It almost seems like we grew up in liberal times.
In 'times that are a changin', as Bob Dylan sang, and as in the revolutionary phase, at the times when tolerance was the message and 'Buffalo Soldier' by Bob Marley filled the air that we were breathing.
Everything was going well and life progressed steadily until about a decade and a half ago. It's only in the last 15 years, that fear has gripped us enmasse.
There was the holocaust, partition, bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and a whole lot of other human failures, but we could protest. We could condemn. We could write songs, bring the whole world together to sing them against social and political injustice and stand unitedly to shout foul. And the powers, the ones who could fault, feared that.
Today there is a shameless display of wealth and exercise of power, because a common man can no longer protest. He is the victim of the war being waged amongst others.
Who are they?
Who are we fighting against?
Do we know them?
Are they amongst us, and we don't see them?
Ironic, that in the times of an information and communication revolution, the public, across the globe has lost its voice.Its words. Its lyrics. Its poetry. And it's song.
Who do we sing for?
Or who against?
Is the criminal really the suspect?
Or the culprit really the criminal?
For fear of being found standing alone and therefore condemned for having stood for humankind as a whole, nobody dares to plan with another to shout 'Unfair".
What is unfair?
That you are being fed, educated and given shelter?
Or that another isn't?
All is fair.
Poverty is fair, Riches are fair and conformity to the system that calls itself democracy but is absolutely dictatorial, is fair.
War, that is being fought against a common enemy across the globe, is fair.
The war against terrorists and nations that support terrorism.
What's unfair is the people who have taken to the gun.
Unfair are those who were left with no choice but to take to the gun because they lips were forcefully sealed and therfore they ceased to be heard.
Or so thought the rest of the world, until the sounds of bomb blasts reverbrated in their homes, either on their television sets, or somewhere in their neighbourhoods.
Now they cannot be ignored. They don't speak, they cause terror. They kill, they masacre, they plunder, they loot and they are ruthless.
And all the armed forces in every single country in the world fights them.
It's time we allow them to speak and hear them out, else we're heading towards deadlier times.
Open dialogue. Listen to them, and stop speaking yourselves.
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