Saturday, November 28, 2015

Couch Activism

I will burn in hell if I ever condemn social media. It gives us a mythical and endearing mirage of society. It helps us to see what we crave for ... friends liking us,  appreciation of our creativity, respect and need for our opinion and somehow makes our words sound clever.

I am an animal and human right supporting, environmentalist ... living a vegetarian lifestyle while chasing the unicorn of loving, peaceful, tolerant, just mankind living on a green, pollution and war free earth. Proof you may ask, check my Facebook,Twitter,Instagram and blog. 

We propagate our thoughts, land our support, oppose vehemently what we do not believe in from the hideout out of our couch, keyboard as our tool, words/like buttons/emoji's as our weapons and hope to make a difference. Just because we are on the couch does not make it easy, we feel strongly, we hurt deeply, we love and lend support obsessively. We, well some of us, even think.  

What we do not do, is stop ourselves forming and displaying opinions. Vivid, graphic, heart felt opinions. Like some of us support tolerance to the extend that we become viciously intolerant to ones we perceive as intolerant or support forests to a level that we support criminal uprooting of villages and tribes for forest sustenance, support victims of a war enough to support the execution of anyone clouded by the doubt of being a perpetrator.

Life is simple of the couch. Words are clear. Intentions pristine.

We do not have to deal with the murky and the grey. We do not deal with human nature. Its easy to love people than live with them. Its easy to fight for a fair world free of power hungry dictators when seeking power is a form of and not necessarily distinguishable, from seeking respect, faith and followership. Its easy to seek end of terrorism, while there may not be a big difference between terrorists, freedom fighters and hell, even crazy activists. You can support end of a war, without thinking that it will take a war to end that war and  that war that will be needed to end the war will need warriors, who may loose their limb, life or minds. They will, only because people are good and bad, motives are good and bad, reasons are good and bad, justice is good and bad, weapons are good and bad; create new reasons for a new war.

How many of these opinions that we live by, talk by, believe by, argue by, seethe in... will make us make a banner and stand at the street corner or shout slogans in a rally, or participate in an uprising or fight or even die.

This is a tough question. Let me seek the answer, which may warrant a new, more comfortable couch and a better coffee maker. Let me pull the blinds on the window so I shall not be distracted by the view of the world while I save it.

Monday, November 16, 2015

Inept Peacekeepers!!

If you can imagine... what it is for you or your loved one to die, because you/they went out for a dinner or to work; how desperate you have to be to flee from your house and country because you cannot continue to live in inexplicable violence; how you are shunned by those in the world who have warm beds and full stomachs; how you are tripped by a camera person in your refugee camp, to film you and your child fall; how it feels to see your kids die of hunger and disease; how your daughter can be kidnapped and brutalized for going to school; how your baby can be born with a shrapnel in his head and how your infant's dead body can be washed ashore....you know what hundreds of thousands of fellow humans feel; How deep are the wounds to humanity; How impotent are talks of borders, religion, origin, reason, action ...

Till we do not identify with the pain, have compassion and anger for injustice to people across borders and across seas, there will be no end to this madness.

Our house is not safe if our neighbor's house and body burns. We can't rationalize a child can die because his parents were born in a certain country, could not oust a dictator, followed a particular religion..

If France had information of ISIS stronghold and 20 bombs to spare for their annihilation, why did they waited to be attacked. This action a few months back would have been more effective and have saved many more tormented Yazidis. By the way, how did France ensured that only and only ISIS members, who have practiced heinous crimes died? They must have ensured that no innocent , non-perpetrators Syrians were killed.... because if they were, this attack was not a revenge of attack on Paris, but an unfortunate extension.

US is very prompt to stop refugees because of the possibility of one of the millions displaced, sneaked an attack on the country that gave him asylum. Unlike Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and many other European countries, US has not really helped refugees so far despite ISIS's origin being directly attributed to bad foreign policies followed by US. There main action in support of eradication of ISIS was to handover weapons to group of people, claiming to fight ISIS.

So who is taking an action to eradicate ISIS? Will it take Middle East to its organic, healing state? How can ISIS be eradicated without committing injustice on another group or individuals and creating future generation of terrorists? Why is Islam being associated with terror, when no God fearing person, irrespective to the name of God, will even hurt a fellow human? How dropping bombs in areas with "majority" ISIS members help? How does an emotional reaction and war cries of a hurt country help? How does sealing borders help? How does the cries of discrimination of death between various ethnicity helps?

Who are we: humans or proud citizens of a safe country? When words and videos can convince people to become Terrorists, where are the words and videos to convert them back?

Pain, death, suffering are universal languages like compassion, love and unity. Its time to think before we speak ...

Wednesday, November 04, 2015

Just a normal night of my normal life ...

 Diary Entry: Nov 2 

I was exhausted and sleep deprived by the time the weekend ended. Not a great place to be at. So Sunday night, I read my book to calm the effects of working late at night and hit the bed trying to squeeze as much sleep as possible.

As I start drifting to sleep I witness shaking of the walls and may be my bed. Something like this used to happen when contractors were working at my house and they walked on the flat roof. I start wondering who can be on the roof at that hour. A person sounds very scary and an animal too small to make an impact like that. Also there may have been a bed shaking which could not be explained. I wondered if the neighbors hit their car against the garage wall or something. And if my headboard was too close to the wall.

Anyway, I tried to put myself back to sleep when I feel a very definite shaking of the bed. It cannot be explained by an impact on adjoining walls. Now I wonder if a small (I hope) animal entered the house when I left the patio door open in the evening for cross ventilation. I woke up and switched on all the lights and became jumpy in anticipation of a small, ugly animal jumping at me. I suddenly, thought about the cayotes seen in the office parking lot, late at night.

I did not find any animal, so I was left with nothing to do but get back in bed and try to sleep after architect-ing tactical setting of my covers to dodge the swarms of mosquito, which definitely entered when I left my patio door open.

It was not easy sleeping with open question like which human was on my roof and which animal was in my bed … but I eventually did.

I woke up and decided to not instigate further and return to a normal week. This decision may or may not have followed a news of certain earthquake in Phoenix area.