1931,1938,1947,1953,1964,1975, 1977,1987,1990,1996,2002,2008 Gee! All those years our generations have suffered while seeking dignity with peace.
Somebody is wrong. Political struggles failed. Militancy has backfired. Diplomacy doesn’t work. Unquestionably, Dignity with peace starts with you and me. In principle, there’s not a dime’s worth of difference in mainstream and separatist camp politicians. Both have the illusion that they are here to save Kashmir.
It does seem like we, the people want to have our cake and eat it too. People are looking for happiness, fulfillment, satisfaction, better relationships, spirituality and contentment… To blame politicians for our problems is to give up control, when we should taking control. We fall into a victim mentality, believing that we have no power over our lives.
We can agree that the politicians intrude in many areas of our lives that may be unwarranted, and that more people should rely on themselves.
Can politicians think better than we can? Are we not capable of choosing a better future for our children?
We want control over our lives, but then look to politicians and governmental agencies to give it to us. We expect to gain control by giving it away.
I can only compare this contraction to my sense of surprise. Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk in “my name is red” laments on this scenario:
”I am nothing but a corpse now, a body at the bottom of a well. Although I drew my last breath long ago and my heart has stopped beating, no one, apart from that vile murderer, knows what’s happened to me. As for that wretch, he felt for my pulse and listened for my breath to be sure I was dead, then kicked me in the midriff, carried me to the edge of the well, raised me up and dropped me below. As I fell, my head, which he had smashed with a stone, broke apart; my face, my forehead and cheeks, were crushed; my bones shattered, and my mouth filled with blood.”
We blame external factors, government or politicians- for problems which no government or politicians on earth can solve.
This is to fall into the trap of politics itself, which projects politics as the only important thing in life. The reason many people do this is because political issues are presented as important in the news—which many people live by, almost to the point of being addicted.
The trouble is, we often don’t look at what ails our personal and shared life. In order to work on our problems we have to find out where the problem really lies. We have to look for the real source of our vagueness and discontentment.
Not to say that politics is altogether useless. It has its rules, but the key is not to get addicted.
As Edward W.Said says “[s]peaking the truth to power is no Panglossian
idealism: it is carefully weighing the alternatives, picking the right one, and then intelligently representing it where it can do the most good and cause the right change”. (Representations of the Intellectual, pp.102).
Somebody is wrong. Political struggles failed. Militancy has backfired. Diplomacy doesn’t work. Unquestionably, Dignity with peace starts with you and me. In principle, there’s not a dime’s worth of difference in mainstream and separatist camp politicians. Both have the illusion that they are here to save Kashmir.
It does seem like we, the people want to have our cake and eat it too. People are looking for happiness, fulfillment, satisfaction, better relationships, spirituality and contentment… To blame politicians for our problems is to give up control, when we should taking control. We fall into a victim mentality, believing that we have no power over our lives.
We can agree that the politicians intrude in many areas of our lives that may be unwarranted, and that more people should rely on themselves.
Can politicians think better than we can? Are we not capable of choosing a better future for our children?
We want control over our lives, but then look to politicians and governmental agencies to give it to us. We expect to gain control by giving it away.
I can only compare this contraction to my sense of surprise. Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk in “my name is red” laments on this scenario:
”I am nothing but a corpse now, a body at the bottom of a well. Although I drew my last breath long ago and my heart has stopped beating, no one, apart from that vile murderer, knows what’s happened to me. As for that wretch, he felt for my pulse and listened for my breath to be sure I was dead, then kicked me in the midriff, carried me to the edge of the well, raised me up and dropped me below. As I fell, my head, which he had smashed with a stone, broke apart; my face, my forehead and cheeks, were crushed; my bones shattered, and my mouth filled with blood.”
We blame external factors, government or politicians- for problems which no government or politicians on earth can solve.
This is to fall into the trap of politics itself, which projects politics as the only important thing in life. The reason many people do this is because political issues are presented as important in the news—which many people live by, almost to the point of being addicted.
The trouble is, we often don’t look at what ails our personal and shared life. In order to work on our problems we have to find out where the problem really lies. We have to look for the real source of our vagueness and discontentment.
Not to say that politics is altogether useless. It has its rules, but the key is not to get addicted.
As Edward W.Said says “[s]peaking the truth to power is no Panglossian
idealism: it is carefully weighing the alternatives, picking the right one, and then intelligently representing it where it can do the most good and cause the right change”. (Representations of the Intellectual, pp.102).
