Crash (and Burn)

For those who havent yet seen it or for those who are oblivious of what i am talking about, crash is one of the better movies to be seen. for once there was something close to what might be an honest potrayal of what people are like. i say might be because this movie especially deals with the issue of racial behaviour dissimilarities and stereotypes. the very first scene in the movie is a mockery of what we have made for ourselves. whats is it that instigates us, drives us to belittle our fellowmen? with or without concious knowledge, certain thoughts and words are allowed in our heads that spitefully get back at our imaginary threat not with our intellectual superiority but with a cowardly jibe at the character of the minority (which it truly is not). is there a hidden satisfaction for a human mind in such actions? do those words provide a apt replacement for that jab one could not take?

what darwin would have said...

in this world. there is no place here where one is free from prejudice. each nation, state, community, society. each to itself a standing example of human behaviour. looking back, there may be evidences of such discrimination, disapproval and conformist tendencies right from the very beginning of society. it is an essential behavioural pattern. a dominant gorilla has to employ aggression, subordination and submission to establish its superiority over the other males and thus gain exclusive mating rights to its partners. this is a fundamental evolutionary function of human behaviour. over generations man has evolved from stone age when mating and feeding were paramount to an age when power, ego and lust define need. but this change in behaviour does not effectively change the hardwiring in the brain for certain processes. when in face of danger fight or flight. it is widely agreed that this is a valid and proven phenomenon with a strong evolutionary background. well is it then too hard to believe that our discriminatory skills are a similar phenomenon honed through thousands of years of struggle to be the dominant individual. well the stimuli which elicited such responses in the neanderthals are long gone. but the emotion now pours out in response to the changed challenges to the being's authority. such an authority is known to be addictive and we have seen in the history of time that it has helped into existence some of the most well known historical events. the struggle to be on top only begins when you get there. once o top the view is brilliant. sort of like a condo in the trump towers. once you have been there you dont want to go back to the street. so you resort to means, good or bad, lawful or otherwise, to stay put. this holds true for the village in the most rural extremes of the developing world as well as the cosmopolitans of the self-proclaimed developed world. none are different. and zooming out even further onto the world stage this translates into the big brother(bully?) and 'allies'.

whats in a word

why are racist comments a problem? why isn't it a state offence to abuse man with the choicest of expletives putting to shame his pedigree while a comment on the colour of his skin or country of origin leads to such intense debate and forseeable destruction. an arab is an arab, a mexican a mexican. a brown man is brown, a black man black. the inflammatory substance to these otherwise commonplace adjectives is our on creation. a perpetuation of debate on these issues continues to keep open old wounds and pepper them as well. what one asks for is not for laws on usage of certain words and certain actions but for a true and honest attempt to foster among people a sense of mutual respect. this is not possible so long as the phrase 'politically correct' has any meaning in society. society dictates politics not vice versa. because such a thought process only leads to perpetuation of what is not correct. if the chocolate is not good for the child, dont let him know it existed. let it be forgotten altogether that there were slurs and abuses. let there be an only word.

aliens? who said so.

the blatant problem of racism is being faced in the advanced countries of the world because of their own creation. the countries where immigrants come from are projected as inferior. an assocation with what is identified as inferior leads to expulsive behaviour on part of the host citizen and this followed by the retaliation. the immigrant should be identified as a citizen not just legally but also socially. uk with a sizeable muslim population could do better to identify them as an integral part of society and work toward better integration by simple directives like a public holiday for eid, inclusion in brief of their history, habit and importance in curricula, and an over all aim to not teach the budding citizens of the future any reason to identify them as alien. once such a truly global assimilation is allowed into society, it automatically becomes receptive, tolerant and understanding of diversity of cultures. this is but an example. every state today is no longer what used to be a semihomogeneous group of people with a common agenda. a nation is no longer defined by the language, religion, appearance or history. today's nations are a mosaic. each with different elements in different proportions but all together exhibiting the same common feature. diversity. so as a rule it is imperative that human society makes an attempt to redefine itself to become a more affirmative, humanitarian and tolerant being.