A Rant

BBC recently broad casted a program on religious divide throughout the world. As I sat there, I watched the atrocities, the mindless arguments, the concentration of human resources on problems so trivial and banal, that I could hardly believe that the footage on the screen belonged to the 21st century.

A woman who had been raped sat in the shadows and talked to a BBC reporter. She had suffered simply because she belonged to a minority community in Egypt. She told the world her miserable story. And yet... the next day the reporter would leave, satisfied with having obtained a 'good story' and the rest of the world would talk about it in horror stricken voices about coffee tables, or perhaps post about it on their blogs and offer "sympathy" to those people. Perhaps in the future a few human rights groups would come up and start collecting money, most of which would not reach the actual victims.

Really? Will that woman ever get justice? The apathetic government still denies strongly that its police are corrupt, its streets are swollen with crime and such atrocities are becoming the norm rather than the exception.

Well thats about it right? And life would go on. Sordid and sick when taken in the bulk. And thats why we puny humans can never pluck up the courage to view the world as it really is, but concentrate on our own little corners and dance to the latest dance song and laugh at the latest joke and go for the latest movie... and forget... because we can not live with ourselves if we bring ourselves to remember..

Why on earth can't people keep their beliefs and views to themselves? Why do they have to impose their opinions on other people? Religion is a highly personal thing, and to wage a war on someone else simply because he has a different belief is mindless! Each and every single religion merely says that there is a God who created us for which we have to give thanks and that we must be good human beings. Which religion says that we have to conquer the earth and subdue the free will of everyone else and make a hash of things?!

Why can't people concentrate on more important things like to tackle the food problem, the climate change problem? The more pressing and urgent problems?

I sometimes imagine the world a century later or so. I see the devastating effects of climate change. I see ravaged countries and all everyone is still doing is argue about religion.

And then I see that the only way to solve this problem is exactly what Huxley paints in this book, "Brave New World". When you read the book, you shudder at the horror and the savagery in it. But its either that, or we all kill each other in this crazy, sad, beautiful world of ours