The war in Ukraine has exposed the hypocrisies of the world like never before. Before anyone starts jumping on me as Pro-Russia, let me clarify that I am proud to be in Poland today as they had opened their borders to the fleeing Ukrainians. As did the Czech Republic and Romania, the two other countries I have lived in in the last 14 years.
Commendable indeed.
The world is excited about the unity we had demonstrated, condemning Russia, imposing crippling sanctions, and even taking unprecedented steps of arming Ukraine. I am for all of them. Let the world stand united in the face of oppression and not play to appease the aggressor with the hope that a concession made now will avert a bigger conflict. In fact, it is precisely a concession made to an aggressor that leads to greater miseries. If one does not forget history, Hitler, Chamberlain, and Czechoslovakia will remind them of what I am talking about.
While all this is good, let us not forget the double standards that are now blatantly put out on display.
• No one condemned China when it crushed Hong Kong
• No one condemned China when it invaded Indian territory of Arunachal Pradesh
o I can’t blame others as even the Indian Government did not acknowledge the invasion
• No one boycotted China’s Winter Olympics even though the atrocities on Uyghur are common knowledge to everyone who can read.
• No one is going to condemn China when it will soon invade Taiwan. (The man is taking notes on what is happening on the Ukraine fiasco)
• No one is remembering that Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania closed their borders when refugees were pouring in from Afghanistan and Syria.
• We choose to ignore the RW targeting blacks and Asians at the border, humiliating them, harassing them, even physically assaulting them which resulted in at least one being admitted to the hospital.
• We allow the FIFA WC 2022 to take place in Qatar after all the evidence of human rights violations.
• We are ok with F1 in Saudi Arabia in spite of the regime’s association with the killing of Khashoggi.
• No one raises (or raised) an eyebrow at the persistent state-sponsored Islamophobia across many nations, India topping the list.
• Taliban is allowed to strangle Afghanistan again once the USA was bored with spending more time there, placing their own collaborators on the Taliban altar as a sacrifice.
• The devastation in Syria hardly makes it to the news.
The majority of the people are still good. I firmly believe this. The problem with such good people is that they choose to be optimists. They would see the greater good and choose to ignore the sporadic evil as an exception. This is where they err. The sporadic, unchecked, unchallenged evils accumulate and become the norm over a period of time. This is why,
• 700 killed in a Mogadishu bombing does not even make it to the front page while 5 killed in France is trending.
• Uyghur incarceration is not news anywhere.
• Lynching of Muslims is considered not worth highlighting.
• Racism in all its subtle forms is tolerated.
• Hatemongers are allowed to roam free.
• Targeted state-sanctioned killing is digested as evil too difficult to fight.
• Caste oppression is considered integral to society.
As if ingrained prejudices and selective dispensation of justice is not lethal enough, we have a new tool to ratchet the misery to a higher level. Fake news. All of a sudden, people have stopped taking the trouble to research and read. All their education comes from their Facebook feed and/or WhatsApp forwards. Unless we all make an effort to form our own opinions after a pragmatic approach to a given problem, superficial gestures and shallow understandings shall prevail.
Let no Ukrainian suffer in the current meaningless (is there another kind?) war. In the process of ensuring that, if we can also ensure
• Let no Uyghur suffer
• Let no African suffer
• Let no Muslim suffer
• Let no women suffer
• Let no downtrodden suffer
• Let no Afghan suffer
• Let no …..
• ……
• ……
That would be a comprehensive victory!
I am closing this with the powerful message from Periyar, a most misunderstood, often vilified, individual from my homeland.
The title is from my daughter. When she mentioned it in one of our family chats, this simple sentence captured so much, I felt the need to expand its full meaning.
