It’s the holiday season all over the world. End of the year and colder (or extremely cold in some places) weather: A tipple may succeed in putting people in a festive mood, or maybe not in places where alcohol consumption is a covert “operation.”
Statistics will say there are more suicides this time of the year, more grief. Well, who can argue with statistics? Still, except for the IS loonies, people would like to have a good time, a good week ending the year, and that’s the spirit.
Spare a thought for the suffering millions in the Levant or Gaza or the migrants left in the lurch in cold, cold Europe, or the millions in refugee camps in Jordan and Turkey and Lebanon. And the homeless, the uprooted, the people living in the margins of life and extinction.
A pall of sadness spreads over me thinking about the slaughtered and suffering children all over the world. It is unacceptable, inhumane, barbaric, beyond the comprehension of any logic, beyond religiosity, beyond any sense of fair play in war.
But reality is harsh, and marauding warmongers are too common in the long history of mankind; religion used as an excuse in many cases — the crusades, the Ottoman wars, and now the Islamic terrorism perpetrated by the Taliban, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, or the scourge of the modern world, IS or ISIS. One also needs to mention the bombing raids (manned or unmanned drones) by the Western powers — killing, maiming thousands, and making millions homeless. But Islamist terrorism is now the most egregious.
The history of Islamic marauders is no different, as we glean from William Dalrymple’s City of Djinns:
“After the death of Aurangzeb in 1707, the Mughal Empire was in rapid decline and the ruling elite were nothing more than hedonists and Delhi was a place of debauchery.
At one point, the Persian ruler Nadir Shah decided to move in and after defeating the Mughal army at Karnak in the Punjab, he started moving towards Delhi.
The populace of the great city were nervous and decided not to put up a strong resistance. When camped five miles outside the city, the Persian ruler heard the news of the slaughter of 900 of his troops by resisting Delhi-wallahs.
He ordered an onslaught and in a span of 24 hours, his troops massacred the city with about 1,50,000 lying dead at the end of it. Sauda wrote, ‘There isn’t a house from which the jackal’s cry cannot be heard.’”
Such horrific acts are taken to hero-worship by the Islamist types and we have to bear the brunt of it. It is imperative that we study history in order to be cognisant with brutalities that Islamic rulers have perpetrated over time. All religions have such instances of atrocities against the old, the innocent, the infirm. Have we forgotten the Inquisition? It is often said that when an innocent dies, divinity sheds a tear.
“The smallest coffins are the heaviest.”
But I would still echo Blanche Dubois of Tennessee Williams’ Streetcar: “I don’t want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don’t tell the truth, I tell what ought to be the truth. And if that’s sinful, then let me be damned for it!”
Hope springs eternal. Happy days and a happy new year!
Source: Dhaka Tribune