The 21st Century Ordeal

The 21st Century Ordeal

Another English paper I wrote

The soot stained walls of the prison in east Mosul reverberated with the anguished cry of the poor farmer, as a whip sunk deep into his skin, ripping his back flesh bare. Only the twenty eighth lash of the stipulated hundred. Silenced reigned, but only momentarily, while the guard flung back his arm, only to direct the metal tipped whip towards the farmers torso yet again, as if it was attracted by a powerful magnet. The prison’s musty air was once again filled with the sickening scream of distress and pain. Drop by drop, the parched and dust shrouded floor of the prison soaked the blood which now oozed profusely from his ravaged back, leaving the man begging and praying for mercy in the form of death.

The street markets of Kandahar, Afghanistan, alive and bustling with people and hawkers alike, seemed like any other market on any other, not so extraordinary, day. The din and haggling, however, was covertly watched by the “religious police” who, armed with Soviet AK 47s and “Divine permission”, scanned and surveyed the scene for those defiling the laws commanded by the Aasmani Kitab. All of a sudden, a lady garbed in black from head to toe was accosted and besieged by a mob; a powerful strike from the shoulder of a semi-automatic rifle by one of the men broke her arms rendering them atrophied and leaving her wailing with incomprehensible pain. Little did her three children, who looked on with disbelief and horror in their eyes, know that it was going to be their last glimpse of their mother as she was man-handled and dragged away only to be, later that afternoon, shot at point blank range in the middle of the soccer field. Sadly, under the boot of the Taliban’s oppressive and inhuman regime, its purpose now had totally deviated from being one of entertainment, to a center stage for public display of executions.

Back in the Republic of Congo, the sun had already receded to the outskirts of the western horizon and the evening sky boasted a fiery orange hue as it patiently gave way to night. Nagamutu returned from his field with a sack of potatoes loaded on his back. The year’s harvest had been reaped and the peasant took home to his family what was left. Ahead of him, his five year old son merrily skipped and hummed to the tunes of the birds, who now were returning to their lofty perches. Without notice, the apple of Nagamutu’s eye was tossed in the air and evidently in lifeless form. Only last year, the Republic of Congo had failed to ratify the treaty banning the production and use of land mines.

The Espana Airbus flew over the glistening, turquoise waters of the Atlantic at an altitude of thirty five thousand feet. Suddenly, apparent metal fatigue due to an explosion in the cargo deck, forced the craft to be propel it self towards its limits of maximum gravity and incidentally disintegrate. All that could be seen, now, was a ball of white smoke that mushroomed in the azure sky, followed by a final and deafening clap of explosion. Back in Iberia, somewhere in the Basque region, in the house of the terrorist leader of the ETA Separatist Group, thanks were being surrendered to the Almighty and sweets were being distributed on this “truly auspicious” occasion.

The wake up call has been sounded time and again but it has fallen on deaf ears, till now, and the sight of men dying for reasons unspeakably trivial, on the eyes of the blind. That men do not learn from history is the greatest and most relevant lesson that the annals of our race has to offer. It is time we paid heed to the admonitions and made amends. For the likes of Bin-Laden to Mohammed Farrah Aideed, have one thing in common, a devilish purpose and their much obvious path of fanaticism and destruction and not to mention their threat to civilization as we know it. Peace it seems, or the lack of it, plagues humanity and belittles the ardent strives of our race towards higher goals.

One comes to ponder if there is a plausible solution that might conjunct with world peace. Perhaps there is none. But in hope I live. It is hope that makes every sunrise worth waking up to. One also comes to behold some other intriguing questions; is right more precious than peace? Is right more precious than life? What is peace? And more importantly, what is right? To these questions, my friends, the answers remain unanswered and debatable and the mind, as they say, boggles.

Would getting rid of such monarchists, who practice and preach cruelty to all things living; employing fear, pain, religion and death for exchange of wealth to feed the mills of their avaricious desires for power, bring about an end to this era plunged in misery? My answer is yes. With the likes of Saddam, I feel, there is very little one can do. Levy sanctions, and you kill the common man out of hunger and poverty. Give aid, and Saddam makes himself palaces adorned with murals plated in gold and studded with gems and weapons of mass destruction. Either way, the whole purpose to end the suffering of the masses and bring about peace is defeated, miserably.

Seeing nine year olds, brandishing guns and grenades and vowing to abnegate their lives in the name of “jihad” is bloodcurdling. But what is even more unnerving is the ignorance that prevails and blindfolds them. Under the barrel of the gun, their birthright to knowledge, freedom, food, family and true religion have been arrested. Thus, the core of the problem lies with those who coerce these innocent men, women and children to embark on such journeys of death and destruction, and all under the false fa’ade of religion. It is in the liberation of these men and women from the claws of these satanic dictators can one find the answers to peace, that we so desperately seek.

I do not proclaim genocide as my answer, as I was “accused” of by one of my classmates. Neither do I justify or endorse the loss of innocent lives. We can alter, as we have in the past, the meaning of the Scriptures but, sadly, cannot bend the laws of Nature for or against us. I believe that everything has a price attached and such is Mother Nature’s decree. Without a streak of doubt, my belief also extends to freedom and liberation which also comes at a price- a sacrifice of life and blood, which we must endure while stamping out such regimes and defeating their purpose, if we are to be sanguine for a brighter and better tomorrow.

“A threat to peace anywhere,” in the words of Martin Luther King Jr.“ is a threat to peace anywhere” and it is high time we realized that he spoke for all humanity.