Homo insensis

I feel strange.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I know people are killing each other in every corner of the world. Wars have been raging in Palestine, Africa, Kashmir, and elsewhere for years. Communal riots, ethnic cleansing, genocide, torture for pleasure. Man's supreme inhumanity to man. And yet, I reflect now. And somewhat passively at that.

Have I become that insensitive, that inured? So selfish that my concern rises only with proximity of these events to me and my loved ones? What of all the self-righteous indignation? What of all the armchair philosophy and grandiose intellectual communal back-patting we indulged in so frivolously?
What kind of animal am I? What kind are we all?

I watch the images of the Mumbai seige, I empathise with the victims, but I watch the unfolding drama with an incomprehensible detachment. Today they cry, celebrities and politicians scream for immediate action, for permanent solutions. And I wonder, if tomorrow my loved ones died a senseless death as this - and this is increasingly becoming not such a far fatched idea - what would I do? I have no idea.
Would I scream too? Would I give my life over to the hatred? Would I form organisations, exhorting others to join me to solve the problem, either violently or otherwise? How would I feel about people just sitting around watching, while people are being killed for no fault of theirs - just like I am doing now? Is this the very sentiment that created the problem and is now feeding off itself?

Has history taught us nothing? Do you think we are the first people to ever envision a lasting solution? What happened to all the ideas of the infinitely smarter people who came before us? If there exsited a solution, would we still be seeing this today?

So if there's no solution, do we give up? Do we just fight till we are all dead? Or do I just try to live out my life the safest way I can, maybe whisk my loved ones away to some place far away from the madness. Maybe an island nation - but climate change may kill me. Maybe Northern Europe - but the cold may kill me. Maybe the US - but Homeland Security may kill me. Maybe the UK - but living and dying is the same thing here, more or less.

In the end, no matter how much I run, the distance from my beloved India will kill me.

In fact, it doesn't really matter. We are bent upon killing each other anyway. We are doomed to be the first species to play such a massive role in its own extinction. Maybe I don't understand our species any more, maybe I never did. Maybe nobody does.


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