“It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. It was the age of wisdom. It was the age of foolishness. It was the epoch of belief. It was the epoch of credulity. It was the season of light. It was the season of darkness. We had everything before us. We had nothing before us. We were all going direct to heaven. We were all going direct the other way.”
This beautiful paragraph, written by Charles Dickens on the very onset of his famous Novel “ A TALE OF TWO CITIES” to describe the contradictory nature of the period in Europe just before the French Revolution(1789) , surprisingly fits to describe the nature of even the present world we are living in. It seems that the society of today is characteristically parallel to the ones existed in Europe some 220 years back during the French Revolution. However, it would be wrong to draw the conclusion that we have remained dormant over two centuries, given some uncanny attributes solely ingrained with contemporary times. We have acquired some more elements In the process of gradual advancement of civilization which has made the present time more bewildering and paradoxical.
“ It is the period of explicit freedom. It is the period of implicit slavery. It is the time of free speech. It is the time of suppressing them. IT is an era of clarity. It is an era of ambiguity. It is an affair of globalization. It is an affair of insularity. It is the age of surprising truth .It is the age of equally surprising lies .It is the spring of love. It is the cruel winter of hatred .It is the episode of trust. It is the episode of betray. It is the day of heaven. It is the night of hell. It is the chapter of unquestionable loyalty. It is the chapter of brooding duality.”
If anything has succeeded in an attempt to blow the lid off the confusing affairs of the current world and to show its real nature and ways of working, that is the revelations made by a whistle-blowing website, Wikileaks. Just a couple of months back, the website posted a host of private cables of state department of America which contain confidential exchanges between diplomats of various countries of the world. The revelations caused a great deal of embarrassment, particularly to America, as they exposed the true intent and opinion of the influential world leaders and diplomats with regard to major concerns of today’s world. They are, fortunately or unfortunately, just contrary to what the people used to make of on the basis of the press and public statements of these leaders.
The vast trove of classified documents released by Wikileaks rubbished the long and seemingly purposeful claims of friendship, guide and mentor on the world arena. Friends were caught behaving as foes and enemies were shown as sympathizers in world politics. Just one long and loud whistle of the Wikileaks turned the cup upside down, tumbling down all the hollowness and hypocrisy of the dynamic world political culture. While the astonishing disclosures made by the website have given a credence to a widespread views which constantly talked of double-standard, they have even forced our perception to take a 180 degree turn and gasp in amazement for the world full of pretense and insincerity.
Julian Assanage, the owner of Wikileaks, deserves to be praised for two reasons. First, he apparently alone did something very irritating and discomfiting to America, which has severely eroded the credibility of the superpower among nations of the world. Secondly, Assanage has shown us a crude reality of political society based on a set of values and beliefs of modern generation which grooms and cater to the nourishment of duality and mendacity.
Though the Wikileaks has wrapped itself around with a political blanket, deep inside lies and support the social fabrication of individuals’ behavior and their relationship with kith and kin. Our own identity itself is that of a person of a contradictory attributes. Our own relationship itself is dubious, fragile and mostly, need-based. So what if one concludes that our own face resembles besmirched and bemused America and our own relationship with friends and family members, as that of America with rest of the globe, as superficial and deceptive.
Through Wikileaks, we have learnt how this political world runs .This world runs on the basis of false promises. It runs on the basis of power and dominance. It runs around greed and selfishness. It runs on hypocrisy and atrocity, and on the basis of a long list of uncivilized this and that .But have you ever thought how our small social world consisting of friends and families run. Does it not run on the same line with the political world? Are the motives cementing the ties in both the world not same? Are the reasons for discord in both the world not same? Some of you may counter my view and say that our social world run on the basis of love, trust and mutual respect. I agree. But question arises, are they unquestionably beyond doubt and conditions? Ameica along with some major powers of the world has also been claiming to steer the globe towards freedom, equality and economic and social prosperity. But in the game plan rules, as the Wikileaks suggests, its own abhorring greed for power, energy and dominance.
Our social network more or less is influenced by our own priorities and preferences without any or least concern for other people. We too make friends to serve our own interest. We too make promise to further our own agenda. We too indulge in backbiting and we too want to remain always on the top. So where is the difference between “ political America”and “social we”? In a way, Wkileaks has exposed everyone of us. Our rude intentions, unflinching greed and a crass double-standard which we adopt to suit our plan. It has revealed our nasty social behavior which proves detrimental to others’ peace and happiness. It has shown a very human instinct present in everyone of us, which sometimes makes us worse than animals. The shocking disclosure made by Wikileaks is nothing but an ominous large reflection of our own deeds and behavior of decades. It is a black dark shadow of our own thought process and set of values and beliefs guiding our lives for a long time now. The gigantic and invincible spirit the disclosure has managed to overshadow is a stark reminder of unethical life-style followed by people all over the world on a large scale. The long accumulation of egocentricity, two-facedness and self-indulgence in micro level in the society has ultimately snowballed into a political culture highly inimical to spiritual and intellectual well-being of the society a whole. It is an irony of this culture that hundreds of millions are spent on the purchase of arms and ammunition and an almost equal number of people die every year in want of food, safe drinking water, medical-facilities and lawlessness. Shame on us! and Shame on this political culture which values power and prestige more than the precious lives of common people, which seeks materialistic sophistication even at the cost of moralistic downfall and which justifies terror and force to achieve tranquility in society.
Even the personal relationship of people weaved around friends, families, neighbors, teachers, peers and mentors are not totally insulated against meanness and voracity, and gradually an apparent crack appears on the face of it, followed by an era of embarrassment and face-covering. We have strangely worn a persona of a dubious nature. We despise and love the same person at the same time. We eulogize the people we denigrate. We curse the people we say prayer for. We open all the gates and roll our red carpet to welcome some and the next day we close our doors hard on them and build an impregnable wall around us. We act as friends and foes to some during the very same season of rapport. Does it all not speak volumes about our double-standard which takes its toll in the form of an astringent relationship and a phenomenal penitence?
TIME FOR INTROSPECTION
Let us put ourselves, as the Wikileaks provides an opportunity, on an introspection mode to seriously put an end to hypocrisy and chauvinism which has given us nothing but a tattered and tensed surroundings around us. This will become possible when we ponder over what has indeed crept into our psyche which is spewing out a vitriolic cascades of revulsion. Is it greed or selfishness or simply a mad race to achieve success, wealth and popularity? Or is it our callousness towards others’ sentiments or is it a contagious culture of distrust and disloyalty that usually results in fractured faith and loyalty? Whatever the reason, situation can be sufficiently improved and association can be saved from taking a slippery slope once we take a very a strong moral stand on the issue, keeping aside all our petty interests. Lets make an environment of mutual cooperation and unbreakable harmony. Let the message travel around that we put humanity above all and have its repercussion on political sphere so that millions of lives can be saved from fatal negligence. Let the fission of goodness release on a sustained basis an energy of tolerance.
As the cables run amok and penetrate every nook and corner of the world, the world leaders were shown reacting differently. While some are registering their protest against other countries, some are busy in refuting the charge made by the revelations. Its time to either better understand the world or be crazy in the smoke of mystification. Whatever the implication of his disclosure on political life, one sure way to save ourselves from undesirable embarrassment is to be truthful to oneself and all. We also have a net of friends from different society and culture and we also indulge in conversation with them and rail against one another. This put us on the high risk of being exposed among friends. Let us put this practice on an eternal hold for the good of ourselves and all, lest this should crumble our little beautiful world forever.
Do good and expect it from all corners of the world. Lets bury the relevance of Dickens’ negative observations about past period for the one we are part and parcel of.
VASHISTHA RAY
