Rushing into 2008
I did not expect that 2008 would arrive so early especially when I had a lot to do in and expect from 2007.
I wish I could go back in time to fix some things; to say things which I wanted to say; to do things I wanted to do; to meet people I wanted to meet; or even wake up early in the morning and go to the park for a stroll.
Call me foolish or innocent, but that's what I feel like doing just now. Alas! That will now forever remain an unachievable dream with the dawn of this New Year.
Looking back at the past year, I feel no person with a heart in his chest will be happy to see how humanity failed to achieve its most-desired objective – one of a peaceful and just world.
Man killed and robbed his own fellow brother for things that in way he could have taken with him farther than his deathbed. Yet, he seems adamant not to learn and continue with more ferocity what he failed to do in the past 12 months.
Oh, what plans I wonder these evil mortals will be laying out for the coming days. The horrific scenes of war and poverty we got to see in 2007 leave no room for further imagination.
While a couple will be starting a new happily-married life; while someone will be planning on adding a new degree to his qualification; while a retiree will be planning on building or buying a new abode so his coming generation doesn’t go homeless; while the poor peasant will be hoping for a better crop to feed his family; while a child will be starting school with dreams of becoming a useful part of society; while the sick will be on the road to recovery – this mentally-sick brute will be out there standing in the way of each of these to snatch their dreams right out of their eyes.
Oh, how I wish this doesn’t happen and he has a change of heart, and considers the rest as part of his family.
There may be lot of gloom in these lines but a critical analysis of the past 365 days and invigorated hope for a better world will guide us toward a better 2008.
One with little more happiness for the sad, with more security for the insecure, with more food for the hungry, with more healthcare for the sick; and with more power for the powerless.
A happy New Year to all!
5 comments:
"For last year's words belong to last year's language, and next year's words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning."
T.S. Eliot
Keep up the good work, all the best.
... we all lie some where on the lorenz curve (that determines the poverty gap)its true! Half work is done! We know where we stand!
What we need now is to tell others too, how to know where we stand? Someone has to do it; fortunately you have started doing it. We all have to strugle for our own improvement. This is we who have to strugle and exact our position on the poverty line, the mother of all evils!.
Lets struggle with unity for a prosperous future!
Interestingly, I was just saying to a friend recently how sad it is that there is so much hunger and poverty in the world and yet so many people who have monetary wealth fail to see the need to share their abundant blessings with those less fortunate. Poverty and hunger are unnecessary miseries. If everyone who is fortunate enough to have everything they need and more, felt compelled to give to those who are lacking, we could wipe out poverty and world hunger. Children all over the world are hungry and homeless due to greed and selfishness and we can't eliminate this problem single-handedly so all we can really do is contribute as we are able and pray that God will put it in the hearts of those who have the ability to make a major difference to care and consider that they could be among the hungry and homeless. "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away."
Living the moment
There is no denying the truth in my friend's views but as it goes there are as many views as there are minds. He has truly described the year gone by as horrific, gory, bloody and lacking in love for humanity. We have seen and heard events over the past year, which have filled us with fear and horror and were enough to snatch from us all hope for a better future.
My friend sounds very pessimist as he looks back and have a glance over the past but one may ask, judging by what is happening around us, "is everything all right in our world or does it need some degree of corrective action?"
As it almost always happens in our country, the past year ended on such a tragic note that we are sill struggling to get over it. The death of the most popular leader of the country, Benazir Bhutto, shocked even the most hardened people and brought tears to their eyes. What added fuel to the fire was the government's traditionally callous attitude towards people's feelings.
Even before the examination of crime scene by forensics experts, the high and lofty in the government started showing up what they called as irrefutable evidence to prove in a very twisted manner that the death was an accident.
They made blunders, and in the process left the world wondering why the government saw it fit to invite allegations that it was frenetically attempting to hide its involvement in the leader's death.
I personally believe it is a severe blow to the country, which is in bad need of leaders acceptable to all people. Like you, I don’t dwell too much on the past or even the future for that matter. I just live the moment as it comes to me and can’t help getting affected by the tragedies.
There is no pessimism in my words, but a wish, that this year too doesn’t see the same misfortunes that haunted last year.
I strongly believe the past is a guide to the future. While the present has to be lived, as you say, and there is no option but that, the future has to be planned and the past has to be learned from, something that can be applied to the recent assassination of Benazir Bhutto.
While the nation certainly lost a big leader, one which I was not too much fond of, but I am sure it will make a smooth sail forward.
Time will prove, in the long run, that her departure – though I wished it hadn’t been so violent – was somewhat good for the country. She certainly had some vicious designs, which she wanted to realise, and her words were loud and clear about that.
We want a leader not from the elite but from among the masses.
Her undemocratic nature was very much made clear by her will in which she nominated her son. Pakistan People's Party once again proved that it is not a party of the masses, but a personal possession of the Bhuttos.
And now that its reigns are in the hands of the infamous Asif Ali Zardari, one can only think of the horrors that this devil will be bringing on the people.
May Allah help Pakistan!
Post a Comment