A Lasting Peace:
(A conversation between Me and Myself)

The sane mind failed to understand and asked me, how gruesome violence against the innocent civilians would the end the violence Israel’s people are facing? I believed that I have found Israel’s intentions of peaceful Middle East. I told the sane mind that Israel wants to run over the adjacent countries and kill every inhabitants, the men (innocent or Hezbollah), women, children. That’s it; the people of Israel will have everlasting peace from the terrorist who fires rocket in to their country. That was a good plan from the part of Israel.

The sane mind accepted the argument as a good one, but countered it with other questions. Isn’t the killing of the innocent people an act of terrorism and why the leaders of the world were unable to do anything to loss of the innocent lives and the act of terror against the people who wanted nothing of this sort?

I explained to the sane mind that in the modern world of today America is the only country and the American life is the only innocent life in the world. As long as Israel has the support of the America, they can kill the innocent (from my point of view, of course) and establish their way of peace in the region. Also, the act of terror and self defense in the modern world are also defined by Uncle Sam, and they are calling the current act by Israel as an act of self defense and you got to accept it.

The sane mind was crying when it heard about the ride that happened yesterday which has killed about 54 citizens, most of them are old women and children. On seeing the sane mind, even I was afraid that I would break down. But the typical male ego prevented me from breaking down and put up a brave face. He asked me amid the tears, isn’t the purpose of the UN to stop these killings? Isn’t these instances like this and Iraq occupation without the UN interference defeating the very purpose of the UN existence?

I was silent for a few minutes thinking, as I was bowled by this question. The sane mind continued to speak as I was silent. I fail to understand how any body would be so stupid in today’s media world to massacre and call this as an act of self defense. They are only alienating themselves from the rest of the world, as they failed to understand the purpose of the America in this regards. Tomorrow, when the accusations starts pointing towards Israel for the devastation it has caused, US will distance itself from the act and Israel will be only one taking the blame, where as the US will be root cause. If at all the US had called for a truce at the beginning of the conflict so many innocents lives would have been saved and millions of worth infrastructure would have been saved. The hatred towards the Jews and the Jewish state are growing at hearts the peace loving people around the world. Anybody cannot escape from the history of violence they have caused or created, Israel and US, the real architects of the violence at the Middle East will be paying the price for their history of violence.

I was stunned when the sane mind completed its views about the international politics. I have failed completely to understand the chain of thoughts of sane mind, but he has created a thought process in me to think about the Middle East crisis. I was ashamed that I did not feel the same about the innocent lives lost as the sane mind, but after all I am a ordinary human being and he is a sane mind?

I heard the sane mind murmur; will the humans ever stop killing each other to live peacefully? Will we ever……

Fear At The Heart:

A great philosopher put a question to his disciples "What do you think is the most dangerous thing in the world?"

The answers came from all of them as "Money", "Lust", "Power", "Ego".

Finally the philosopher gave the answer as "Faith". His disciples were confused and asked him to explain.

The philosopher asked "What caused the 2nd world war?"

His disciples replied "Hitler". Philosopher said "That's true, Hitler took the world to the bloodiest war the world of today, but have you given a thought why the men who fought with him obeyed his brutal orders. It is the faith they had in him that he will lead them and the country they love to greater glory. If you analyze all the major battles in the history of the world, the Basic factor knowingly or unknowingly would be faith of the people involved in the incident. The most apt example would be the crusades the European courtiers waged against the Middle East. The faith the Europeans had in the Christ go so mad that they went on fighting for over 2000 years leaving no way for a peace in that place."

The philosopher continued "When someone believes in something and have an unshakable faith, the underlying fact is he is vulnerable. When the person's faith is threatened he will show afraid to face the truth, he will either shut himself down or will react violently. Here I will tell you the story of a great scientist, who was shut down by the powerful men of the society because he threatens the belief system they had. This story of Galileo. As you may aware, Galileo contributed immensely to scientific community with his research on basic laws of the Physics (2 of the 3 laws). He supported a hypothesis proposed by another scientist Copernicus. His theory is that Sun is the centre of the universe and all the particles of the universe revolve around the sun. The church of the olden days (or still may be) believed that the earth is the centre of the universe as that is the god has chosen to place the human beings. As Galileo was well respected, the church feared that his support for Copernicus theory is creating a imbalance in among the followers of the faith. They forced Galileo to apologies for his words, and banned all his writings. The church feared that if one of their ideas was exposed as flawed, the faith of the followers would be shaken and even their own faith may be questioned. This is one small example how the faith when threaten will react. Each person has his own beliefs and faith, and each will react in his own way if that is threatened." The philosopher finished his explanation.

Silence prevailed as each realized what he said. The silence proved that each one accepted whatever he said. The philosopher continued "Friends, If you believe and began and have faith in me, in future when you find that I'm not what I seems to be how you will react?".

No body responded to the question as everyone understood where this is leading to. "So you understand what I am arriving at?" he asked.

"If at all everybody had just given a little thought about what they believe keeping aside their anger, a lot of bloody wars could have been averted" He finished his speech with that. The disciples went their ways deep in thought.

(Inspired by the Movie Kingdom of Heaven and Galileo)

Violence at the heart:

The amount of violence that is happening around us each day has been nagging me for a long time. Looking upon the history, the violence inside men has not reduced a little from the yesteryear, only it got sophisticated. A shocking news I saw at yahoo has really broken my heart and prompted me to write this.

4 US soldiers have been charged with the rape and murder of a 14 year old girl and their family.

The above mentioned incident is a small sample of what is going in a war torn place like Iraq. I just want to understand what triggers this kind of violence in men against their fellow humans. What good is a wealth, literature or any thing that you gather in a war torn place like Iraq or Sri Lanka? Is it possible to enjoy a sunrise or a cup of coffee in a place like that? Some times I have an unbearable aching at my heart when I read this kind of news to share their sorrow. It feels so unfair and unjust to see both how people suffer at one end of the world and seeing some undeserved people enjoying their life.

I am really no one judge others that they are undeserved people for the comforts they get, but I strongly believe that those people who are suffering don't deserve to be treated like this. In fact nobody born in this world don't deserve to suffer. In almost all the countries the capital punishment or death penalty is strongly opposed. There are men to fight for those who have done the ultimate taboo and awaiting a death penalty, but to die with no one to defend and seeing their family members go down before their very eyes is the cruelest torture anyone could inflict upon a human.

As far as I have seen I could categorize the violence in to two.
1. The violence that comes out of hatred.
2. Violence that comes out of pure arrogance.

Any form of violence is really unjustifiable, but then anybody is left with no chance other than to turn in to violence when left to live as living dead when their family or country is attacked.

Now the question arises in the mind, why men are so cruel? The world is big enough for all of us to live, at least without killing each other. But still what makes a man so violent to rape a child and kill a whole family including a 3 year old. My heart bleeds when I think of the agonizing moments she would have gone through that time. WonÂ’t their conscience prick them for what they have done? Would they have done the something in their home country, if they had an opportunity? I believe those men would have done the same thing if they had the opportunity. Only the fear law in their place would have prevented them from doing so, or else they would have behaved in the same manner. Here they took advantage of the lawlessness in the country.

What are the wars to some countries? Countries has become so mean, that they look the war as just a matter of business opportunity. They explore the all the possible opportunities to make money out of war through weapons, Infrastructure, hardware etc. The men making such decisions will respond to these incidents that these are just common in a war. These are those men I have mentioned who donÂ’t deserve to live in this world at all.

As I have said in the beginning, this incident is just a sample of the innumerable number of violent happenings around the world. There are people who just donÂ’t care about these happenings and some are trying their heart out to make the people understand the impact of violence in the world.
Will there be ever an end to this violence? Even a die hard optimist would not be optimistic about answering this question.

Just imagine if at this instant that if the all the violence in men suddenly vanishes and the world is full of peace and love. Just imagine how it would be if a man from Iraq or Iran able to travel to US without any hatred, a peaceful Sri Lanka, a bomb less Jammu Kashmir that would be crowded with tourists, a peaceful Jerusalem and Israel without any gunshots and the list is endless. I hope any of the above mentioned happens before my life time.

As I was trying to immerse myself in these thoughts, the words said by a philosopher come to my mind. “How many philosophers may come to this world and change any number of people, men will ultimately succeed in destroying this world with their violence and hatred”. However pessimistic those words may appear, only they seem to be true.