Towards Greater Unity!

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The world is as bitter as we perceive it to be and it can be as sweet as we dream it to be. It is just a matter of perception. The latter however, inspires goodness, action and faith.

Facebook, Blogoshpere, Twitter and all these social media has brought humanity together. Now we are more able to understand the feeling, emotions and thoughts about each other. And I am very happy to know that mostly we are together. The morals we share, the boundaries we have for each other, the love that resides within; all points towards a Greater Unity (GU). This GU is something integrating all our suffering, all our pleasures, all our sorrowness, all our merriment and all our knowledge. There is no third world, or first world; developed or under developed; democratic or socialist; these are just emotions that reside in everybody. There are some who hold on dear to something that the other thinks is not that important. But all these concepts and -isms just tends to make us divided but with ease in global consciousness and global communication, these things are fading away. I hope that we move on towards this GU and make this world a better place to spent in the so little time we have.

The reason for this GU are found in our own self. Iqbal said:

The world-life intuitively sees its own needs, and at critical moments defines its own direction. This is what, in the language of religion, we call prophetic revelation. It is only natural that Islam should have flashed across the consciousness of a simple people untouched by any of the ancient cultures, and occupying a geographical position where three continents meet together. The new culture finds the foundation of world-unity in the principle of Tawhid (Oneness of God). 5 The word literally means to exert. In the terminology of Islamic law it means to exert with a view to form an independent judgement on a legal question. The idea, I believe, has its origin in a well-known verse of the Qur’an– “And to those who exert Islam, as a polity, is only a practical means of making this principle a living factor in the intellectual and emotional life of mankind. It demands loyalty to God, not to thrones. And since God is the ultimate spiritual basis of all life, loyalty to God virtually amounts to man’s loyalty to his own ideal nature. The ultimate spiritual basis of all life, as conceived by Islam, is eternal and reveals itself in variety and change. A society based on such a conception of Reality must reconcile, in its life, the categories of permanence and change.

– Iqbal in Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam

I face many criticisms on these ideas. Most popular are the ideas of End of the world. That all things are bound to go wrong because the end is near. The other is of conspiracy theorists who claim that there are few secret societies who are actually controlling the minds of the people. These theories are all full of pessimistic attitudes and inspire me to do nothing. This is the biggest flaw I find in them.

The ideal character according to Bertrand Russell

I’ll take four characteristics which seem to me jointly to form the basis of an ideal character; vitality, courage, sensitiveness and intelligence. I don’t suggest that this list is complete, but I think it carries us a good way. Moreover, I firmly believe that, by proper physical, emotional and intellectual care of young, these qualities could all be made very common.

On Education, Bertrand Russell

Is war inevitable for peace?

War is peace. It was one of the slogans of George Orwell’s novel 1984. War is definitely not for peace but is it always the case? Wars can be fought by people who are in search of wealth and they want to exploit resources of other nations who have plenty. The wars waged on the old Indus valley civilization is attributed to this fact. Another reason is of expansionist approach, the will to have a great empire. The imperial endeavor of Roman civilization, Alexander’s wars, Genghis khan’s regime are some of the examples of this approach. Wars are also fought by nations craving to create hegemony of their civilization or political ideology. American war with Soviet block is based on the very belief that the system of capitalism is better than communist ideology. Although there are material benefits for ruling civilizations but on the surface their claim is of a superior set of ideologies.

Wars are also fought by the oppressed class of people against the oppressors. The oppression can be economic or ideological but it is one of the main reasons of many wars. The wars between Catholics and Protestants were fought because the latter were oppressing the middle class of the society. French Revolution was brought forth by the shear despotic rule of Louis XVI and it resulted in subsequent Napoleonic wars. These wars helped the oppressors vent out their loss against the oppressors but these wars bear witness to the fact that wars are also fought by the oppressed against the oppressors.

Can wars bring peace to the society? Wars have certainly benefited humanity through rapid technological advancements but these wars make human divide sturdy thus slowing down the process of global consensus. Global consensus is the goal of humanity on this earth because it is something that extracts all the goodness in human beings and guides them towards the fulfillment of their purpose of life.

Can we move on towards global consensus (thereby making wars obsolete) through our current political systems and separate national identities? No, in my opinion it is very difficult to do so in the present scenario. The boundaries between nations seems to be mocking this concept of global consensus. Wars will thus remain a potential threat unless we move towards greater understanding of our fellow beings and begin to appreciate the goodness in them.

If we suppose that a Utopian nation is founded on the basis of this coherent consensus of people, does it mean that it will not have any friction with other nations? It will have no friction if others have gone through a similar experience. It means if the basis of this global consensus is formed on the common grounds of what every nation believes, it is possible. It is possible then to make the world a true democracy. It is with extreme difficulty, we humans can be able to perform this feat. The challenge is to cope with those whose authority resides in their vested interests of discontent within people and societies. If we create a world where this consensus can become the driving force, those oppressors will eventually come to the right path or they will be left within small confines of their own world and their authority will be stripped down from them.

From these views I have to conclude that peace does not depend on wars rather it is totally dependent on the ‘will to will the common will‘.

P.S: This post was inspired by nmr.