Shared by Syed Naqvi.
(Bloomberg View) — The world seems full of crises and
disasters: from political stasis and racial standoffs in Europe and the U.S., to the classic conflicts of capitalism in “emerging” economies (inequality, weakening states, authoritarianism), to tribal conflicts and sectarian uprisings in the Middle East and Africa. But the small coffins of Peshawar’s students are the heaviest burden on our conscience.
The murder of children crushes our soul. It destroys the already frail hope, without which life becomes unbearable, that there is justice in our world. Adults commit unspeakable atrocities against each other in the name of religion, race, nation and profit. But none of our many competing gods has yet explained why the innocent young should suffer for the sins of adults.
The killing of 132 children in Peshawar violates the shared assumptions that have regulated the conduct of humanity for millennia. Some unshakeable tenets, which the fiercest partisans on the left and the right both cherished, have been trampled into the earth. It is why our grief is not assuaged by the ritual condemnation of international statesmen and editorialists, the cool analysis of terrorism experts, or the retaliatory measures of politicians and generals.
Nor is it alleviated by jeremiads against allegedly anti- modern Islam, or the unique depravity of the Pakistani Taliban.
The group’s apparent enemy, Pakistan’s security establishment, has itself created and sponsored some of the most vicious militant organizations in South Asia. Demagogues in Sri Lanka and India demonstrate that civilian rule is no insurance against extremism. The massacre of children has occurred in the same fortnight that a former vice-president of the world’s biggest democracy claimed that he would authorize torture again if need be.
We cannot precisely diagnose a crisis that seems so all- encompassing — the life-denying nihilism that hangs over the world like smog. It does hint at insidious decay in the very institutions and processes — families, education, media and inherited patterns of culture — through which basic values such as individual self-restraint are transmitted.
This is true not only of brutalized contestants in an endless war. There seems to be a pervasive uncertainty in even the world’s relatively peaceful zones about what one generation should pass on to the next, or how it should define the duties and responsibilities of being human.
Formal education, reduced to vocational training by anxious parents and teachers, no longer effectively insulates against the mental confusion and hideously distorted urge for transcendence that makes a corporate executive in Bangalore turn into a fervent tweeter on behalf of Islamic State. Many of the young today are nurtured by and mature intellectually in new communities of meaning on the Internet, where everything seems permitted. In the resulting moral vacuum, deracinated and estranged young men succumb to a grandiose will to power, and an infatuation with charismatic figures and utopian movements.
Something more than just economic and political distress must explain the worldwide proliferation of men who espouse spine-chilling convictions and fantasies of mass murder. We cannot afford to renounce the possibility of achieving a more democratic, free and just society through political change. Yet we can no longer believe that the enabling conditions of nihilistic violence or the apocalyptic mind-set can be removed by reform or modification of public policy alone, let alone by military retaliation.
The blood of innocent children rouses us to drastic action.
But it is not cowardly to acknowledge problems to which there are no stock sociopolitical remedies, and to grasp the unprecedented nature of the threats in our time to human life, freedom and dignity. Certainly, however deep our revulsion to atrocities perpetrated by all sides — sectarian or secular, governments or terrorists — it won’t help to blame religion for a phenomenon that is so clearly rooted in a catastrophic loss of the religious sense.
To contact the author on this story:
Pankaj Mishra at pmishra24@bloomberg.net To contact the editor on this story:
Nisid Hajari at nhajari@bloomberg.net
Introductory and brief comment by nSalik
I read this article.
I felt the intensity of the writer’s effort to grapple with chaos which surrounds all of us.
He has covered almost every dimension of human existence.
He has asked lot of questions without providing any answer.
The writer is using the Socratic technique of asking the right questions to involve all of us to think together about complexities of modern day human life.
The situation is so complex that there are no easy answers.
Let us not ask the writer of this article for the answers to the questions he is asking.
We should think for ourselves, if we find any answer, let us share with each other for critical analysis.
We have the medium to share our thoughts with each other.
The medium is “WWW.ThinkersForumUSABlog.Org” – the way we have been doing for the last 2 to 3 years.
Mr. Pankaj Mishra has the courage to draw our attention to the existential problems confronting us.
I do not see any point repeating the text from the article.
I am just sharing with you the enormity I felt during and after reading this article.
I am asking all TF USA affiliates to read this article and put your comments here under this thread.
Let us see what happens.
Noor Salik
Great comments by Noor Salik.
It is an emotionally and mentally challenging article. As the author described, it is an all-encompassing problem that requires re-examining all human aspects. Let me analyze one aspect, unshakeable self-righteousness, which I think is the major core of problems and led to intolerance and hatred for otherness. It is not just limited to religions, but it involves non-religious aspects of human life also. It has led to increased hatred and has polarized nations and societies alike. The religious leaders are so sure of themselves that they have taken the role of GOD to pass the judgments as described by Atif Mian in his article, Line between Man and God,.
Karen Armstrong argues that nationalism has replaced religion in many secular countries and dying for the country, even for wrong cause, is considered as sacred as dying for religion. We take oath of allegiance to the country just like religion. Our nationalistic egos have led to extreme self-righteousness and proclamations of exceptionalism. This attitude has transcended from nationalism to ideology of political parties which want purity of ideology, and no room for compromise or accommodation for others’ point of view.
This absoluteness in self-righteousness in an age of Quantum physics, which has reduced certainty of scientific principles to probabilities, is astonishing and disappointing, especially in developed countries.
Fayyaz
My this comment is on Mr. Fayyaz’s comment.
This comment is precise, brief, condensed and thought provoking.
Let me explain, what I said above.
Mr. Fayyaz is dealing with a complex and multi-faceted subject but he decided to take only one point and attempted to explain it.
The point he took is “Self-righteousness”.
Please note this is only my understanding.
..
I am speaking for myself not for Mr. Fayyaz.
I am saying what I understood from the original article by Pankaj Mishra and Mr . Fayyaz’s comment.
Mr . Fayyaz comment has 3 paragraphs.
In first paragraph, he talks about self-righteousness. It’s causes and consequences.
What he said, you read it yourself.
I am attempting to use my right as a TF USA affiliate of “Critical Analysis”.
In second paragraph, Mr.Fayyaz has used very deftly and effectively Karen Armstrong quotation about replacement of religion with Nationalism and it’s consequences on present day political, social and economic conditions/circumstances.
Mr. Fayyaz’s third paragraph is a master stroke.
He talks about Quantum Physics.
How Quantum Physics had replaced certainity with PROBABILITY.
I really didn’t understand the third paragraph because I know very little of Quantum Physics.
I wrote what I understood.
You tell us all what you understood after reading Mr. Fayyaz’s comment on Pankaj Mishra article.
Marwan Majzoob.