Thursday 16 November 2023

Post Colonial Conflict

It is a noble idea to align with a cause, to side with the oppressed and be a voice of the unheard ones. Since we are living in a hyper real world where identity of individuals has shifted from authenticity to profilicity, this has effected every aspect of our modern day interaction, mainly on the social medium. 

This has enabled people to build an opinion, take sides and be an "online warrior" without understanding the idea, concept, problem and wage their own narrative behind the wall of their "profile". This phenomena has severe consequences, which can actually sabotage the cause and pollute its reality. 

The convoluted history of "Israel-Palestine" conflict is the best example where everyone wanted to get on the bandwagon of opinions and taking sides without understanding the core problem. 

"Israel-Palestine" problem was never a "Muslims vs Jews" issue, but is a social experiment to settle a group of people in a preoccupied land by colonial masters. This conflict is purely a "post colonial" in its nature . It is not a question of pluralism as Muslims, Jews and Christians lived side by side for centuries if not millennium. With the post colonial lens, one can see that it becomes quite clear that Israel is not synonym to a Jewish nation but a Zionist one. This division is imperative to understand the subtle difference, it is on the same lines as all Talibans are muslims but not all muslims are Talibans.

The sad truth of the post colonial world is to accept the "social experiments" done by our colonial masters, which means Israel is a reality. The only plausible solution of the problem is to listen to the political direction and understanding that has been established by UN. The only solution would be to reinstate the 1967 borders and instil two states. Once this will be done, the side effects like Hamas will be dealt with dialogue (American Taliban model) or if not with power. 


Wednesday 8 November 2023

Conveniently legal,,,

 An inherent problem of any law;  divine, democratic, dictatorial or in any structure it is being established, it will be a generalisation of a situation. This means there will be a group of people for whom the law will be "inconvenient" and for some or many, it will be "convenient" to follow. For example if the government prohibits alcohol usage, I will be the least person bothered by it since I do not consume, for me abiding the law will be just convenient where if the government bans meat, I will be completely taken back. 

This nature of law puts an onus on the people of privilege to first accept this and then make sure that they do not use the law to exploit or make the life hard for less privilege ones. The "privilege" here is solely associated to "power" structures and one should be very empathetic to keep the balance of power intact,

I would like to cite two examples to clear the subtle misuse of "law" that seeps in and changes the balance of a society. As it is easier to start something than to end it, if we are not aware of this from the start of this imbalance, it will be completely impossible to rectify it. 

Recently my landlord are increasing my rent, this breaks the legal limit of rent increase and also changes the rent average of my neighbourhood, now if I conveniently or rather I acquiesce the increase, probably I may still conveniently pay it but it may create an imbalanced for others, Also discussing this with a friend of mine who has already sided himself with the "dark side" and he is even encouraging this as he mistakenly thinks this will allow a conducive market for builders to make more houses. His belief is a direct consequence when you allow the "law of convenience" get established which disconnects you from the others.

Second example is the one which is post facto, where we allowed the imbalance of power brew and now the conflict is to the point where political pundits are saying that there is a no solution. Some 150 years ago when we allowed a social experiment to happen in the name of "coming back to home" to a pre occupied land. Now fast forward, it is convenient for one party to keep the atrocities happening in the name of defence, and for the power holders who can establish a rule based order are conveniently ignoring it.