Yesterday, a German anthropologist who is a Tibetan scholar and her French husband who works in television visited me. I had a wonderful time talking to them.
We spent an hour and more enjoying ourselves, and forgetting we are from different countries with different cultural backgrounds. As individuals we interacted and connected without allowing our passports to get in the way.
When they had gone I started to think how wonderful it was to see a German woman and a French man get married and have a grown-up son.
During World War 2 Germans and French people were fighting on different sides of the fence. It was a sad and brutal war. And, yet today…
While I was working in Japan an Oxford scholar friend of mine and I would often hang around together. We shared a million laughs together. On one occasion I invited a Japanese professor to join us. He was dumbfounded to see my English friend and I laughing and joking together. For the two of us, it seemed natural and even though we exchanged views on a hundred and one prickly topics there was no anger or hatred. We were friends, and still are to this day. Individuals can make a breakthrough in a messy and ideological world. And ideology is alive today even though a decade ago it was declared dead.
All through history human beings have been fighting one another. History is important in so far as it is a recording of how the fight was fought: from sticks and stones to bows and arrows to pistols and cannons to machine guns and mini-bombs, and finally nuclear bombs.
With the last, warfare has changed leaving no winners. We have to stop
fighting one another or we will cease to exist. When asked how human beings will fight future wars Albert Einstein said he did not know. He was, however, sure of the post-nuclear scenario: man will fight with sticks and stones. Will we progress to full circle, and start again?
The recent strike against terrorists was necessary, and terrorists need to be eliminated for the human race to survive, prosper, and live in peace. They belong to various groups and ideologies. They disrupt society and are a threat to our peaceful co-existence. We have no choice but to destroy these unreasonable people. Human beings cannot be held hostage to terrorists. They are not aliens. They are from all over the world: they are anti-human.
The world is becoming smaller today, and unfortunately smaller-minded, and it not easy to adjust to the changing times. Our dream of a more liberal global society is proving to be no more than a dream. We have to be watchful.
We Goans and Indians are affected as is everyone else in the world
today. We need to focus on the now and work towards a better world.
It is no easy task. We will need a lot of patience and goodwill.
