Why do the best of us succumb to hatred? What drives us to consider ourselves, or our ilk, better than the rest - and therefore, deserving of more? When did we, as human beings, decide to abandon humanity and replace it with a corrupted version of "Survival of the Fittest"?
Xenophobia is so common around the world that it has found acceptance in mainstream political agendas. Thousands fleeing persecution are being denied asylum in places as far apart as Central Europe and India; while elsewhere, an overgrown child's tantrums have resulted in real walls across the width of a continent. Countries in Africa that have developed strong human rights policies to correct a horrible past still continue to fail to protect refugees. The United Nations is toothless and can only protest in the strongest terms while the world's powers and the big businesses (which obviously profit from it or don't care enough to do their research: run an internet search for Louis Vuitton's Ghana Must Go bags gaffe) hold it shackled. Human Rights groups like Amnesty continue to be underfunded and disorganised - their only response to every atrocity being a inefficient mission to somewhere near the affected region while far & few unpaid volunteers try to appeal for charity on the streets of the first-world countries that don't even know where on the map the country of focus is.
Religious intolerance is the foremost teaching of many self-professed megalomaniacs who continue to gather demented followers at a rate far greater than a motionless stone gathers fungal growth. Religious cleansing is as old as written history itself, often advocated by those in power in order to pander to the majority or to ensure the centre of power remains within grasp. From as far as back as the ancient Roman empire feeling threatened by new religions and the crusades in the middle ages; to the forced atheism in Communist regimes and the quest for Aryan supremacy that mutated into the holocaust, persecution of certain unfortunate groups has been a recurrent theme. Even today, atrocities continue - the Bahá'í faith is defamed in Iran, Christians are lynched for proselytising in Muslim-dominant nations and China enforces the ideological conversion of Falun Gong prisoners. Independent journalism and organisations like the International Crimes Tribunal have proven instrumental in creating awareness and ensuring justice in some cases. Unfortunately, the powers that be continue to remain untouchable.
Homophobia is frowned upon and hushed up to such an extent that the Queer community had to come up with most colourful flag possible just to be heard. While it is good to embrace one's sexuality and bask in it, we have gone overboard with it - new definitions are being coined day in - day out to address everybody's secret fantasies as more and more people try to jump on the bandwagon just to get in on the craze. Do we really need "self-partnered"?
One the one hand, population levels are soaring in tandem with pollution; while on the other, wealth gaps and groundwater levels are dropping. Ozone layer is depleting, Ice shelves are melting, fossil fuel dependency is increasing - renewable energy is unable to cope up with the sheer volumes of established industry. On the one hand are middle-aged fat cats incoherently declaring global warming a myth, while on the other are the environmental fanatics who have a slightly autistic, angry-looking, young teenage girl as their poster child.
Global initiatives, wholeheartedly supported by the world's governments, are the need of the hour. People need to realise what the end goal is: not the betterment of a single country, but, the protection of the entire planet and the human race. Some changes may not be reversible, but if we can work together, we might be able to avoid a catastrophe and show ourselves in a better light than we have in the 6 million years so far. Right now, we're all human-lemmings marching ever so slowly towards the world's edge, towards the mass suicide we've committed ourselves to.
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