HATRED BEGETS HATRED.

"Love Begets Love"



Wars are born in the minds of men. It is always dangerous to leave the war to the generals alone just as it is not safe to leave governance to politicians alone, as elegantly shown by George Orwell in his celebrated book Animal Farm. The present reductionist science that is taught to our students makes people get a narrow, one-sided view of things. It is only the holistic view of anything that gives man the correct perspective. It is time that we had a holistic view of what happened on September 11th and the subsequent events, despite the horrors of that fateful day. Wendell Berry, an octogenarian American Eco-philosopher, had expressed similar thoughts recently.



American public, and to a lesser degree people in the "so-called" developed first world, were continually fed with the idea that their "new world order" and their "new economy" would keep on growing bringing prosperity for ever. Their leaders, politicians, corporate heads and the common investors never realized that this prosperity (or its illusion) is only limited to a microscopic minority of people in this world, and to an ever smaller number of people even inside the US! This had created a widening gulf between the haves and the have-nots in this world. This gulf is at the root of all human ills, including terrorism. The rich should now live in the ever-present threat of the poor resorting to illogical methods to get even with them. The poor, on the other hand, have to live a hand-to-mouth existence, and on many nights have to go to bed with empty stomachs.



The greatest stress in life is not to know where your next meal comes from. This is the segment of the population, which is amenable to brain washing by the vested interests in the name of religion, caste, creed, region and what have you. Converts to any new thinking are more fanatical than their masters as they try and prove that they are purer than the king is! Every country has this kind of threat from the misguided and disgruntled youth, who believe that there are only two opposites in this world, black and white. They are never aware of the Grey areas in between; in fact, the latter is the rule rather than exception. When once man realizes that there are other points of view on every problem, violence recedes. The Zen philosophers had what they called the "wu", or the "mu" concept, which is in between the two extremes. The "wu" concept would generate tranquility at the end. Our future generation must realize the importance of sharing while caring for others. It is in giving that we get. Rarely does one get true happiness in getting, but in giving one always gets that sense of satisfaction.



The misguided and the frustrated poor and illiterate make up the majority of terrorists. Of course, there are the misguided youth from the richer families also in the ranks of the latter but they are only the leaders. The vast majority of their followers come from the poor strata in society. Even the crime graph of any state or city would prove this point. Thus the free market economy has resulted in both the rich and the poor living in constant fear of one another. The wider the gulf between the rich and the poor, the worse would be the scenario. Majority of the poor in the third world countries, who do not have even remote contact with this kind of anti-social groups, pay for their poverty with their own lives, anyway.



The developed countries' economies flourished at the cost of the poor nations in the first place. Political colonization of the past gave place to the economic colonization of the present day. While the British took our people to work in their sugar cane fields in the past, the west today takes our youth to work in other areas. This make-believe world where people are fed with all kinds of distorted information about consumables through expensive advertisement gimmicks, makes the younger generation fall a prey to their tricks. Never did they realize that one day this technological monster would try and gobble them up. Technology went unhampered and the resulting stockpiling of weapons, even the all-powerful nuclear weapons, today are their biggest headaches. The potential threat of biological warfare and, worse still, the chemical warfare, stares the very nations that invented them in their face. The wheel has come one full circle.



The advanced nations never could foresee that the weaponry and the science of war that they taught to the world would become available not only to recognized national governments but also to rogue nations, dissidents, and fanatical groups in the end. Never did they realize that technology is not only good but could be used to annihilate mankind. They also felt that their technology was so sophisticated that the less powerful would never be able to copy it and beat them at it! Now that is shown to be invulnerable to terrorism, sabotage, or even proxy war by the unscrupulous groups.



Time has come for introspection and soul searching. "National self-righteousness is as bad as personal self-righteousness". It is time that the advanced nations took a serious stock of the prevailing conditions dispassionately and tried to heal the wounds with love and compassion. Jesus rightly had asked us to forgive even our enemy. Forgiveness is the only permanent solution to this "catch 22" situation from where we find it almost impossible to get out. Hard thinking has to go into this but the rhetoric we hear from our leaders and the media does not seem to point in that direction at all. It is, therefore, time that every thinking citizen in every corner of the world has to raise his voice against this madness of "eye for an eye" philosophy. If one were to analyze the gravity of the situation, one would very quickly see that it is the poorest of the poor that suffer in the end. The tranquil poor people of most aggressive nations have been reduced to abject poverty, illiteracy and disease. They neither have the money and means to migrate nor do they have anywhere else go either. In a way, death is more humane than living a miserable hungry existence for most of them!



War mongering, hatred, and terrorism are all social diseases needing radical surgery than the quick-fix methods of hi-tech war machinery. Health is defined as that state of mind where the person has enthusiasm to be of use to himself and society for the common good of all. This could be impaired by physical, mental, social, and spiritual infirmities. Human mind, with all the negative thoughts of hatred, greed, jealousy, ego, and pride, is at the root of all diseases, both in individuals and in society. Spiritual health is an absolute prerequisite for common wellbeing. Spirituality is simply caring and sharing and is the same for every religion. Man must transcend the narrow religious beliefs to comprehend this universal truth.



"War and peace are not mutually exclusive in the true sense, although peace is not the goal of any war; it is victory that is the aim of war". In times like this the common man should not be made to shape his opinion of the enemy given by the politicians, officials and the media. We should see the other side of the coin as well to be able to be more balanced in our attitude towards the worst of our enemies. Then, and then only, would we be able to forgive our enemy. Real dispassionate neutral media is the need of the hour to educate the common man.



To make the future generation more tolerant we need to change the present educational system. A child, born with only two instincts of self-preservation and procreation, is being converted into an epitome of all the negative thoughts to generate wars in the future by the competitive ethos of the present day information based replicative educational system with its examinations. This should be replaced by a more meaningful subjective, intuition-based, inner realization of the all-pervasive loving human soul. Humility should be the greatest virtue in education. Whereas competing with others, as is done now in our educational system, is only mediocrity that leads to hatred and jealousy, competing with oneself, true education, would bring out not only excellence but also humility in the future generations. Education should aim to teach the child the fine art of living-living and letting others live.



We can not spend and consume endlessly. This is only possible for a few in this world as has been done so far. Now is the time to live by sharing with those who are less fortunate. Every human action must be looked at from the point of view of the other man-never trying to hate the action, weep at the action or laugh at it. Understanding others gives us the power to forgive and forget. People could be self-centred, illogical and unreasonable but it takes a truly educated man to love them all the same. This message must reach the younger generation in no uncertain terms. The present idea that Americans can consume endlessly even when children are dying in Somalia without food should be forgotten forever. Sharing and caring is the essence of human existence here.



The present trouble brings us to the reality, like never before, that our educational system has to change and change very fast from that of competitive ethos to that of co-operative ethos. Education should never be an "industry" in that sense of the word. Unlike what is thought now that education's main role is to prepare youngsters for the industry, by job-training them and making them do industry based research, "education's main role should be to enable citizens to live their lives that are economically, politically, socially and culturally responsible to society." In short, education is transformation of the human being from the innocent and loving child to that of a man or a woman who knows his/her social responsibilities. Education must build character to make a student a cultured citizen. Culture is that which remains with one after all that is studied in school and college is forgotten.



Education also should teach the young to preserve our natural resources like air, water, and soil. "We should not allow public emotions and public media to caricature our imaginary enemies" wrote Wendell Berry. We should try to understand our enemy's point of view and try and see how we could help him to understand our culture and our point of view. Education should stress on local self-sufficiency. The rich should stop exploiting the poor by making them work as cheap labor and spoil their environment for the benefit of the former. Any human endeavour, including scientific research, should aim at universal benefit to mankind. In this context it may not be out of place to quote Nobel Laureate Max Bohm, when he felt really sad. His three illustrious students, all Nobel Laureates themselves, Oppenheimer (American), Enrico Fermi (Italian) and Neils Bohr (Scandinavian) were trying to split an atom. He is reported to have told a reporter at that time: "I am very proud of my pupils' cleverness; how I wish they had used a little bit of their wisdom instead. This atom that they are trying to split will teach mankind a bitter lesson one day."



What a prophetic statement! That is exactly the biggest headache right now for President Bush, who looks ten years older in the last one-month or so. If that all-powerful atom falls into the hands of the illogical terrorists it would be the beginning of the end of mankind on this planet. Let our educational system change the concept of science from that of one-upmanship to that of altruism, the economy from that of endless consumption and waste to that of saving and thrift. The former economy is, per force, "violent and eventually leads to war", but the latter is peaceable bringing peace and contentment everywhere. There is enough in this world for man's need; but not enough for man's greed. Let our educational system be based on truth and high ethics, the two casualties of the present system.



"Satyam, ….brihad ritam ugram…

…vishwan dharaayanthi…………."

Rg Veda.

(Truth and high ethics, applied sternly in life, shall make this world go on for ever)



This agenda is more important and urgent than the war of hatred that we are waging in Afghanistan at the moment which seems to lead to no where! The third world war would be the end of mankind, as it is not going to be a conventional war anyway, what with all the stockpiled deadly nuclear, germ, and chemical warfare stuff that the "so-called" superpowers have in their command. God only knows who else has some or all of them in addition! One reaps what one sows is an eternal truth. The deadly weapons that the super powers built over the years are the ones that are threatening their very existence. This is the irony of the whole affair. Indian wisdom had this kind of warning to man. It preached that hatred begets hatred but love begets love. American thinkers also had similar ideas.



"If love is what you give away,

Love is what comes back each day."

American poetess, Amy Cassidy.



Time will soon come when the world would forget the horrors of the September 11th. It will be suicidal not to learn our much-needed lessons from this experience. Future generations would not forgive us if we did not correct ourselves and make man love man, forgetting our petty differences in the name of region, nation, religion, caste, colour, creed etc. Let us develop the God in each of us, with the help of the right kind of education.

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