Of human rights

A cyclone devastates a South Asian country. Thousands are dead and hundreds of thousands are missing, presumed dead. The world pitches in to help but the regime that governs the country holds the supplies and then distributes the supplies to its trauma stricken citizens as propaganda. They then hold a referendum among the people to make sure they stay in power.

An African country is ripped apart by civil war. A refugee crisis of unthinkable magnitude originates. Rape, murder and other acts of genocide take place on a daily basis. The refugee's are starving and wake up every day knowing that they will either die of starvation or will be killed by a state sponsored militia. What does the world do ? The world debates on whether or not it's genocide and whether or not they should interfere.

A man in an Islamic country is harassed because he put up some offensive materials on his website. The website is hacked and a death threat pasted on the front page. The man is told that he will face charges but nothing is done about the death threats.

A woman and her lover are killed in a remote village in India. The killers are her own father and brother. They wanted to restore the honour to their family which the woman lost when she decided to live in with her lover after divorcing her husband. The family drags her and the lover out of their house and beats them to death in broad daylight. The villagers watch and applaud.

March 15th 2008. Human Rights Day. Are you kidding me ?

Have you heard of the Geneva Convention ? It was supposed to make war civilized. We've had a lot of wars since the convention ... has anyone of you witnessed a civilized war ?

Have you heard of the UN ? It was supposed to protect human rights. That was it's basic objective. "Never again" was the catchphrase used during the Armenian genocide. The Jewish Holoucast occured after that but there was no UN to stop that from happening right ? What about after the UN was formed ? Rwanda, Serebrenica, Darfur ... to name a few. And please dont tell me that the perpetrators were caught and put on trial. We're supposed to stop such things before they happen, not swear that we won't allow it to happen ever again.

"Never again" is what everyone says. I say what the f**k were we doing when it happened the first time ?

You know what's ironic ? The cavemen that we thought were dumb and stupid according to our standards are the one's who enjoyed human rights. The advanced and civilized us have none.

So stop kidding yourselves. You have no rights and never will earn it ... until the day you're fellow human has it.

Of Pangea Day

Pangea Day was broadcast live all over the world on TVs, internet and mobile on the evening of May 10th which by the way turned out to be 11.30 pm for us, which meant I watched the program on May 11. For those of you who don't know what this was all about Pangea Day was an innovative program featuring short films from all over the world in an attempt to make people understand that emotions, however different they may seem are actually basically the same everywhere. In other words we are not different from the people who we consider our enemies and that we are all the same irrespective of where we come from.

As a movie critic I really liked the show which showcased some brilliant short movies (which are the hardest to make) including two from India. there were three movies that I really liked : J'Attendrai Le Suivant from France; Elevator Music from the UK and More from the US. If you'd like to watch these movies and the others featured on the show; you can do so here.

On the humanitarian side I thought this was a very brave and novel approach to world peace. There were some truly touching scenes in the show but none more touching than the finale where an Israeli woman and a Palestinian man came on stage hand in hand after having lost direct relatives and still believing that peace will come to their troubled lands.

Touching, truly was. But, just being touching is not going to help. The question I asked myself was exactly how effective this show was.

While I sat there watching it, I couldn't help but think of the many people I know personally who would have scoffed at the show. I thought about the people I knew would ridicule the Egyptian group for the music and their language. I thought of the people I knew would consider with contempt the movies made in the Islamic world. These people wouldn't have even watched this show and even if they did they'd probably have just walked out after an hour or so.

It's not just the people in India. I'd bet you the people over at shelleytherepublican.com would have screamed treason if they ever saw Operation Homecoming. How do shows like this get to people like them ? Simple answer: they don't.

So, was it an exercise in futility ? No. It was a start and believe me that's better than nothing at all.

When you live in a place where multitudes of culture's meet at crossroads it's easy for you lose hope in humanity. Sadly, India is one such place. The distrust and hatred that exists on so many levels of racism is so thick that you can almost smell it in the air. A colleague of mine once told me he hated Muslims; my neighbor laughed as he watched a news report on how Hindu mobs were slaughtering Muslims in Gujarat. I have listened as five Muslim men ridiculed and laughed at a documentary on Hindu customs and traditions. One went so far as to call Hindus the "damned" people who would never see heaven. This person was fully aware that I was in the room.

How do you reach these people ?

I've tried to change the thoughts of a few people dear to me, but other than them I really don't think people will want to listen. They have been brought up in a society that has told them that they are superior. And these people are not illiterate. They have been taught both sides of the story: the scientific and the spiritual; the humanism and the fundamentalism. And in today's day and age it's frightening to know that many still believe in the spiritualism and the fundamentalism.

How do you reach these people ?

Pangea Day was a noble effort. But did it reach the audience that should have watched it ? It's success cannot be measured by the number of viewers but by the number of people whose thoughts and views it changes. Until then, it will remain as an effort and only that; one among the countless others.

Of hating oneself

Have you ever hated yourself ? I know I have for the past couple of years. As you may know by now I've had three break ups so far and that means three heartbreaks and three instances where I've doubted myself. The last one was pretty damaging to the extent that finding the will to live was pretty hard to find.

I know, I know ... you must be thinking: God damn it, not another sorry frickin sap writing about his broken heart and trying to find sympathy. Well no. I don't believe you can find sympathy across the net. That's one good thing about this forest of wires and that's you'll find the most amount of sarcasm and hard hitting in your face advice anywhere in the world.

So yeah, I'm going to take a cue out of that. I'm going to rant about this despicable nature of humans: hating themselves and I'm going to start with myself.

I used to blame God for all this. You're probably familiar with that too. Anything goes wrong with my life, the first thing I do is turn up to the skies and ask : Why??
Well if God exists and he sat up there in heaven listening to me he'd probably crumple his Starbucks cup and scream back: "ME ?? What are you blaming me for ?? You didn't become an engineer ? DUH !!! Who was the one who didn't attend classes for the two years in pre-grad school ? Three heartbreaks ? DUDE ! Its you !! Nothing wrong with the girls. Its fricking you !! And you have the nerve to blame me ??!!"

If God was the scary omnipotent some cultures think He (or She) is I'd have been struck by lightning 1200 times by now.

So when I realized this important factor, I guessed I couldn't blame anyone else but myself. And so started the self-hating era. Remember Marvin from The Hitchhikers Guide? Well I was kind of like that. Nobody wants to talk to me. Nobody wants to be friends with me. Nobody wants to love me. Whats the point of it all ? Why not just end it ? Blah blah blahde blah!

Ewwwwww. I cringe with embarrassment and clench my fists in anger.

Ok, first off: thinking about suicide is cowardly. Plain and simple. I believe that the ones who do kill themselves have probably been driven to that ends of insanity to point a gun to their temple and pull the trigger. Thinking about it is a different matter. That means the individual is a plain scaredy cat. He's too scared to live and he's too scared to die. Either do it or don't but before you do remember this: it takes more courage to live than to die. And while we're on this point, no that life threatening disease is not coming your way. So stop hoping for it. The people who suffer from them would probably like to push a few stakes up your a$$ for thinking about it.

Get a life! No, no thats wrong. You already HAVE a life ! A life you messed up!! So get up on your feet and start molding it.

Remember Rumsfield saying that you go to war with what you have and with not what you wish you had ? While I disagree with the timing and the context of that statement it rings true in life. We all have dreams. We all have ambitions. I want to be an Academy Award winning screenplay writer. Thats my ultimate goal. Before when I used to look at the ruins of my life I used to go berserk over the fact that I'd never get to where I want to be. Well guess what, you'll never know until you get there. So if ever you feel that you're not going to get anywhere and will be stuck in this ditch forever then just do the following:

Shut the f**k up and start climbing. Either you'll get out or you'll die trying. Both are good.

And finally for those hopeless romantics: LOVE IS NOT EVERYTHING! Oh it sure will seem like it but its not! Out of the six billion in the world one billion probably hates you because of either your ethnicity, your religion, your color, your gender or your sexual preference. Does it really matter ... that things didn't work out with the one person you thought was your soul mate ? If you've been dumped; take it from me : that's the best time to clean your act. In fact I think that is the best thing that will have happened to you. You will not find a better chance of looking at yourself for what you really are. If you still cant deal with it check my previous post.

If you think I've missed out on a few crucial points let me know. And please don't bring religion into this. Not that I dislike religions, its just that I believe in humanity more and I want this post to be about humanity.