Penned by Cliff Rajkumar
Looking back, we opened 2023 with optimism after almost three years of surviving the dreaded COVID-19 and with the hope that the Ukraine war would end the callous horrors and terrifying destructions that have now invaded our consciousness with seemingly unending – movielike – gory scenes. We shudder as we see innocent people in the conflict zones who are being brutally attacked and killed in real-time, with unforgiving lethal weapons of mass destruction.
It is despondently morbid to see how we have become so callous without reverence for human life; the question begs, as we recoil from the visceral sorrow which overwhelms our emotions, are we really a civilized human race with empathy, compassion and respect for the sanctity of life? Or, are we allowing our debased compulsions to to control and dominate our better judgment? It seems like we are on a vicious death spiral, where taking precious human lives has been normalized as mere proactive geopolitical national interests imperatives.
In my lifetime, I have joyfully experienced an innocent bygone time when HAPPY NEW YEAR was not just a cliche but rather, a truly exuberant and joyous moment that we expectantly look forward to with hopes for progress and a better life for our families. Will these Happy New Year goodwill cheers ever return to rekindle human civility, compassion and sanctity for life? It is incomprehensible to rationalize that, in spite of our great technological advances and progress in every field of human endeavour, we have regressed to become obsessively greedy, materialistic and debased. We are becoming more and more soulless as we cling to the compulsions that divide us, rather than unite us as a cohesive force to make our fragile, shrinking world the paradise that it could be.
Ironically, we probe the universe to find non-human aliens but choose to alienate ourselves, here on earth, from our human family with inflexible dogmas and obsessed ideological creeds that justify our hatred, bigotry and even despicable genocidal mutilations. Sadly, the 2024 New Year’s optimism is now shrouded with pessimism as we continue to drift in the turbulent sea of inflexible, dogmatic ideological zealotry. As well, the rise of border disputes, based on antiquated self-serving claims, is fuelling unwarranted conflicts with grave consequences for the world…at large.
May heaven -wherever that is- help us all, to come to our senses and realize that this short human journey presents us with a unique opportunity to experience the wonders of this magnificent creation in all its glory
and splendour…and also to serve a higher cause for all of humanity’s betterment.