Unchanging Realities

I am 21 years old. An adult by law. I have the right to drink. I have the right to frequent nightclubs. I have been given these rights with a viewpoint that I can, for the first time since i was born, think for myself. Or rather, think straight for myself.

Mohammad Ajmal Amir Iman is a 21 year old too. He too by law can drink and frequent nightclubs. He too has been determined by law to be able to think straight. To think for his betterment.

He is also known as Ajmal Kasab. He decided to shoot innocents instead.

What made him not live like any other 21 year old? What made him pick up that gun?

These are the questions one must ponder about. I am not in any position to answer these questions. I think its poverty, or maybe the desire to become politically active. It may be brainwashing by a few cunning people. It is most likely to be a mixture of all of these.

What i want to understand is whether people like Kasab are a new phenomenon? Is it normal for young people to commit mindless acts in the name of any ideology? Do we have any historic records of young people like me wanting to kill innocents?

I am not in any way supporting or endorsing what Kasab did. I will never endorse what ever it is that anyone does if it involves the lives of the innocent.

Youngsters are the most susceptible to the concept of revolution. For example Chhatrapathi Shivaji, one of the greatest warriors India has ever seen was a rebel. He invented Guerrilla warfare. He was only 17 when he first attacked and captured Torna Fort.

Che Guevara, another revolutionary. Went against governments in South America and armed and formed an army for this purpose. Was branded a terrorist. Believed in an ideology. Everything began with a single trip.

Isn't Kasab's belief in an ideology making him pick up a gun? He must be surely thinking he is a Che, or a Sivaji or maybe even a Bhagat Singh (of his own making obviously).

The thing that is common to all of these men whose names i have stated is that they see around themselves a lot of pain, oppression and poverty. This makes them lose their belief in the ideology they always knew. They start seeking solace in other ideologies. Some promise equality, some others promise freedom and some promise heaven.

Man is always going to be oppressed by his own kind. There is no possible way that there could have been a day since 1900 that some one wasn't warring with some one. It has reached a scenario that we are able to get used to this fact as time goes by.

Man is a creature of habits. He does not learn from his mistakes. Human History seems to be a cycle of events changing names every cycle. As George Santayana once said,

"Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

We are living in a world that grows lesser and lesser safer for everyone. As time goes by there are more and more chances that one's lifespan is getting shorter. Mega Corporations trying to poison you, Terrorists trying to blow you up, Politicians trying to whore you, and so many other things. If you manage to survive every one of these events, you are most likely to be a victim of the ever so magnifying issue of Global warming.

For every problem solved, man is able to create something or the other.

When the Berlin wall fell on August 23rd 1989, the world rejoiced. By April 1996 Israel had finished building most of the Israel - Gaza Strip Barrier. Doesn't anyone realize?

Every wall built will be torn down. For every wall torn down, a new one is erected somewhere else. I know it sounds like a cheesy rip off of the laws of motion. But that is the reality of life. If someone is freed someone else pays for it by losing their freedom.

Men are always going to fight amongst themselves. He needs not a reason. He is sure to make one up. There is no ideology that will appease us all. We slowly will end everything. Sooner or later.

Signin off...

MeE