The girls – they were raped five times a day
or at will of their rapists – just one among other countless and unexplainable
atrocities being perpetrated day after day. Some of them could not take it
anymore. One of them cut her wrist while in the bathroom. When she didn’t die
from it, she slit her throat. The perpetrators and their unmoved guards wrapped
the girl’s body in a blanket and threw outside in the garbage heap.
Mankind has always been brutal –
in every age since the dawn of human civilization – since the age of recorded
history of it – a person killing a person – people killing people – societies
that have been saviors for some have uprooted others – societies that have been
civilized for some have been savages for others – and yet, when we get a
relatively free life in a relatively free society – we don’t appreciate it.
In place of making better of what
we have, we let the moments slip in silly considerations.
We need to be thankful that we
have the option to work on the life given to us.
We need to be thankful that we
can fight to raise our voices against any wrongdoing.
I need to be thankful because I
live in a society where I can write this write-up, expressing my thoughts which
came while watching a BBC show.
Because there are millions,
across the world, in countries and territories, run by dictators or dictatorial
regimes or terror outfits like the Islamic State – in countries and territories
plagued by sectarian and civil wars – who are living a life, that is not ‘life
at all – in a ‘civilized’ sense – in a democratic society. People in such areas
cannot speak, cannot react. They cannot voice what they think. Concepts like
individual freedom and political freedom are alien to them – irrespective of what
they think of – if at all they think of such things.
They are forced to remain silent
as happens in China. They are allured to remain silent as happens in China and
as recently happened in some countries during the Arab Spring. They are killed
in public, in increasingly brutal ways, to set examples for others to remain
silent, as is happening in the areas controlled by the Islamic States or in
areas where terror warlords run amok.
I can write about them, about
atrocities being perpetrated. I can write because there are societies and there
are people from those societies who feel duty-bound to report such crimes
against humanity.
There is nothing called absolute
freedom. But we are free to the extent to decide what we are to do with our
lives - we are free to the extent that we can voice our opinion against a move
that we feel ‘is wrong and unjust’ - we are free to the extent to protest
against such wrongs.
We have this life, in this
society that allows us to do all that. And we need to appreciate that – and not
waste it in silly deliberations.
Only then we can preserve and
strengthen it.
Featured Image Courtesy: Collage
Prepared from Images Sourced from Wikipedia