The President has made the fundamental mistake of equating social constructs with people’s beliefs. You speak of “evil minds” — where evil is a qualifier, which is totally determined by the society. What is considered evil by one segment of the society is not the same as evil in another segment of the society.
For instance, Subash Chandra Bose was an Indian freedom fighter and the founder of the Indian National Army. He fought and used violent methods to achieve his goals. In fact, he used aid from one of the Axis powers (Japan) to arm and fight the British. Would you consider him “evil” because of his means and his goals?
Gandhi, the supposed Father of India, was a non-violent man. However, his methods and his stance were largely responsible for the creation of the state of Pakistan. Given his position, him taking a stance would have saved a lot more lives in the longer run (not to mention the instability in the region). So, is Gandhi “evil” because while (supposedly) doing well, he was responsible for the death of millions?
Or what about Gandhi’s refusal to protest against the hanging of other freedom fighters such as Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and the like? Was he “evil” by refusing to side with his own countrymen for his own beliefs for his principles or was it mere selfishness to attain a goal and stay at the center of attention?
Or what about what the GoI did to the Kingdom of Hyderabad when the nation-state of India attained independence, by annexing the kingdom against the wishes of the then Nizam through economic blockades? Would that be considered evil?
No, people do what they do because of ideals. Their ideals may differ from yours, but that does not make them good or evil, merely different.
The first step towards building peace and harmony across cultures and communities is to understand that good and evil are social constructs based on a perceived set of morals and ethics, and that different cultures and societies have entirely different views of what is right and what is wrong.
Take Islamic fundamentalism for instance. What makes Islamic fundamentalism dangerous is that the followers are idealists. It may not be the same as yours, but they firmly believe in something, and nothing you do or sway is going to turn them away from their ideals.
As someone once said, politics is a fight for the undecided middle. There are fundamentalist Muslims and there are normal Muslims — just like there are fundamentalist Christians, Hindus, Jews etc. and normal Christians, Hindus, Jews etc. And most fall right in the middle where they do not really care one way or the other, and would much rather go on with their lives — and they are for the most part choice-less.
The Al-Qaeda (and like-minded) folks want everyone to live “Islamically” while the West for the most part would rather that parts of the world turn out like India or even China (i.e. maintain your cultural identity while fitting in with the rest of the world).
The problem is that living Islamically the way AQ and others want is quite nearly impossible giving western ideals — the former is based on a societal culture while the latter is based on an individualistic culture. Therefore, in an Islamic society, the right of a woman to drink or choose her man is overridden by the need for the society to maintain its perceived sense of ideals at the expense of the individual’s rights, wants and needs.
Of course, given that the ideals of both sides differ fundamentally, it is hard to find a middle ground. The end result is that we fight, hoping that either one side would come out successful or that we will find a middle ground.
Now the question we need to ask ourselves is not whether we should fight but rather whether is it worth losing our identity and our principles over fighting the other side. And this is the fundamental reason that things like torture, killing and the like are wrong. The moment you decide that doing anything is alright because it is the other side, you become the other side.
We cannot afford to lose our identity and our principles and our sense of who we are in the war against terrorism, and the fact that it has made a lot of people do just that is what is scary.
I would say that as long as the other side remains face-less, it is easy to plunder, pillage and kill. Once they become your brothers, your fathers, your wives and your daughters, it becomes hard to do.
I have seen people term this a clash of civilizations — while they are probably right, I would say that dialogue between two clashing civilizations is the way to peace.
Greater understanding, greater interaction and greater exchange of ideas. Babylon, Persia and the Arab world were once the centers of the world, today they are not. If we could bring back more interaction with the other side of their world, the rest would follow.
That, or we nuke the jerks to kingdom come.
Sadly, some folks seem to disagree with my post — and I imagine more than a few have been offended by the last line. It’s sarcasm, people.
RSS 2.0
Add to Technorati
Save to Del.icio.us
Take it back