WORLD PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS ... 1

WORLD PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS ... 1

The brutalisation of children must stop. Indoctrination in violence, be it political or religious, must end if a saner polity is to emerge in the future. Children who are the future of humanity must be saved from insidious ideas of medieval theology that eventually make brutes out of men.

The child mind is extremely sensitive and pliable. It is inordinately susceptible to new ideas which go to shape its adult destiny. Ideas such as heavenly reward and terrible torment in hell are detrimental to the healthy development of children, even of adults. If God be so cruel as to cast His created beings into hell fire, what remains of the ideal of forgiveness and kindness on earth then for humanity? If He who is the creator of all relativity, all tendencies that result in belief or disbelief in Him, why does He cast infidels into hell to burn forever? Why does He sanction subjugation, humiliation through taxation, death and capture of infidel womenfolk for sexslavement if He is just and merciful? Imagine the criminal effect it produces on already indoctrinated masses of individuals to that effect. And to pass on such dangerous doctrines from generation to generation leaves little hope for humanity in a world even otherwise vitiated by violence. 

And then there is greed, the greed for gain, that third vice of man that is fuelling barbarism in the world. Almighty Capital has replaced Almighty God in effect. The dollar rules the world. War is fought the world over for possession of the material resources of the world. Arms trade keeps the American economy going, even the economy of the major European powers such as Britain, France and Russia going. Israel and China have joined in the fray. Oil, on the other hand, while being the cause of Islamic resurgence with its concomitant consequences in terms of terrorism, has also led the Middle East to be the battleground for western control. America openly says that they have to 'protect' their 'interests' in West Asia which is why we see their covert and overt belligerence in the region from time to time. This raises reaction in the region which, fuelled further by the Islamic ideology of jihad, creates mayhem in the world through incessant terrorist activity. And children are being brought up in these ideologically slanted regions with hate for the West and for all kafirs! Is this a recipe for peace?

Capitalism is reigning today with unbridled ferocity. It is a silent bloodsucking mechanism that, while creating wealth for the privileged few, drains the lifeblood of billions. Unobserved, imperceptible, it reduces people to beggary by systematic legally-sanctioned exploitation that leaves the vast majority of humanity in economic despair. And then there is the desperate need for economic domination of the world by dastardly capitalists backed up by their representatives in political positions which create war. One country must destroy another to create economic opportunities for its own men. So, the race for superior weaponry is the ally in this so-called advancement of modernity which hides its fangs beneath the affable smile. Humanity remains in its cannibal state as in savage times, only in altered mode. Neocolonialism continues. The question is, how to change this scenario and usher in a more humane order of earthly existence?

Here the correct education of children must play the pivotal role for they are the ones who are future humanity. It is a tall task to overhaul the existent superstructure of ideas and institutions that are setting the agenda now. The inertia of the past is on and the past momentum cannot be wishfully checked. A reverse force of gigantic proportions is needed to alter the state of things but that is not easy to bring in to being given the conservative nature of the human mind. Culture and genetic characteristics have combined to bring about this cesspool of society where the predator-prey relation pervades. It is to combat such a combination that is the crux of our dharma today and it is no easy task.

On the face of it it is an impossible task. It cannot be instantly done and done without brutal resistance, for the vested interests are many and deeply ingrained in culture, characteristics, habits and aspired for commercial ends. Yet, slowly but surely the work of reformation of human society must begin along enlightened liberal lines. Education is a mighty tool for sociocultural change and with the technological tools of the world web now available, it should be possible to influence the minds of hundreds of millions of impressionable young adults with liberal ideas which will create a new awareness of the self and the Self beyond what doctrinaire cults preach. This awareness will free them from enslavement to a tyrannical God. It will free them from bondage to political messiahs. And it will create freethinking men and women who will gradually alter the course of things to ensure the advent of a better world where social justice will prevail. But how will they overthrow the crony capitalists who rule the world truly?

Written by Sugata Bose