hope we better not be civilized. Also, the speaker pointed out a few Islamic protest marchers carrying "death flags" to protest against the cartoons. He called them uncivilized. Living in a country which till now has not abolished capital punishment, I am not sure whether the speaker is fit enough to call these protestors uncivlilized. Yes, even the country from where I am, we havent abolished capital punishment yet. But then we dont go around the world calling these people uncivilized. Any punishment that is handed out for a particular mistake is always subjective and cannot be numerically evaluated. I am not here to justify what the protestors are doing.
We all know that, there is a growth in terrorism. A specific set of people from a specific faith, is using the faith's cause for terror. Instead of solving the problem, we are making it worse. Till recently atleast fifty percent of the members of the faith where not siding towards terrorist means. But if you are going publish such cartoons and illtreat the faith, as well as castigate them in public, then the world will loose the remaing fifty percent too. Years ago, it was just political class that patricipated in rewriting histories, but now Media has a very important role in it. They should act responsible enough. They need not solve the problem, but atleast they shouldnt flare it up.
0 comments:
Post a Comment