Stop Warmongering

Right now I am listening to music with my headphone on and preparing for my lecture class. Though we have load shedding and it is quite frequent, I am still happy to be in my home. At least I don’t have to fear anyone, I don’t have to think of impending danger which is going to decide whether or not I will be alive or dead or being dragged in some street tomorrow morning. I don’t have to wonder when there will be barge of bombing, automatic rifles and machine guns blowing my head, I don’t have to worry and keep my eyes fixed on the sky above me for the impending vulture-winged big machines which I have never ever seen in my life before. And, what a surprise!, I got to see it not in a museum, but in the real-time while it is pointing its nozzles towards me to blow me along with my family.

You know what is the biggest fear in life? It’s not about you losing your job, your friend or your most valuable things in your life but it’s about losing your loved one and more fearful is it when you are sure that you are preparing to fight for your life while somebody is approaching to your position to take your life away from you!

I have always abhorred politics and now this dirty politics has again started to show off its nasty might – or may be its most dreaded might. Striking Syria is nothing more than a mere politics! Mr. Assad is sitting on the chair his ass glued. He don’t want to leave it because he might be thinking that he has sacrificed a lot in his life to get to that position and he will better die and leave other die while sticking to his ego and ideology than to just leave the chair just like that.

Honestly, US is trying to get into the war because she thinks she has got moral obligations to do so even though the world is against it – though it is illegal to bomb Syria. It is quite justifiable to some extent. But, don’t you think that mistakes has already been done and it can’t be undone with whatever means whatsoever. You can’t bring back someone who is already dead why not better save those who are still in the wombs of mothers, those who have just started to gain their cognitive ability to know the world as it is, save those who future is uncertain.

It is already too much in Syria! Don’t you guys have quenched your thirst of blood after all these years (above 2 years) of war? Why do you want to drink more blood of innocent children who have no fuckin’ idea about what’s going on around them? If you can’t give life to someone, you have no right to take somebody’s life – and even that of kids? God! You might be insane. Gone out of your mind!

You are all set to take more lives while you have your kids in your house safe-and-sound. Have you ever thought of your own kids before setting for war, before packing your bags to leave for yet another war which will be another history. Dear United States of America, you have already got your hands covered in blood, your image completely soiled by what you do in name of liberating the world. Please stop it! Now, it’s up to your discretion to decide what is right. You have always been known for doing what is right, being right. So, why now you have all set to add one more war to your disgraced history.

I might not have much idea on why you are going into war, why are you all set to bomb more innocent lives. You might be so true to your points of whatever it might be. But,I know one thing for sure that you are definitely going to take more innocent lives doesn’t matter how much protective measures you take.

During second world war, Germans use to believe, “Optimist learn English, pessimist learns Russian language”. Why don’t you want to set one more example by being the same liberator you use to be?

I would better suggest and request all the concerned authorities in US to look at your family and think that others have same family too. They too love their family just like you love yours.

Please take some other alternative measures and put all this to end.

God bless this world! Stop war!

What religion do you belong to?

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Since my childhood I have been brought up in a middle class family that believe in suavity and respect of all sorts: respect to your teacher, respect to your elders, respect to the intellect. And, my family has always taught me that doesn’t matter what happens to you, you should never forget to respect to your elders – even those who have ever tried to or have done harm to you personally. Because this is your responsibility and your duty as a good person, and this reflects from what kind of family I have been brought up in.

It is not just confined to me, it reflects my entire family history. For those of you who are familiar to my situation – particularly when I was in my masters level – you all know that I had very honestly and truthfully continued with my responsibility as a good person – of respecting  to those who ever had ill intention towards me. And, I think it is useless to bring this all up again. But, the thing that I want to bring up here is that I did what I have to do and never got fomented with it.

My family has always asked me not to question somebody’s faith, their family history, and always warned me against knowing a lot about somebody – specially, when it is not a matter of my concern – until and unless not knowing it will not affect my own integrity. And, I never did.

I think, most important thing is that we should never forget from where we come and to where we belong. Assimilating things and changing your ways of life at the cost of your faith or your principle will not take you anywhere. Achieve whatever you want because no body is going to stop you from doing that, but just don’t forget that, you have reached to this position to what you have been believing and you should not jeopardize it at any cost – because that is what ultimately going to take you where you want to be.

We all have our own faith, our believes and our God and we usually stick to it till we die. This is kind of something that is inherited, however, we are free to choose what we believe in, later in our life and there is no restriction on it – at least on the human-right ground. And, I think it is not prudent to ask somebody what religion they belong to. For example, if you are studying in a school where there are students filled with from well-to-do family and you are the one from not-so-well-to-do family. Do you think that somebody asking you what your dad do for living offends you? If it is so, though it is not tantamount in context to religion, it will equally offend somebody when they are asked to which religion do they belong to.

Religion is something that guide us from choosing the wrong path and this is something like a bridle. Basically, all religion in one way or other have more or less same basic principle: love other, sway away from malevolence. Nonetheless, it can’t be discounted that there are always some badger element in every society and thus, it can’t be used as an element of excuse to generalize rest of those who are indifferent to those kind of malevolence.

I think it is not good to compare things, but even if we see the similarity in all the religion, almost all religion have some form of cap to cover their head and kind of lose garment to don before they enter into the shrine. In Hindu, we call guru or priest or mahatma to those who are devoted to God – they all have form of lose cloth. Similar is the case with other religion – any religion you can think of. The system of veil is common in most of the religion and Hinduism is not an exception – this practice is still being followed in most of the rural country side which is a sign of feminist.

People use to say that in old days anklet were used as a shackle for women – not literal shackle but in a way that women wearing it walking in the house will give a sign to their brothers, husband and son that they are still in house and they have no gone somewhere else – which is a kind of shackling, right? But, these days, the perception and the meaning of it has changed. Now, if you give an anklet to a girl, they will be more delighted, because now no body thinks that it is a gesture of shacking them, but in more sense it is beautifying them.

Similar is the case with with the veil in most of the religions – including Hinduism and Islam. In Hinduism when a girl were got married, they were not allowed to be seen to the future groom and the marriages were held impartial, and it was good for both men and women – specially women. Because if they are in veil they are not being allowed to be judged and thus, even the girl who is not comparatively more beautiful than others use to get married to a descent guy.

I am not here to defend the right of society to veil women, but if we think in another way, it is just about even protecting them from being judged by the way they look. If that would not have been the case, then I think President Obama would not have to apologize for his comment, though there is no question that I revere him so much and he is one of the best persons I feel to deserve to be reelected to be the president of US.

Secondly, I am not here to judge the people by their look, their way of life and what they do. What I am trying to say is that everybody has equal right to enjoy what they believe is good for them and what they believe is right thing to do. It’s just our perception and way of thinking that makes things ugly.

This is in context to an article in “The Economist” entitled, “Vive la différence” dated April 04, 2013. Follow the link for the very article: http://www.economist.com/blogs/erasmus/2013/04/britain-france-and-secularism?fsrc=scn/fb/wl/bl/viveladifference

Thanks for stopping by to read. Hope to see you in next post.

Growing Power House of the World — China

If we flip through the pages of the history we can find China having conflicting relationship with its neighboring  country even couple of years earlier to the beginning of World War II. China was technically in war with Japan in 1937, however, the World War II begun in 1939 – one of the biggest debacle in the human history the world had ever seen. The war had been an eye-opening experience for the whole world and the war in Asia ended in August 15, 1945 when Japan agreed to surrender.

Even till today, we can see that the broken relationship in WW II has not subdued and there is still mark of broken relationship since then. Even though there has been number of treaties formulated, promulgated, incorporated and has been subsequent change in the bilateral relationship between the superpowers, the sense of enmity doesn’t seem to be erasing anytime soon. China, US, Israel, Iran, Russia, Japan, North Korea and South Korea in the present situation are the few examples.

In today’s context, China seems gravitating the world’s attention towards itself. Even a iota of information coming out from China make the headlines of almost all the leading journals and newspaper in the world including the print and digital versions. After WW II, China has been successful in developing itself in an unprecedented way despites of hurdles and some stymies being created by the feared super powers of the worlds – which mostly points fingers towards the western allies. It is a commendable attitude of China for being able to learn a big lesson from WW II and till now keeping it away from any form of unnecessary debate, conflict and proving itself not be a warmonger.

Few years back whenever we use to go to buy some electronics goods we use to get things tagged as: “Made in Japan” – at least in the Asian countries, which is now shifted to being: “Made in China”. China has learn to rise from the ashes and develop from scraps and have developed a sense of: “Rise and Rise Till the Lamb Becomes Lion”, which means NEVER GIVE UP! Chinas have made her house from the stones thrown to her and because of this Chinas is evolving to become the world’s super power in terms of army, technology, and monetarily. This is not an accolade but this is the fact and we have to be pragmatic in this case.

Now taking a veer to another direction and part of China, she seems solicitous to things that she should not be. The first thing is that when the world is moving towards denuclearization, China is moving towards bolstering its military force – may be this time China do not want to get tampered under the feet of superpower if in case the war is waged – which is still a far cry. For that very reason China is collecting all sorts of data it needs for his military research works. The news of collecting meteorological data of the Indian Ocean couple of months back had heated the matter between India and China despite their excellent relationship in foreign trade.

It is really apprehensible to see all the ongoing changes taking place in terms of militarily – moving of US special force to Australian bay, shifting of Japan based US military base, and the presence of US military in the Asian countries in the Asian countries like Nepal, India, Bangladesh and many more. Though  US is indicted with showing belligerent nature to China, the claims were rebuffed indicating US special force presence in Asian countries are just the bilateral move to foster the military development and training in the Asian countries to mitigate terrorist threat.

I don’t know why the world is apparently mute seeing the unequivocal changes taking place. I think the world will soon have to pay the price for being a mute-spectator!!

Language diversity, proficiency and opportunity

How naïve I was to think that I am the only one in that palace and the people inhibiting that place can only see the moon and no one else could! I use to ask my mom when dad not use to be with us because of his official work when he has to travel frequently to attend programs else where. I use to ask my mom: “Mom! Could dad might be seeing this same moon in his place?”  My mom use to show her love and her approval to whatever I use to say in my blabbering tone with her contended-smile at my innocent questions. I come of age a bit more and then started wandering how people might be communicating in another community.

It took me more than 26 years to realize that our lingual is only different, in whatever language we communicate, we all have one thing in common – our language have the same touch of feelings and expressions. However cool or weird it might sound listening to another language, it is obviously interesting and mesmerizing to know that we all have the same thing to say, same way to express, same attention to get, same attitude to make – we all are same in everyway!

I think of myself being fortunate in this regard when it comes to language since I was born in the society where my mother-tongue is Maithali language, which is basically used in our society which is interspersed in the Indo-Nepal boarder area, second is national language – Nepali – which I stated speaking after joining my school, third is Hindi language which I started understanding since my early childhood because of the influence of Bollywood movies which have millions of viewers in Nepal itself – this is because of our Sugauli Treaty signed on December 2, 1815 and ratified by March 4, 1816, between the British East India Company and Nepal, which was a kingdom during that era. This was again fortified with 1950-treaty of Indo-Nepal treaty of peace and friendship. Since then Nepal and India have free movement of people and goods between the two nation. My third language is my English which has been one of my most favorite languages and one of the most dearest languages I speak today – And its been like more than 20 years I have been using this language as one of my second language. Other languages includes Urdu language which I can understand a bit though I can’t speak it fluently and Bhojpuri language which is a kind of local ethnic language used in the neighboring towns of my home town – this language is being confused with Hindi language and my own mother-tongue (Maithali).

Though English language is an international language, depending solely on one language will only marginalize us in the global competition. In Thailand’s perspective, what I can see here is that the kids are taught Chinese language, Japanese and South Korean language because of the influence of those countries on Thailand in terms of business and bilateral relationship. Other languages adds up to their profile and considered as more privileged when it comes to getting job in multinational companies. Now, the day is not far when native English speakers will be considered as secondary option over the one who is proficient in multilingual conversation – because, these days more or less everybody can speak English language, and they have been studying and using English language since their early childhood.  For example: In Asian region, Pakistan have English as their official language despite Urdu as their native language while India and Nepal are other few examples where English is most widely used.

Mastering multi-language is not only beneficial in terms of finding job, but it will also makes us independent in most circumstances. It shoots our emotional level and emboldens us with more confidence than just having one language in our profile. It gives us an extra virtue through which we can mingle with multicultural society in quickly and easily. The issue of cultural transformation to multilingual is becoming increasingly more famous and more emphasis has been put forward in transforming the future generation to multilingual, multicultural society especially in the English speaking countries where English is the sole official language and mother-tongue.

One best and latest example of expanding social, cultural and linguistic collaboration is ASEAN collaboration, European Union and SAARC collaboration. How can we expect to benefit and get the best sustainable and fruitful results depending on monolingual pattern of working environ?

 

 

Investigation? Seriously?!

I am about to finish a book called “The Lone Survivor” by Marcus Luttrell”. A book being written by the lone survivor of SEAL TEAM of US task force deployed in Afghanistan. The story is about the team of 4 soldiers that includes all those who had been in their task within Afghanistan for more then three times. I am very much fascinated by this book and the way Marcus has written, and I duly and truly respect him and for what he has done. I feel like he is one of those US SEAL who deserves true respect and the acknowledgement of valor for what he has done for his country, and how he and his family rose from the ashes and made his capable for that revered position and status.

US has done a great deal for thousands of people from all around the world. But truth to be told, no body does anything for anyone unless there is some ulterior motif hidden inside it which is in favor of yourself. The reason is: “Have you ever given a single penny to somebody – even a beggar who is in desperate need of food, habiliment or something else?  I guess not! Yeah, there might have been certain circumstances when you/I might have been moved by their pathetic condition, but that is just some rare situations which do not normally happen and it should not be counted.

I do not want to hurt the sentiments of our those American friends and families who have lost their sons, daughters, wives, brothers, fathers, sisters, fiancée in the tragic incidence of 9/11. Even rewinding and reminding those events time and again through any means is like being disrespectful to those family, hurting them every time and I am not here to do that, because I know the value and the feeling of losing someone.

I an not in favor or against of some particular group, people, ideology or set of believes or country. I do not have to do anything with these things. The only thing that irks me is: “Whether there is any difference between a developed nation, civilized society and the so-called uncivilized society?” I mean, how are we going to define those terms? On what basis? There has to have some basic level of differentiation or some extra-terrestrial kind of virtues, either logically or hypothetically which might help us to define those terms – civilized and uncivilized.

There have been piles of thousands of document being investigated in the Iraq war, mistreatment of prisoners in Guantanamo bay prison: prisoners eye pocked and blinded, sleep deprived, bored in chilling water, confined in isolation hell dark dungeon, sexually abused (you can guess how, and whether they have anything left with that thing specially) – and surprisingly the investigation is going on and on. Few of them died because of the harsh treatment in the prison and the rules which immunize the soldiers dealing with those guys. Its already been more than 10 years now, but still there are those thousands of documents which have not been finished being investigated, the badger elements  has not yet been held accountable, and they have not yet been prosecuted. We all know these things even though we do not have some valid solid reason or proof to prove this. And, now, I am sick of this term “ INVESTIGATION”.

Honestly, I am infuriated with the latest news about the US soldiers urinating on the deceased Taliban body. At first even I felt like this is just like some other news, but when I kept on hearing and the responses from all over the world, and I felt this is not really good in any sense, at least not morally. This is the high time to question ourself and start looking at the mirror. It’s the time to question ourself: “Where do we really stand?”, “Are we really civilized and moral?”, “How can we differentiate ourself from those who lacks those moral sense, vibes and virtues?” “Will we be able to bring back those we have lost by indulging in such mortifying activities?” If not then what’s the use of denigrating ourself being a part of it?!

Our governments investigates the issues, take months, years and more years and finally they come to a conclusion after 10 or 20-years that the decision they made earlier was a mistake – a BIG mistake, and now they want to induct someone who is the real culprit, one who is the real offender and who have been at large for more than 20 years or something. They find those guys, prosecute them and finally put them in the list of capital punishment for their heinous crime. I don’t understand the use of carrying out all these investigation and sentencing someone of 70 or 80 years old or near about who are already half dead and they are naturally on the death list.

Nothing makes any sense to me at this juncture. I think it’s the time to take it more seriously and we should not count on their another new excuse — “INVESTIGATION”.

Women of Afghanistan

Till today approximately 3000 coalition troops have lost their life since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 – a war led by the US in response to the Taliban uprising in Afghanistan, and their growing influence in the middle east, Asia and else where in the world, which had been a biggest headache for civilized societies of the world – specially the western world. And, this number is still counting and mounting in the American history of war. God know how long this gonna prolong and the maim will continue to persist. 

Tens of thousands of civilians have lost their life since the Afghanistan invasion and the civilians have been the victims from both the sides (army and insurgents). The data shows that in the 3-month period between October 7, 2001 and January 1, 2002, at least 1,000-1,300 civilians were killed just because of the aerial bombing by the US. And if we amass the entire data counting the number of innocent deaths, you will realize that the data is really alarming and this has been one of the most significant humanitarian loss in the war after WW II. 

This is the rule of nature that we have to pay the price for everything. Every sunny morning has to pass through the darkest night, and we need to sacrifice one thing to get something better. We can’t have sweets in our both hands. This has been holding true to its meaning since long time ago – can be called hypothetically something like Precambrian Era. But slowly the things seems changing as we are developing: the number of war-casualties have been dropping and the authoritarian and barbarian act is taking the deep slope, which is in itself a kind of positive sign.

However the world-inside-our-world (Afghanistan) seems somewhat stoic and irresponsive in this sense. And, I think, its going to take some time before the things will be changing and this world-inside-the-world will be taking some new shape – a good shape of course and will sprint to match its steps with the other developing nations.

In every war, apart from the normal casualties which are inevitable, women suffers the most and so in the Afghanistan. The only thing different is that in other wars women used to get brutalized, mutilated, raped and were subjected to all forms of torchers from the enemy side, however, in case of Afghanistan this is completely opposite from what it seems from the last 10-years of history. They are still being brutalized by their own relatives and their kith and kins who use to take care them and protect them.

The news of women being treated inhuman is really disturbing. There have been number of news coming out everyday and there hasn’t been a single day in which the women has not been mentioned in the news specially from Afghanistan: from the story of 21-year-old Afghan women named Gulnaz who was raped by her own cousin’s husband, a 15 year old girl who had been celled in confinement by her own in-laws relatives to the story of an Afghan women who’s nose and ears were sliced off because of some reason. Everywhere and every time  its just the women who have to pay the price – even in the condition when it is not even justifiable in any sense.

These nerve chilling news of brutality against women seems unstoppable, since it has been continuing for long time and the rate is even increasing and this is now spreading across the boarder to Pakistan. The trend is taking shape in slower pace in Pakistan, while the world is still and watching senselessly. And, this is not going to change over night. I think even if we say, “Its going to take some time”, it will be so inane to say that, because this has just begun in violent manner and there is no sign of abate!!

Liberty Under Threat

When we talk about liberty, freedom, human right and people’s voice, the first thing that comes to our mind is America – United States of America (USA). That’s where its matrix lies, that’s where it all begun. This is what we have been believing and this is because US took seriously and has been able to maintain goals and objectivity. US has been able to hold on to its position in defending it for long time, and that is why it became its game-changer. However, when we scurry deep into the history we can find that there are still some countries in the world where the slavery system was abolished long before America ended its own.

US, the term itself has become a symbol and reflection of virtues like “The Country of Freedom and Dreams”, “Land of opportunities” and whatever terms that can signifies, adore, be its adjective that can be its addendum. This is all because US has been able to purchase her position. Because of this there has been a trend in the adolescent and the researchers, academicians from both developed and developing countries of the world ending up in US. The reason: they have a gateway to show their talent and try their lucks in whatever way they can.

The ideologies of American achievements and the dream world is so deeply engraved in the heart and minds of the people from around the world, that they started losing their faith in themselves, condescending themselves and started believing that there is just one world where we can achieve whatever we want and that is obviously US. In fact, to some extent is it true as well for there are reasons to believe. Whatever we see today has originated from US. In everyway Americans are perfect – kind of world of perfectionist.

But, now, the things seems little bit changing with a slow pace which might not be very significant. After the recession hit America in 2008, for example, everything started changing: there has been huge decline in the rate of students entering American college for pursuing their higher education, the research budget in many universities had been cut short overnight and the list follows. The recent American recession has been little bit apprehensive in a sense when we hear that unprecedented $700 billion bank bailout and $787 billion fiscal stimulus package was used for bolstering the shattering and severing American economy during the period of a year since December 2007 till June 2009.

In addition to all these unstoppable events unfolding there has been another huge issue of security and human right which has taken a very nasty backfire turn towards America itself. It has been very tough time for America to withstand her coming election, hobbling economy, ever protracting wars in all over the world against terrorism, and then another big problem of appeasing Israel to not go for war against Iran where Iran has shown being little bit provocative in someway. Apart from all these, America’s homegrown badger elements challenging her security system has been a major issue these days – most notably war against drug cartel from US to the bordering neighbor Mexico. I don’t know whether America is being too much liberal for its own people,  and too much aggressive in protecting human right all over the world.

As I was browsing through the New York Times magazine online, I found one sections having articles from the columnist from all walks of life – specifically from major religions in America. Everybody has the same issue: “We are not exercising our right to our fullest”!!

Is this the good sign for the American dreams and for the American and America itself?