Dear Sir,

The heartbreaking picture of a five-year-old boy in Aleppo, Syria, has once again shaken the world. It crystalises the current tragedy of the crisis in the Middle East.
The slaughter of civilians in the Middle East is totally and utterly unacceptable. For 60 years now, the stench of war and conflict has enveloped the world. Peace remains elusive. For many, the concept of world peace might seem like something of a cliché.
Peace begins within. Until we can find that quiet, still place that lives inside each of us, peace will remain elusive and misunderstood. It is an unfortunate part of post-Cold War history that the demons of enmity, intolerance and violence pitting nations against nations continue to live with us.
As we reflect on our past, and the painful lessons learnt, the sad truth is that the world isn’t working right now as we threaten to bomb each other into oblivion.
Schisms between nations are becoming wider and there seems to be an ideology standoff between Christianity and Islam. It’s time we all realised that multiculturalism does not lead to disintegration; we need to celebrate our differences, not ridicule them.
It was Dr Martin Luther King who once said: “One day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but that it is a means by which we arrive at the goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means.”

Farouk Araie
farouk.araie@telkomsa.net

A late
response

Dear Sir,

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has finally broken his silence on the violence that the so-called “gau rakshaks” (cow protectors) have unleashed in certain parts of the country. Modi described persons and organisations practising violence in the name of cow vigilantism as “anti-social elements”, urging state governments to prepare dossiers of all such activists.
But his remarks came too late and were conditional also. He was specifically speaking about atrocities against certain community – the Dalits, not other minority groups. He was forced to say so because of the political heat he and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) feeling these days in Gujarat, the home state of Modi, which faces elections next year along with the Uttar Pradesh state. These two states are considered to be BJP bastions with a substantial base of Dalits.
Modi seems to have admitted the atrocities against Dalits to stop the erosion of their votes in the coming elections.
Something is better than noting, of course. Even the late response assumes importance. Modi’s silence so far has been a sign of acceptance; the acceptance of atrocities committed by the outfits of his party against certain communities. But unfortunately for him, that approach is not going to bring success to him any more.
India’s social fabric is based on the concept of secularism. Let it be so forever and ever.

Girish R Edathitta
(e-mail address supplied)