I was never so close to a culture that was always displayed so strange and unwelcoming to me. Well, back then they were wrong, these people were laughing, talking, and above all caring. And this is the essence of humanity.

Sometime, we judge people from the look of their dress but these people were celebrating their time. I knew they were living in moment but this was so true moment. No one was discussing politics, no one was arguing, and no one was standing in the way of others.

Well, it was a time of celebration, and I feel I like these weird looking people at today’s Halloween in Ottawa. Long live humanity!

I am not sure how Mark Twain came to this conclusion but one thing is certain, we humans are selfish to a certain degree. The scale of selfishness vary from person to person, some at the top of the bar and others just above the bottom. But the question is, why are we so? Is there some inherent programming fault in our manufacturing clay or we get such things from our surroundings.

I don’t want to drag the topic to Darwanism, and his quest for survival of the fittest but sometime it is helpful to think and analyze our behaviour towards others.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. ~Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1812 – 1870)

Well, going through the tale of two cities, and comparing it with today’s Pakistan, I found some nice similarities. What are those similarities, you all know it in your hearts!

Borrowing Ayn Rand words, relating to rule of law, “The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man’s rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence… The only proper functions of a government are: the police, to protect you from criminals; the army, to protect you from foreign invaders; and the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breach or fraud by others, and to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective law.”

The irony of the irony is the way countries like Pakistan is run. Sometime I feel there is too much freedom, everyone is allow to do or act what he/she desires with little consideration to rule of law.

Take the recent tragedy of Sialkot, a shame on the face of a nation that claim to be an Islamic republic. Two teenagers were murdered in day light by ignorant, ruthless, and criminal mob in front of police officers on pretext of being robbers. Even if they were robbers who allowed them to beat them to death with sticks and rods. There are countless videos on YouTube showing the accident and the barbaric way the people behaved. Shame on you all, you are really cockroaches of humanity.

Nations are not made great by hypocracy, lies, brutality, or barbaric acts but only by rule of law and dignity to humanity. First learn to be human then declare yourself as Muslim.

But the biggest question that lingers is, why the world community is so indifferent? Except UK, United States and a handful of countries, the response of the world is pathetic. Reasons are not hard to find but do these people who lost their livelihood not need our support? The western media is living like in an igloo, where these issues do not concern them. These millions unfortunate souls are worth nothing, after all they are children of a lesser god.

The epicentre of this 5 magnitude earthquake was merely 60km away from Ottawa in Quebec. Canadians even kept their cool and humour in such dire situation as a guy tweeted immediately ‘Earthquake in Ottawa looks like Quebec separating.’ Later in News, we do saw bridges collapse in Quebec, well a kind of separating from the rest of the Canada.

The lesson learned from this quake is immediate and blunt, we are after all mortals. It feels so distant to hear and even see the horrors of earthquakes in far away Haiti, Indonesia, Pakistan, or Turkey.

The Israeli army used brute force to stop the Freedom Flotilla, consisting of six ships carrying around 700 people from 50 countries, before reaching Gaza in the international waters of the Mediterranean Sea. The outcome was loss of life that made the matters worse for Israel.

There can be debates if Hamas is a terrorist organization or not and whether the embargo is justified or not but the way Israel handled the situation brings many new questions with dare consequences. It already lost one of its compassionate and gracious cronies in the Muslim world, Turkey.  

Israel has seemingly won the battle in the short-term by halting Flotilla advancement but it has definitely lost the war in the long-run. What it lost most, is the support of the man in the street throughout the globe. It failed to understand today’s realities. Today’s wars are no longer won on deceits and sham instead on principles and high moral grounds.

Millions of people watched these well-decorated ships on their TV sets and Internet and in a way they became part of this front for justice to end the Gaza embargo. It was not just a move to bring a few tones of goods to Gaza people rather to challenge the hegemony of an occupier.

What Israel failed, is to grasp the realities of this new world in which we are living. You cannot stand and champion your crusade without a strong moral ground and Israel, as I said in the beginning you lost this war miserably in the long-run.

I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I water’d it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright;
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole
When the night had veil’d the pole:
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretch’d beneath the tree.

~William Blake

P.S. For interpretation of the poem please see the following links:

http://victorian-fiction.suite101.com/article.cfm/william_blakes_a_poison_tree

http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/2900.html

http://british-poetry.suite101.com/article.cfm/willilam_blakes_a_poison_tree

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Poison_Tree

C

The story of Greece is unique in the sense that for years its state of affairs were never revealed (or they were unaware) by the EU and other major economic institutions. Anyway, now matters are surfacing itself in a nasty way. The very foundation of Euro is at stake now. The saviors are within EU, for instance, Germany, Britain, and France but will they go for it? It is a million dollar question. Euro is already taking the brunt as it is five percent down against dollar. But the biggest problem is the confidence of the whole world as it is shaken by this new challenge. China was switching fast towards considering Euro as it currency of choice for its reserves instead of dollar and so as other major developing powers. So the question resurfaces, how to run countries? You can play a few Machiavellian tricks at least briefly with your subjects but not with your economic institutions for ever.

Economic realities are brutal, it care less for sophisticated lies delivered in conferences and workshops. And sometimes, the mismanagement or neglect of a few decides the fate of all, and so is unfortunately the case of EU.