How far have we come.........

I have heard people talk about their dreams, their aims and what they are willing to do for them! But how far have they got from the starting point.......how much further is the finish line......we get so engrossed in our lives and our daily activities that we sometimes forget our dreams and ambitions. Recently, I met a friend who had planned to buy an electric guitar. That was before the summer vacations. During the summer vacations he had many engagements such as the industrial training, shopping and spending quality time with family and friends after four months in college. That was all well and good! When I met him, the first thing I asked him about was the guitar because I was so enthusiastic about it. And he had absolutely forgotten about it. Thats what I am talking about. We all talk about doing so many things, very few of us really get finish what we started. Like so many of us decide in the begining to do our best to get a 9 or 8 gpa or those who decide to give up smoking or drinking by the year-end or even those who make the promise of togetherness to their girlfriends! But how far did we get.......maybe serious studies till the first sessionals when we dedicate ourselves completely to pc games and football..............or two weeks without a puff or the 30ml affair till someone comes along with a lighted cigarette or a trip to the pub........or only a month till she is unfaithful and his love for her is gone! The issue at hand is not much different from the peace commitments between India and Pakistan! We have been hearing about peace between the two countries for years but some how they always fall short of getting it! Or easing legal restrictions on homosexuals! Many of us have trouble accepting gays into the society but we actually don't have problem with them as individuals but because they don't conform to normal social norms. Or child abuse or child atrocities or pollution, you name it! We commit and then we all of a sudden we walk away! Very few of us make it to the end of the journey.
Its a world of our own creation. We make the mistakes and we face the consequences! We are victims of our own suffering! Perhaps if Israel wasn't created, the middle-east wouldn't be the the epicentre of religious violence. Maybe if G W Bush didn't become president, Iraq and afghanistan wouldn't be innundated. We often see activists going on anti-war protests which guarantees more ugliness and violence. But how is it that we never see a pro-peace march, is it really so difficult to forgive than to just senselessly pit ourselves against them!
I am a student but I am also an individual! To be blunt, I am an individual who is well aware of whats happening today in this world and who also merely happens to be a student.If, God forbid, the day comes when I have to choose between being a quiet and compromising, innocent, compulsively nice student who just stands by and watches; and a responsible, powerful individual in touch with his spirituality and consciousness who is completely capable of taking matters into his own hands, which, if happens then the world may slip into mayham and anarchy..........I think you get the idea! Because so often we see, don't we, these clever people who just can't wait to tear down and destroy this world of ours. But do they ever have anything to put in place of what they destroy......no its just pure, quantum destruction!

P.S. - Well..............yes, what I have written is definitely a bit of an exaggeration but sometimes you really have to wonder whats happening to this world, you really do!!

Will war resolve the problem?

The Mumbai attacks have been dubbed 'India's 9/11' and there are calls for 9/11 style response, which is to go on war with Pakistan. Instead, our country must fight terrorism with justice. After all the wars that have taken place in the 20th century we should know better than engage battle. The collective conscience of the society will only be satisfied by the government taking concrete steps for the homeland security. But I believe our priority is to fight terrorism not Pakistan. The terrorist training camps, the fire-breathing mullahs and the maniacs who believe that Islam will, or should, rule the world are the ones who should be punished. And their ire rains down on Pakistani government and Pakistani civilians as much, if not more than it does on India.

As tension in the region builds, US has warned Pakistan that if it didn't act fast to arrest the "Bad Guys", India would be compelled to launch air-strikes on terrorist-camps in Pakistan and Washington could do nothing because Mumbai attack was India's 9/11.

But November isn't September, 2008 isn't 2001, Pakistan isn't Afghanistan and India isn't America. So perhaps we should reclaim our tragedy and pick through the debris with our own brains and our own broken hearts so that we can arrive at our own conclusions.

If at this point India decides to go on war with Pakistan, then perhaps the descent of the whole region into chaos will be complete. The debris of a bankrupt, destroyed Pakistan will wash up on India's shores, endangering us as never before. If Pakistan collapses, we can look forward to millions of "non-state actors" with an arsenal of nuclear weapons at their disposal. And rest assured the terrorist will not distinguish between rich and poor. They will kill them both with equal cold-bloodedness as we have already seen in Mumbai.

In circumstances like these, air-strikes to take-out terrorist training camps may take out the camps, but certainly will not "take out" the terrorists. Neither will war. (Also, in our bid for high moral ground, let's try not to forget that the LTTE of neighboring Sri Lanka, one of the worlds deadliest terrorist groups, were trained by the Indian army.)

Thanks largely to the part Pakistan was forced to play as America's ally first in its war in support of Islamist Fundamentalist and then in its war against them, its territory is careening towards civil war. As recruiting agents for America's jihad against the Soviet Union, it was the job of the Pakistan army and the ISI to nurture and channel funds to Islamic Fundamentalist organizations. Having wired up these Frankensteins and released them into the world, the US expected it could rein them in like pet mastiffs whenever it wanted to.

How should those of us whose hearts have been sickened by the lose of lives in the Mumbai attack extract revenge and what other options are left? Homeland security has cost the US government billions of dollars. Few countries, certainly not India, can afford that sort of price tag. The fact is that this vast homeland of ours cannot be secured or policed in the way the US has been doing. We have a hostile nuclear weapons country that is spinning out of control as a neighbour, we have a military occupation in Kashmir and an impoverished and shamefully persecuted minority of over 150 million Muslims who are being targeted as a community and pushed to the wall. Were the youth of the Muslim community, who see no justice in the horizon, to totally lose hope and radicalize, they would end up as a threat to not only India but the whole world. If 10 men can hold of the NSG and the police for three days, and if it takes half a million soldiers to hold down the Kashmir Valley, do the math. What kind of homeland security can secure India?

Nor for that matter will any other fix. Anti-terrorism laws are not meant for terrorists; they are meant for people who are disliked by the government. That's why they have a conviction rate of less than 2%. They are just a way of putting inconvenient people behind bars without bail and then eventually being released. Terrorists like the ones who attacked Mumbai hardly likely to be deterred by the prospects of being refused bail and sentenced to death. Its what they want.

What we're experiencing now is a blow back, the culminative result of decades of quick fixes and dirty deeds. The carpet is squelching under our feet.

On the international hunger index, India is ranked below Sudan and Somalia. But of course this isn't that war. That one is still being fought in the Dalit bastis of our villages; on the banks of Narmada and Koel Karo rivers; in the rubber estates of Chengara; in the villages of Nandigram, Singur, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, orrissa and Lalgarh in West Bengal; and in the slums and shantytowns of are gigantic cities.

We have to stop war mongering and think about how a war will adversely affect our future. We are standing at a fork on the road. One sign says justice, the other says civil war. There is no third sign and there's no going back. Choose.