As I look at the division that’s being created by a particular party and that is taking our country by storm, and see the blatant disregard for people belonging to a particular community I felt it is time that we the educated and influencers realize and make a mission of telling others around us that we little choice over the color of the skin we are born with, the caste or religion we are born into or the country we are born in…….. and this choice was also not given to the people we ridicule or those we treat with contempt.
There is a lovely little verse by Elizabeth Hart. It goes like this:
She spoke of heaven
And angelic host
She spoke of God
Who she loved the most
She spoke of the Lords teachings
Of man’s brotherhood,
Yet when she had to sit beside a Negro once –
She stood!
Just like many of us, isn’t it? We speak of God’s love till it comes to loving another brother or sister, whom God also created.
There is a legend of a traveler coming at twilight to a camping place. As he looked off into the distance he saw a strange object. Through the gathering dusk it seemed to take the shape of a terrible monster, and he resolved to go closer to see, if possible what it was. Drawing nearer, he saw that it was a man!
Much of his fear than vanished and he ventured closer and found that not only was the object a man like himself but… that it was his own brother!
………. yes my dear readers what a monster prejudice is.
The great Voltaire called “Prejudice as the reasoning of the stupid”
In a world where we of many diverse faiths and different colors live side by side, let us look beyond this so called monster, and find a brother instead.
Let us stop being stupid…..!
If you do not like me because I am ignorant, I can be sent to school and educated.
If you do not like me because I am dirty, I can be taught to wash and be clean.
If you do not like me because of my un-social habits, I can be taught how to live in society.
But if you do not like me because of the color of my skin or the way I pray, I can only refer you to the God who made me..!
My countrymen are you listening?
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Robert Clements is a newspaper columnist and writes a daily column, which has graced the pages of over 60 newspapers and magazines, from a daily column in the Khaleej Times, Dubai, the Morning Star, London, and in nearly every state in India, from The Statesman in Kolkata, to the Kashmir Times in Kashmir to the Trinity Mirror in Chennai.
Sane advise Bob, but will our brethren listen & implement?
What Karl Marx said “Religion is opium of masses” is true even today in 21st century.
I wish that I could run your article up a flag pole n let it wave over our nation like a banner in the sky. Fit for study in text books in both school and college. One day it will.
Bob! Am with Vanita James, wish everyone read your articles every day, so that we’ll emprove… and have better society. God bless!
Intolerance, bias , prejudice abound everywhere ! These are most difficult to eradicate from the hearts, whose soil has never been loosened or fertilised by education: they grow there, firm and strong . It requires the work of generations to come to dislodge these from any society !