There are a number of searing poems about the atomic war that i often advise students to read when the topic comes up. The second world war literature, too, is full of moving comments on the meaninglessness of war, the atomic war included. Films such as "Hiroshima, mon amour" can be an emotionally charged experience even for a common man despite its 'arty' quality.
If i wax eloquent about such artistic works in the classroom but if i would not be dead seen participating even in a paper demonstration, that is, simply signing an international application questioning the non-legality of bombing a nuclear facility, am i not guilty of lacking the courage of convictions? Especially if i am ignoring it consciously? Waiting for the Big Bro or the Sugar Daddy or the Fairy Mommy to sign it? Do i really have any conscience?
True, every issue need not appeal to everyone on this earth, and, yes, for sure, everyone has the full freedom to choose to react to whichever issue she/he wants to. The problem is we choose this freedom for ourselves, but accuse others of hypocrisy in the personal space, and of fundamentalism in the public sphere!
India is now on the boil precisely because of such "MY issues/points-that-i-make are worth a notice, while YOU are opinionated" what-about-ery. Out of a convenient lack of convictions emerges the real bigotry!
Why, the world itself is thus suffering if you look at the long protracted Russia-Ukraine war dangerously nearing an atomic 'explosion' in every sense of the term. As if that is not enough in the post-Covid scenario, there are the Chinese skirmishes!
Well, if something is wrong as per the parameters of a given time and space (as both these paradigms may change/shift the focus), it IS wrong whether or not it is convenient to me because of my immediate profit or loss equations.
Let me give you a very safe, as it is very harmlessly academic, example to prove my point.
It is wrong, for example, not to conduct any examination till a student reaches the eighth standard. True, learning is for knowledge. That wisdom sure needs some testing, right? That testing, the exam, can be made creative, yes, even for large numbers.
As a person belonging to academics, i must open up such issues. If i chicken out of any such debates instead of joining them without rancour, do i have any right to go on and on and on about the deterioration in educational standards?
Yes, there are many such issues that do need debating for a healthy society. In fact, i would go so far as to say that even a certain number of signatures supporting an appeal, which is actually more a paper tiger, can create a sense of pressure for the powers be, right?
In brief, the real prayer currently should be for "the right (and the courage of convictions) to say that ''two and two make four" as George Orwell put it so succinctly, and oh, yes, with the real courage of convictions!
Pratima@ "My parents (she talks only of her mother) always taught us that if people do not agree with you, listen to them. But if you have listened to them carefully, and still you are right, then you must have the courage of your convictions," wrote Jane Goodall. Agreed!
"I do not know any other way to live but to wake up every day armed with my convictions, not yielding them to the threat of danger and to the power and force of people who might despise me," says Woke Soyinka. Absolutely!
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