|
Is the world growingly turning into a place dominated by small-minded people? One can understand the intolerance that arises from religion, ethnicity, colour and tradition. And that those are throwbacks to the time lost in the prehistoric past when humanity was divided into tribes and people were living in a state of constant fear born of ignorance about the forces of nature over which he had no control is also understandable. But then how may one comprehend the resurgence of illogicality and even misanthropy among the people in the highly civilised West where the age of Enlightenment had dawned more than two centuries ago to dispel the darkness of bigotry, superstition, tradition and irrationality and replace those with science and reason? It may still be accepted that the ghosts of the past are living on where education has not yet spread among the larger swathe of the population in many parts of Asia, Africa and Latin America. But those pockets of old beliefs and practices, it is being widely claimed, will be flushed out within a short time as soon as ideas and goods produced by the West find their way into the still remaining patches of ignorance in those continents. And it is also said that the question is not of whether but when those small bits of anachronism will go once and for all from the surface of the earth-or will it? The doubt arises because the West is now in the grip of a morbid dread of being engulfed by terrorists. To all appearances, the world has again entered an era of new kind of fear, a fear that originates not from the real world but from an invented one. It is, as it were, man was in need of a fresh dose of fear, the primordial human instinct, because it was sinking into oblivion. That is why all these attempts to recreate and reinvent that elemental urge the preponderance of which once dictated him to bow down to anything mysterious, unknown, big or powerful. But the new, reinvented fear does not resemble that primitive instinct, which did also protect him against dangers that would wait in the shadows in every nook and cranny of the pristine nature surrounding the primitive man. The present fear is rather a whipped up and a synthetic one-a purely political creature. Small wonder that the phenomena of irrationality, intolerance and hatred are so inextricably linked to this new fear that it provokes the western man to abhor as well as hold other peoples and their cultures in suspicion. The light of education, the power of technology and the emancipating inspiration of freedom and democracy are helpless against this political kind of synthetic fear. So, it is hardly surprising that fears of such kind are apt at begetting misanthropy and exclusivity.
So far, the entire discourse on the present-day reality of intolerance in society and politics in the civilised world centred on its probable roots of origin. But the sum and substance of this discourse is that the world is gradually slinking into recidivism. The whole development points to yet another grim reality looming large. For fear, intolerance and lack of freedom were never any stranger to man, neither in the times long past, nor now. And he has since long learnt to live with it. But what really pains him in the wake of the appearance of this new breed of fear is that the moderating influence of loftier ideals of peace and accommodation is practically non-existent now. Now the peddlers of fear outnumber the transmitters of hope.
One day after the incumbent chief of the international human right body, the Amnesty International (AI), took charge of her responsibility in the London office, the shockwave of the September 11 reverberated throughout the world. The terrorists attacked the heartland of modernity, science and freedom. The whole world tumbled to a new reality. The long acknowledged oases of prosperity, peace and security proved to be insecure. But the land that became the target of the terrorists' suicidal mission was also the chief spokesman of human rights, freedom and democracy. How did the government of that hallowed land of democracy, freedom and human right respond to these apocalyptic messengers of destruction and death? Let us hear what Irene Khan, the head of AI says in her own words in a recent interview with a local newspaper: "By the time I took charge, the world had changed."
"It shook us all up. It exposed how vulnerable the human rights situation is in the world. Countries with long tradition of human rights started behaving as though they couldn't care less."
"What is most shocking is that ever since McCarthyism-the ideological witch-hunt of communists and communist sympathisers in the US in the 50s-this was the most virulent kind of ideological battle being fought. Suddenly, every Muslim was a suspect terrorist".
So, that is how the traditional crusader for human rights and freedom reacted when the destroyers of peace, rights and freedom were no more carrying out their destructive missions in a remote corner of the globe, far from the oases of peace, security and progress. The powerful nation that nurtures and cares so much for those lofty ideals and values lost its poise in no time. The reaction was a classic case of an imperial power striking back to punish the invisible and unknown terrorists. And thence began to unfold an era of darkness-the era of intolerance, irrationality and bondage. The goal with which the 9/11 terrorists started their mission came full circle when the power that stood for freedom, right, and rationality itself started to play on the terms set by the terrorists.
The forces of peace that could fight the terrorists went, as it were, into hiding. From then on the forces of peace and tolerance have been on the run. Returning to AI chief again, "One doesn't need to wage war. What is needed is a culture of peace and human rights."
In fact war on the military front has never been able to win man anything of value in history. The loftier values the terrorists are out to destroy cannot be achieved by yet another destructive war. The terrorists everywhere can be defeated only by the forces of peace, rights and freedom. And the cradles of ideals of freedom and rights need to bid farewell to arms to win peace, civility and freedom. The destroyers of peace can be defeated only on this front.
|