How long has it gone on for? I have lost count of the days and the months And the number of times Facts and fiction have been combined Made to stand hand in hand By the gentiles that stain these lands Caricaturizing, miming scenes Of zealotry and genocide
I have lost count Of the number of hospitals bombed Ruins atop tunnels where the Khamas abound And the aid workers killed Unidentified dangrerous women and men And the journalists sniped With their arsenal of 1984 daggers and knives And the doctors shot With nitroglycerin bombs hidden in their surgical gowns And the men raped in prisons With propagandist lore stuffed up their intestines And the women maimed Their bellies heavy with terrorist babes And the children killed Starved and stilled Their sinful blood spilled On the promised land
How long before this evil doth cease How long before the chosen ones can finally live in peace?
Blamed again and again for massacres We have no clue of, our proxy war Of 40 years ago is still biting us in the bum ‘Fo-Fum - this beast at least Does not have the bite of the ‘other-man’ With its depraved ideology Hijacking faith and humanity Bankrolling them into human bombs Boom! There goes another one Creating martyrs of civilians We protest, we didn’t do it They say we did, you see Another ethos, dark and evil has floated in upon the sea And so they insist it is us Nurturing terrorists underground and above Guns blazing, egos inflating Up up to the constellation Of ISRO satellites
But what is this?
3, 4, 5, 6 jets down - not ours We shook them right out of their stars - their 5 out of 5 on Amazon Now they’re raging like bulls in a ring We’re meme-ing and gif-ing like comedy kings I’m laughing at both A little harder at the misplaced ire Full of apocalyptic brimstone and fire
But here it is
War is not what any of us need Good sense, forebearance, lucidity Is the need of the hour and I want to believe In this ideology even as I Pin a little pin of green and white Crescent moon and star shining bright Onto my beating heart full of pride
Because when all’s said and done
Between neighbours who live side by side Sharing a culture old as time Huddled albeit over our nuclear buttons War really is just not an option.
This is a tribute to all the women in fact who are oppressed, reduced and shamed in the name of religion, and who still find the strength and dignity to go on another day.
O Talib*, O ye self-professed Learned One,
I have something to say to you. You can whip up monsters from the air and call them your Shariah*. You can torture and mangle “your” women, break their spirits and their bodies and call it the Word of God. You can wear your imperious lungee* and as it swishes around in the wind, you imagine the very angels dancing around you. You grow your hairy beards, and hide your malevolent grins behind them. You rumble and you roar and that is your devotion. You maim and you kill and you call that Divine intervention.
But then secretly you also glance at your reflections and you see what we all see: imperfect, angry, reviled men trying to validate their existence in the only way they can - by wiping the planet clean of the scourge of the Double (H)Ex*. But then you pause with the greatest effort known to the Men of God and you think: How can we annihilate this evil, garbed in soft flesh if we are to propagate and procreate? How else are we to add to the rank and file of Allah’s soldiers?
The conundrum is excruciating. So you continue to brutalize and ravage just short of pushing her six feet under. Just so you can crush her under you instead and make her pay for staying alive. To bear and to beget your many sons. To nurture and feed your rabid army of the Men of Allah.
O Ye Men of Allah,
I have something to say to you. Hear me.
I am the Daughter of the Universe; the Yin to your Yang, the ultimate balancing act of God’s will gone wrong in your hands.
Hear me. We will be who we are: the proud women of Afghanistan. Our honour lies serenely, supremely, completely in the depths of our own eyes, not in yours.
Look at me. Don’t hide behind your fragile male bravado. Look at me. Don’t turn your suddenly shameful eyes away.
Look at me. Look at me.
Look at me as I rise like a Phoenix from the ashes that you kicked aside. Look at me as I look at you. Look at me and see what you have become. Look at me as your heart Drains … Shrivels …. Breaks …. Burns in its own hell.
Hear me, my voice will echo through my sisters even if mine falls silent. You will Hear me.
Look at me, even if it is at my corpse as I go to meet my Maker. You will Look at me.
For Allah hears me. For Allah sees me.
Allah stands behind me as we both look at you. As we both await you.
The “Where is My name” campaign. Laleh Osmany campaigning to have the mother’s name included in the birth certificate.Her study centre was bombed. But Shamsiya, a Coal miner’s daughter still tops in Afghan University entrance exam“A strong woman is a woman determined to do something others are determined not be done.” – Marge Piercy
* Double (H)Ex: Word play on the double X chromosomes that all female mammals possess. Hex is a spell or a curse.
* Talib: Scholar; Learned one.
* Shariah: Islamic law derived from the teachings of the Quran but mainly from the Prophet Muhammad. It is not a list of rules but rather a set of principles on aspects of life, including marriage, divorce, finance and rituals such as fasting and prayer.
Some say our earth is splitting in two Shifting off its axis in directions anew Parallel worlds, a rift at the core One is wrought with strife and war Contentions and conflicts and hate galore This land is mine! They thunder and roar I was here 3000 years before! Decrees keep pelting like acid rain From the sacramental mouths of men Sitting in legislative dominion Your bodies, our choice say all those Born in the spitting image of god The owners, the stoners, the masters, the lords
The other earth … well that is a mystery Wrapped in illusions, visions and dreams Aspirations so secret They lie buried beneath Lungsful of air Every stalwart heartbeat Where Biology is a factual thing Not contorted into statutes and bills Where connections are made Forged by the soul Where language and lore And race and skin Are just rainbows that arch Over our beautiful earth
They say the split is cleaving in two Our world of bloodied green and blue I want to be with the ephemeral lot The one that’s poetic, as yet unbegot Even if that means that I will cease To have and to hold, to breathe and to be At least I’ll be done with our broken world Be a star in the sky An autumn-blown leaf And that dear friend is all that I want When I introspect When I really delve deep.
I heard it on the news Not the mainstream kind, no Their stories unravel to a sepulchral beat Where the truth lies buried under bones and teeth This was another source I read the caption and my heart Burst again Those men, women and children Were shot, sniped to the floor Because they’d gathered to collect Food, that had been plentiful before Growing in their fields and in their groves Now razed into cavernous holes Bleeding crimson into bare soles Into bare souls Bearing souls of loved ones gone On hearts and shoulders cut and torn Holding on to hope for one more hour Budding gently like a flower Reaching for a little flour For loved ones that still breathed amid The glowing flitter of their dead They reached for hope spattered in red They reached for hope pockmarked with lead They reached for hope among their dead They reached and were shot in their heads
Vermillion petals drift again in the wind Blooming in the ether of Palestine.
The blue has vanished from your skies The golden gleam from your eyes Snatched away, so many times So many times, it found its way Back into your lion hearts Through shining windows of your souls Now gaping holes pockmark your homes That still stand In the ruins of your beautiful land Once again it’s raining shells Mixing in With the silver salt of your tears again Washing, washing sins on sins They keep hounding, pounding down You keep cleansing, renewing again With tender streams that gush forth Washing, washing, washing sins The world has watched for so long As you have sung your ardent songs Of peace and freedom, just those Worn your sorrow, brave and strong While the world has sat secure In the boundaries etched and drawn Liberty-guarded, Flag-adorned While you lie shrouded in the dust Of rockets plunged into your hearths Hearts bleeding, torn apart The world is watching yet again Your pain, your pain, your searing pain Has seeped into our prickling skin From all the rivers to every sea We see you now Palestine Each woman and each man Standing tall unto the end We keen with you Palestine For every child that has died Blown to bits or buried alive We scream with you Palestine Our voices ring across the earth For every tear that you have shed For every drop that you have bled A million hearts now hold your grief A million more march on and on In every city, every town We roar with you Palestine From the river to the sea You will prevail, you will be free.
A tad controversial? Maybe. But am I still saying it out loud, in rhyme and meter no less? But of course. Some folks mull over things in the privacy of their heads, others whisper them in low tones while my iPad … well, it just blurts them out, no holds barred. Whoosh! Here it comes like a sweetly painful winter chill to get your adrenaline up and your spine a-tingle.
Hello 46th* Are you seeing this? A war has been stoked Europe has refugees - Look! The shock of it! Afghanistan and Kashmir Don’t count; neither does The Middle East Oh please! The world is used to those People, forever in the throes Of some tragedy, Some devilry, Some new-fangled holocausts Of their own
Russia, the land of Ruskis and Putin You do so hate them all, Joe Biden Your last names though Have such a harmonious ring Putin, Biden … Biden, Putin But I digress, your sentiments Have reached across the continents To grapple at the throat Of that villainous foe That Trump-loving pariah That creator of election drama That divider of the faithful And good American folks
Oh, and you’re still not over The Hunt for Red October* The hunt that Hunter* hunted Via the Kiev crossover All the chickens that got away Came home to roost and lay Their devilled eggs, without the yolks Putin had them all artichoked! You believe in all of it The fairytale, the who-dunnit To Russia is where all the trenches lead Putin has always been so full of sheeet!
So now there’s bloody war afoot The gloves are off, we’re all in it It’s the same old American adage “You’re with us or you’re with the villains” And while you’re beating That hoodoo drum The whole world is slipping Into a recession. There’s no food, no fuel, No jobs to do These trickle-down economics Don’t affect you They make their insidious paths towards The poor, the beaten, the never seen nor heard
Hellooo 46th Do you at least see How so much is attributable To you directly? The depression, the frustration The agony That is doing the rounds On its maleficent spree I can see how you wont See this like we do How? you declare, can Uncle Sam be such a brute?! But you are! You are! And a bully to boot! On a final note, dear Joe May A tad bit of third worldliness That has so diligently been foisted on us Graciously, karmically circle around To you and yours. Please be assured It will be an experience profound.
* 46th: the 46th president of the USA
* The Hunt for Red October: Tom Clancy’s debut novel, it shows the contrast between Soviet and American societies as exemplified by their militaries. Another significant theme that is played out on several levels of the novel is that of betrayal.
* Hunter: Joe Biden’s son who is rumoured to have had dodgy business connections with Ukraine.
He says they’re a bunch Of thieves and thugs Who have looted the nation Of its tea and its mugs They took the dregs of the Earl grey too! Those boot-polishing, lily-livered brutes!
They say he’s a nut job with lunatic illusions Of grandeur and psuedo-pious, Dipped-in-angel-dust delusions He’s not a statesman, he’s an unbridled curse! Our friends across the pond agree that’s what he is This has-been sportsman with his peerni* and tawiz*!
The citizens bewildered and confused Are wondering with whom they should side The saga plays out again, sly and crude Where the nation is taken for a frenzied ride The horse has long since become a lame ass Feeding on national common sense with a side of grass
The Paya* and Diesel Management says a lot The Dharna* Skipper flourishes his “Absolutely Not”! The repartee continues in savage tones We watch from the relative safety of our homes Then the power goes out and all is dark The slate is wiped clean, we are back at the start
* Peerni: A Muslim holy woman
* Tawiz: An amulet worn for good luck and protection
* Paya: A specialty dish in the subcontinent, the main ingredients are trotters cooked in various spices
The below verse is somewhat farcical and maybe even a tad fanciful; but sometimes it takes a bit of a tongue-in-cheek nudge to arouse our fitfully slumbering consciences. May we all continue to persevere towards creating a better, nobler world.
I look at social media and I see anger and hate and prejudice; I look at the television and I see propagandists, debauched messiahs and wily pundits; I look at the newspaper and I see political intrigue, national fatigue and ceaseless power mongering - It goes on, never ending, ignited with the fire from our fossil fuel stores … I look within me and I see the mirror of my mind reflecting, deflecting, dodging and fending The piercing, stabbing, blinding light from all this frantic, raving media commotion.
I look around me and I see love and peace and co-existence; I look around me and I see people coming together to help, protect and build better; I look around me and I see the universe weaving, constantly interlacing Harmony. It goes on, forever, propelled by the spirit and soul of our humanity … I look within me and I can feel my heart echoing, returning, rebounding and celebrating The warm glow, the shimmer and gleam of the wonderful world around me.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Oh, but it doesn’t end there. Some endings are just not fairytale-ish. If I gave in to my easeful delusions, I would be naive and tragically remiss. Here’s the deal: Human beings are sometimes cruel and that creates a gross impasse And that’s when we need to use our own eyes and our moral compass The world around us may glimmer and shine in serene equilibrium While pockets of humanity elsewhere thrash in blood-letting delirium. Look for yourself, seize your courage, tell your truth, play your part This is our ONE world; our one chance. We don’t have the luxury of a Re-start.
It seems like the great American nation has been roundly cursed with the evil eye; like the hexes and insidious incantations of overtly and covertly jealous nations are finally beginning to take effect. Indeed, the star spangled banner is looking increasingly tattered as it waves in the buffeting, tearing winds of change.
Or it could be that Uncle Sam is finally reaping as he has sowed for much of the last 200 years. Demon seeds of racism, inequality and toxic individualism are now putting out chokehold tendrils as the country grapples with not only the pandemic but also a social fabric that appears to be coming apart at the seams.
The road rage episode and the mass shootings, 3 tragic incidences in rapid succession, appear to be the tip of a now grumbling, grousing iceberg. At least two of the three acts of terrorism were perpetrated by young men barely out of adolescence. It isn’t difficult to form a reasonable hypothesis about what has happened. Here’s my informed conjecture:
The 4 year Trump presidency unleashed an era of brute honesty that was heretofore unprecedented. Contrary to the popular sentiment rife amongst his detractors, he was not the cause of the social mayhem that is playing out in America; he was in fact that pariah magician that reveals the deepest, darkest secrets of his trade to the masses. And so, with grandiose fanfare (aided in no small measure by the force of his absurdly narcissistic personality) he exposed the festering underbelly of the great American nation.
The American dream was shown up for what it really was – a utopian ideology pandering exclusively to the whitest and the most dogmatic denominator of the citizenry. With the raw truth finally seeing the light of day, social chaos was bound to follow. The pandemic of course hasn’t made it easier, innervated by the stunningly ridiculous outrage of the average American at having to take precautions for the greater good of the community. What the whole world is seeing is an America that is no more than a loose amalgamation of individuals who are living together as long as they are not expected to sacrifice their space, their time or their right to go maskless wherever they please. It appears that the concept of community in its true sense has dissolved into defiant, impenitent individualism quite some time ago.
The ones hit the hardest by this disruption of everyday civility and tolerance are the infirm elderly and the hormonal young adults. The former have little in terms of strength or capacity to fight off the virus, biological and social. The latter however, on the threshold of newfound independence and the unlimited freedom America promises, are flexing their muscles with the brute abandon of untrained warriors. With no outlet for their bursting world of expectations, these hapless young men didn’t entertain second or third thoughts about their actions. Call it frustration, guns for the taking, or an explosive coming of age, the fact is that they felt empowered, indeed emboldened enough to kill. They went down the path affording them the greatest adrenaline rush to appease their heightened agitation with the suddenly stifling world around them. Can you blame them for their actions? Not if this was an ethical society that had accepted its failings as a protector and nurturer of its people. But like so many other morally failed and failing nations, America too will blame the messenger (the hapless killer) for the insidious last note he delivered. A note crafted and etched into the social fabric by a successive line of self serving politicians masquerading as statesmen (Ladies: thy counteracting wisdom is still in short order). And so, the Machiavellian state passes on its treacherous buck to its citizens, making them pay for its moral bankruptcy.
While psychologists and sociologists may have a plethora of whys, wherefores and what-to-dos on the current American condition, there is one thing that stands out like a sore thumb. A simple soreness that if healed, can stop the gangrenous decay from befouling the rest of the body politic. Basiccompassion and a sense of community. If there’s one thing that we in the global backwaters with our emotionally replete cultures know, it’s a deep sense of community: a feeling that members have of belonging, a feeling that members matter to one another and to the group, and a shared faith that members’ needs will be met through their commitment to be together**. These are simple overtures of our humanity that have got lost in the grand American pursuit of individual freedom.
Now more than ever, the Union will benefit from reaching out and offering psychological support to the young and the old, the marginalised and those living on the peripheries of society. I’m not speaking of divisive, half baked gun control laws or grand multi trillion dollar conciliatory, tranquilizing, short-lived plans of rehabilitation and reparation. I’m referring to something as simple as the mushrooming of wayside safe havens/ Conversation Kiosks where people can come in and just talk through the turmoil in their hearts and their minds. The vestigial need to connect, to be acknowledged, to see oneself as part of a bigger, better, vibrant whole, are essential in identifying and addressing agitation, loneliness and hopelessness – all three, treacherous inciters of discontent and violence. Getting the nation to open up at grassroot levels, having them exorcise the demons of alienation and social marginlization, giving them a sense of communal purpose appears to be the likely and unsurprisingly elemental panacea to the great American unrest.
And so, my prayer for the socially and psychologically battered people of the United States is for them to find the strength to finally accept one another for who they are; to unlearn the hate for those who don’t look like them and see the beauty in diversity. For everyone to finally feel like part of a bigger community, not the black, not the brown not the white denominators, but the American community. It doesn’t have to be pitch perfect; it just has to be real and it has to be taught to be aspirational. And with that, there will be ever greater hope for true peace and prosperity for all.
One good conversation can shift the direction of change forever – Linda Lam
**Quote from McMillan and Chavis (1986) “Sense of Community”
Earlier this year, after decades, the island of Sri Lanka welcomed the Pakistani cricketing legend of yore. Thankfully, the political mantle is still too new to disenchant the international fan base. Not that I think he is a corrupt bag of officious bones in the manner peculiar to many of his South Asian compatriots and indeed, his very own predecessors. No, he’s just a little soft in the head; a natural affliction, I have come to believe, when one decides to not go down the oft trodden path of political corruption and depravity. The cerebral mush of course, leads to an entirely different set of bureaucratic disasters. The long and short of it is that Imran Khan’s heart is in the right place but his brain is an addled brew of eye of newt, and toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog*... And so, even with the best of intentions, the empire double doubles, toils and troubles!* But i digress… and can you blame me! Like everyone else in our beleaguered country, I too am a devoted armchair warrior and am wont to vent.
So why did our PM Imran Khan visit Sri Lanka?
What an interesting question, full of intrigue and the promise of riveting conspiracy theories (rubbing my hands gleefully and wanting to quote more eccentric old world verse!)
So here’s my take on it. The global power structure is gradually changing, and the South Asian bloc wants to be ready to play its part. Colonially-seeded geographical antagonism is seeming more and more irrelevant and incongruous as our unipolar world dithers on its North American weighted axis. As the US struggles with its burgeoning domestic issues, its inconvenient truths, it seems less and less likely to hold the moral mantle of global leadership. And when that dignity, skin deep though it may be, is shaken, the fall of the rest of the edifice is not far behind. No one wants to be told what to do by someone who can’t keep peace in their own backyard. And so, when some little but worthy nation somewhere tells Uncle Sam to mind his own business, we need to be ready to play our parts in catalysing the new equilibrium. Who those game-changing tRICksters* will be, is anyone’s guess. What is pertinent is that success will depend on there being some semblance of peace and harmony between the mighty neighbours of the Eastern hemisphere. And that peace has to begin ground up; with the smaller warring nations politely brought to heel first, so to speak. And so it was that on a swarthy February day, in the golden arms of the south Asian tear drop island, Pakistan was brought into the loop of the Global Reset. Because having two bickering nuclear armed neighbours in the region is generally not favourable to the efficacy of grand plans. And so, a meeting of the two estranged sisters, India and Pakistan, was arranged.
It is also interesting to note that hot on the heels of the Pak PM’s visit, the citizenry was treated to rather strategic Indo-SL combined military aerobatics, showcasing the battling might of mostly the Indian airforce. A polite but stratospherically overt reiteration that while there is some appetite for absurd but fit-to-current-form alliances, it’s best not to forget who the Saber Holdersare and who the Saber Rattlers are.
All this of course is a funny-feeling-in-the-gut conjecture; the waxing eloquent of conspiracy theories. But these days, when truth has so often been stranger than fiction, the civic mingling of sworn enemies is not such a far fetched ideal. The proof of the gesture will of course be in how the two neighbours deal with each other going forward. (Watch out for startlingly long periods of peace along usually tempestuous/ skirmish-ridden borders).
Wade Davis’ words are a reverberating mantra for our times when he said, “No empire long endures, even if few anticipate their demise. Every kingdom is born to die. The 15th century belonged to the Portuguese, the 16th to Spain, 17th to the Dutch. France dominated the 18th and Britain the 19th. [By the 20th century], the torch had long passed into the hands of America”.
Let’s hope America continues to scratch the surface of its domestic/ social inequities, leaving little power vacuums across the globe. Let’s also hope that the Prodigal Sons of the East (daughters are in scarce order!) rise to the occasion. When the time comes, it will take a concerted effort of going against the grain of everything we know to be our patriotic truths, to seed a new epoch.
In politics, absurdity is not a handicap. – Napoleon Bonaparte
*eye of newt.... verse quoted from Shakespeare’s Macbeth *tRICksters: the RIC in the word stands for the 3 global powerhouses of Russia, India and China.
A gender-optimal philosophy for more effective, ethical and harmonious global leadership
I’ve been thinking. Not quite in the usual staring into space for a moment or four, while wispy little disconnected thoughts do a bit of a foxtrot around the noggin. But more akin to the aftermath of a persistent intuition, a nagging logic that marches around the brain until one’s forced to contend with it. And so this opinion piece has come stridently into the light of day, hoping to give some pause for thought, or at the very least, to become part of the endless, reverberating ether of information.
World Leadership. That cunning, convoluted beast that has taken on a form that neither the gods of war (NATO) nor the cormorants of peace (the UN) nor any semblance of a half way evolved human ethic would have ever envisioned for it. From hiding in its dank, dark cave because some post facto stab of conscience made it scurry back, it now proudly, fearlessly, openly dons the mantle of bigotry and apathy. It struts about our borders, spies into our lives and tosses a western grenade when neighbours become too peaceful. That beast has to be fed and war is its nutriment of choice.
I don’t want to go on a prolonged impassioned whinge about the state of our lives and indeed our very species as the Cognocentibus – the original Intelligent Beings that have somehow gone awry. That understanding and knowledge now is like organized religion: after thousands of years of wrangling with querulous belief systems, everyone knows what there is to know, yet there is power in creating ever new vacuums of faith and filling them with ever more profitable doctrines of fire and brimstone. And so it is with the way we behave with one another across our planet. We know the ultimate panacea is some semblance of peace and equality for all; but that’s no fun when you’re riding the Cock Horse to Banbury Cross* and can partake of over USD 90 trillion dollars* of global riches on the way.
So what am i really getting at?
A changed world order. I won’t say new; that would be naive and ideological and by those very facts, impossible to achieve. But i will say, modernised, reconditioned, improved. Here’s what I believe will at the very least, begin to bring about some viability, some sanity and some heart into our lives.
–No MAN over the age of 65 should run for the office of President or Prime Minister. More and more we see how the patriarchal septuagenarians and their seniors have doggedly held on to mores and codes which are not only outright dogmatic and sexist, but increasingly at odds with mainstream thought and ethics. The barely veiled misogyny and racism in the hearts of the fagged and ageing US congressmen are a sputtering but compelling beacon for other similarly inclined world leaders. And it was difficult to miss Japan’s 83 year old ex PM, Mori’s absurdly sexist comment made recently in his capacity as the 2020 Olympics Head https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/2/12/tokyo-2020-chief-yoshiro-mori-resigns-over-sexist-comments . It is time for these seniors to sit back, dated ideals and all, and let the global human equation finally begin to re-evolve.
–At least 40% of all senior political appointees to be women. We have some absolutely scintillating examples of wise and wonderful female leadership: Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand, Angela Merkel of Germany and Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia to name a few. However, women serve as Heads of State or Government in only 21 countries, and 119 countries have never had a woman leader. As of October 2019, the global participation rate of women in national-level parliaments was less than 25%, with only 14 countries having achieved 50 per cent or more women in cabinets(unwomen.org). More than two-thirds of these countries have applied gender quotas – either legislated candidate quotas or reserved seats – opening space for women’s political participation in national parliaments. With some concerted effort, these indices can be made more representative of global male/female population ratios. Indeed, it is high time for women to resolutely take the other half of the global leadership reins.
Female Leaders around the globe, 2020. Still a dismal, despairing, desperate, sad rarity!
–Head of State tenures to be capped at 5 years at one time, with the opportunity to run again after at least 5 years, for no more than another half a decade. This will serve to discourage self serving oligarchs and quell dynastic politics. The shortness of the tenure and with it, the duly limited opportunity for power-mongering will mean that only the serious nation builders will apply for the job of running a country. This will, in time, spearhead the creation of a new brand of Statesmen and women who will safeguard the interests of all their people while leading their nations to peace and prosperity.
–Every Executive Government position holder and parliamentarian to undergo Executive courses on World History covering the last 500 years, with special emphasis on how their particular region has impacted or was impacted by the events therein. This would entail essential courses on colonialism, slavery, the wars of the 19th and 20th centuries and their respective aftermaths. A specially designated, international body of scholars will keep the content of these courses true and relevant to the times. This simple yet critical geo-political prescript will help to bring about global baseline knowledge and sensitivity around some essential truths that are still dogging the socio-cultural fabrics of so many nations. Reparation and healing will then begin top down, via an informed, “woke” and upstanding world leadership.
There is much to be said for the sadly dismal distribution of global wealth and the vulgarity of the Billionaire concept in our current times. But that will require more than just a shift of quotas and governance standards as these are the very themes considered as stalwart markers of success and happiness. It will take a few generations of unlearning to erase the greed that is now inherently a part of our DNA. And for that reason, I am not putting it down as a current critical imperative; the prescribed hopeful/ logical/ nuanced global administrative change will gradually take care of it.
In the aftermath of the last 4 years and indeed post the apocalyptic past year of the Pandemic, I’m hoping, like so many others, that our humanity, the simple homogeneity of our species and Better Sense prevails. I’m hoping that by embracing the best parts of our human collective, we can finally create a better world for ourselves and for our children; that we can finally be more than just ghosts in our dated, jaded, cracking shells.
*Ghost(s) in the Shell: title inspiration from the American adaptation of Masamune Shirow’s original 1989 manga/ Japanese anime of the same name. *”Ride a cock horse...”: part of an old English nursery rhyme *USD 90 trillion: the approximate USD value of global GDP as of 2020
Mahvash Mohtadullah 