“Turning and turning in the widening gyre,
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”
-W.B. Yeats
About Me
- Rada
- They say Cancerians are crabs, constantly side-stepping issues. Well...Maybe. I don't know. What I do know about myself is that I love Reading, Writing, Going for long walks, Travel, Cinema, Music and host of other things. I tend to prefer the company of young people, because they are usually full of good ideas. They also prevent you from being cynical.
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Stepping Sideways... by K. Radhakrishnan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License.
9 comments:
Great One.
It could have been better for the current scenario,
The Good lack all conviction, while the Bad
are full of passionate intensity.”
How apt! Thanks for posting this. how could one forget the Second Coming?
Whether you publish this or not is up to you, however this is what happens when a country has leaders who pander to a religion and community for the sake of votes.
How many Muslims in India or globally, have come out strongly against this violence? Their silence is deafening.
One day I hope to see India be a self respecting country like Israel or the Unites States, as of now this is a pipe dream.
My Israeli and American friends ask me all the time, as to why we are so passive and held hostage in our own country? I have no answers to give them except a wry smile.
The only language militant Islam understands is retaliation. Unfortunately, since Muslims do not speak out against the evil within, they get bunched all together.
Dear Ravi,
Is it all that simple?
It was the US’s unsympathetic handling of Islamic sentiments in the Middle-East and their blind support to Israel that gave rise to Islamic terrorism in the first place. It is also not fair to compare US and Israel with India: India’s multi-ethnic history is replete with conquests and atrocities committed by one religion against the other and some of those scars and animosities run deep and have never been given a proper chance to heal, thanks to the politicians.
Unfortunately it forms a vicious cycle: Every time an atrocity happens, such as the one that happened in Mumbai this week, we expect the Muslim community to stand up and reaffirm their loyalty to the nation. In turn, this leads to a sense of betrayal and alienation and at least a small percentage of their impressionable youth, are lured to the extremist camp. This cross-over is made easy by the jingoistic politicians of all hues who fan the flames of hatred and exhort their cadre to kill and exact revenge, to fulfil their own political ends.
Right now it seems an impossible dream but we have to heal the wounds and build bridges between communities. One of my blogger friends puts it succinctly: “As long as communities feel marginalised and victimised, terror will breed in ghettoes around the world. Inclusion and integration is the only way forward. Just to clarify, I am not saying we can hug terrorists and make them change. But we can change the hearts and minds of ordinary people and take away the breeding grounds...”
It is simplistic to view problems and solutions in black and white. Most often truth lurks somewhere within the grey areas.
I hear you Rada, but how much longer does India have to sit silently without ever retaliating. The more passive we are, the worse it will get.
Being curious, I read a few versions of the Koran. I suggest that everyone do the same and then tell me that Islam is a peaceful religion. Yes, it is if it is Ahmeddiya, Qadiyani etc etc, not mainstream Sunni.
I do not agree with the US stand in many instances, however what the US did was purely to take the fight back to the militants and no one can tell us that Bush has not kept us safe, since 9/11.
Now look around the world and tell one the name of one Muslim nation at peace or where it gives full freedom to non muslims. Only people with no self respect can live in such places.
Also do not forget the Kashmiri Pundits and the ethnic cleansing that has occurred to our own Hindu citizens within. We in the US, refuse to let the US go the way of Europe. Liberalism is fine, but not at the cost of security of a nation. The Leopold cafe is owned by a former classmate of mine and so this does hit home.
Let's leave it here.
I still feel unless we are not able to put our own house in order and include all communities in our fight against terror, we will continue to be vulnerable as a nation.
This is not a war one can win by the gun alone.
OMG, I've been thinking of this the moment I heard about Mumbai. I can hear it in my English teacher's voice who took the example of 9/11 when she taught us this.
Came here from Kraz's. Sigh.
@Nandini: Thank you for visiting. Yes, what Yeats wrote almost a century ago is still very much valid for our times!
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