It happened few months ago. I was flipping through news channels when suddenly my attention was drawn to a live coverage on some street protest in London where Islamic cleric Anjem Chowdhury was leading a peaceful demonstration. There was huge police presence with the anticipation that English Defense League, a political outfit, which does not want Sharia Law in Europe in general and England in particular, might come on the street and start fighting with the group which Anjem Chowdhury was leading.
One female journalist was asking questions to the demonstrators. When she had reached Anjem Chowdhury she started asking him questions. It is impossible to think that people will discuss about religion and will not talk about Paradise or Hell. So the journalist asked the cleric’s opinion about that. And the cleric replied that a true Muslim will go to Paradise. She further asked that since she was not a Muslim what would happen to her and the cleric replied that unless she accepts Islam she would burn in hell fire forever.
Islam is based on Al Qur’an which is a book of revelation which God had revealed to the prophet of the faith at many stages.
Christianity or rather the modern version of it is based on few simple rules which can be appreciated by using common sense.
The first and the most important one called the ‘golden rule’ states that ‘treat the way like to be treated’. The second one is ‘who committed no sin throw the first stone’ and immediately followed by ‘go and sin no more’. The third one is the rule of ‘seventy times seven’ when it comes to forgiveness.
Human civilization will forever extract all its nutrients to survive and to flourish from the substratum of these three principles, no matter what faith people would adhere to.
Hinduism at its core is based on the idea which states that there was nothing before this creation and there will be nothing at the end of it. Anything which started with ‘nothing’ and will end into ‘nothing’ its ‘reality’ is questionable. Hence it proposes that this universe is a manifestation of consciousness which exists into everything; only consciousness is real everything else is a manifestation of it.
Does this idea help a person in day to day life, not at all; it essentially says that the universe is not real, in other words the world appearance is a cosmic delusion. If that be so then why we talk to each other, why I have written this and why are you reading this, why we go to work every day? But after long journey, when we sit down either beside a fireplace or under the shade of a tree and contemplate on the past, the present and future then this weird idea makes some sense.
We do not need to reject any idea; they are priceless and as important as road maps and are useful at different stages of our journey.
And lastly what will happen to me at the end of this life, after all I am not a Muslim. I live in India where every single day teen aged girls are being raped. Even four year old girls are raped by their school bus drivers almost every single day. Shall I be afraid of living in Hell, which would be a better place to live?
Author: Mintu Ghoshal
Follow him on facebook: mintu.ghoshal.9
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I suspect most of us will get another chance … or maybe infinite chances . However there seems to be a glut of the rotten types that are not learning what they need to learn. Perhaps they need a ;little assistance?
4year olds raped on buses EVERYDAY? Parents can stop that, and stop it right this minute. Refuse to allow that to happen anymore. Protect those children. If girls are being raped, so are boys. Do not allow predators the opportunity. If they attack anyway … FORCE them to stop.
PROTECT THOSE CHILDREN!! Put your own body between the $%$%^&^#$!! and the children. Don’t allow this bad thing to be perpetuated.
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I admire your indignation, outrage, and passion to protect the innocent. However, there is some unconscious ethnocentricity:
(1) You do not know the social constructs that may (or may not) permit/encourage the rape of girl children far more than that of boys.
(2) You do not know the social/political/economic/power beliefs and imbalances that may (or may not) inhibit or prevent parents from preventing what is happening–or from seeing that it is wrong.
Effective change comes from within a country and its people(s). Outsiders can provide information and assistance. Ask open-ended questions. Not dictate.
But of course there’s nothing wrong with giving voice to our feelings of horror about rape or abuse of anyone, and most especially of children.
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You are right, I should not dictate.
And yes, girls are raped more often than boys, but boys also are raped, in too many societies it is not considered rape, at all, but an acceptable alternative. Rape is a power issue, that is why children, and even fragile elders are so often vulnerable victims. It is easier to have power over them. It is seldom just sex.
That is why those who care for the vulnerable must protect them, in whatever ways they can. Even in culturally or traditionally unacceptable ways. That is, mothers, even more than others,, must protect their children. Especially from family members.
Good hearted men must be brave enough to voice their opinions to the rotten devils with power and to change laws and to stand between abusers and victims.
Yes, I do know that many people do not think of abuse in the same light I do. In many places what I think of as intolerable is considered the way things are done.
I was a child victim, myself, of several types of abuse. by several perpetrators. Some of it was considered “private, a family matter best ignored, and no body else’s business”
Also I have worked in in behalf of children in the field of child abuse and neglect prevention. I have stood up to child abusers since I was 12 years old, in behalf of OTHER children. Defense of other children was easy, for myself not so much. I felt I did not deserve help, but I could see that other kids would feel the same worthless self feelings as I did, unless I helped, since nobody else was willing.
I stood up to my mother’s abusers since I was 15. That was more difficult for me, I had more doubts and fears to overcome. I had to convince myself that the issues or reasons or the idea of right or wrong or deserving or not was all irrelevant. I decided, on my own, that nobody was going to be a bully in the home where I lived, and I was NOT going to run away. That was that. And yes I suffered for it.
Bullies were a family tradition. Well not any more. I was the oldest child of my generation, and I stopped it. Abuse is cyclic in nature, I could see that, by just watching those around me. As a child I naively thought that as we children didn’t like to be hurt, that of course we would not act this way, or allow other to treat our own children in these obscene manners, and so it would stop all over the world, with the next generation of children growing up not raped or abused, at all. 😀
Sadly, I learned when I was finally skillful enough to actually defend anyone, by age 12 that I had been blessed with certain gifts that not everyone was so fortunate to possess. Gifts are blessings like sunshine and rain and flowers, abundant hair, good vision. We don’t necessarily deserve or earn them, they just are. Some situations will enhance the gifts, others suppress them. Skills and strengths can sometimes be learned. I was gifted with younger siblings whom I loved, I learned to be brave in order to protect them. I was gifted with opportunities to see inside families of different cultures, economic and educational backgrounds, religions, and ethnicities. I learned a devil is a devil, no matter were he or she hides
.
Devils work to make it easier on themselves to act in their nasty ways. They are everywhere and they never let up. Devils are disguised as law makers, religious leaders, they are even teachers, and parents. No part of the Earth is free of devils. They abuse and misuse the vulnerable. So in everyway possible they must be denied opportunity. Parents are a child’s only real defense in this world. If parents won’t defend their helpless children, what do those children learn?
When I worked in this field, I recruited and trained volunteers to work with at risk families, which I assessed in the rural area in which I lived. Referrals came from law enforcement, judges, schools (teachers, aides, bus drivers, librarians, administration) community leaders, the parents themselves, and even from children, who came to me and asked that we work with their family, too.
When I was a child it was not illegal to abuse a child. Nor was it considered murder, in most places, to kill a child. That is still true in too many locals. And wars make it almost impossible for improvements to come about. Wars are playgrounds for devils.
Anyway. I do feel that good people must use their love to create courage within themselves in order to make a hospitable and healthy place for children. I is my guiding principal that all decisions about everything should be made with the welfare of children, and children’s children for at least seen generations as the primary consideration. It will not be good for the next generation of children for anyone to allow any adult to declare it acceptable for any child, of any gender or ethnic background, to be raped or otherwise mistreated, no matter what. Even if it used to be considered acceptable, we have now matured and that sort of immature ugly behavior is no longer to be condoned.
You are right to call me on my point of view. Ghandi used his body to shield the vulnerable, and I expect the same courage to manifest in other people who have love in their hearts.
Thank you for all that you have done. Outlier Babe.
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I have done nothing, I was a both a victim and a bully (at times) when a child, and I did not adequately shield my own children when a parent (not from physical abuse–battering and sexual–which I DID shield them from–but from what can be worse damage of emotional abuse). The only steps I have taken have been baby ones–a couple of years of volunteer work, a few checks, a few written pieces. They haven’t yet made a dent in compensation for a life of neglect.
I am sorry for the terrible suffering you endured. My hat is off to you for all that you have done, and will do. It is a difficult, heartbreaking area in which to work. Please understand that I am, and was, fully aware that rape of boys is commonplace and is equally serious to that of girls. Also, I DO make value judgments about not defending the helpless. I entirely reject moral relativity.
It is simply that trying to effect change by forcing others to act on my, or anyone’s, value judgments is not effective. Gaining concensus and raising multiple voices worldwide can be somewhat effective, so that the abusers feel in the minority, or embarrassed. Empowering the partners of the abusers (with education, or economics–e.g. teaching women skills, issuing micro-loans, providing birth control, etc.–and forming in-country groups that form other in-country groups themselves–these are effective.
And now, I am soon to bed. A happy, healthy, and productive new year to you–and those you help : )
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Sounds to me like you have done a great deal. That you dared to volunteer takes tremendous inner strength. You make yourself vulnerable to all the old memories, and have to make judgments anew, every time you encounter fellow volunteers, staff, child-care workers, clients, yourself… it is not easy. Thank you. Thank you very much. A few checks? That is not so easy either!! First you have to acquire the money. Then, that is money you can’t spend on something else, maybe something you really really want (for me it is more books) or maybe need, and you have to weigh and consider which charity is the best service per $$ and then have doubts… none of it is easy.
I agree that empowering women is an excellent way to improve the lives of children. But I also think that men really do need to Man-Up and be strong grown-ups, themselves and find their own courage to defend the helpless and to empower the powerless.
Thank you for the good wishes, The same to you, and you family.
PS
The abuses you protected your children from are also accompanied by emotional abuse. All anyone can do, is the best they can do. It has to be enough.
No way can we protect children from everything. If that were possible, children would not develop strengths of their own. But if you feel that you truly failed your children, apologize. You may be surprised to learn that you did better than you thought. That your harsh self-judgment is left overs from another time, and other relationships.
Happy New Year ❤
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Just wanted to drop in here and thank you for your recent decision to start following Learning from Dogs. That is very much appreciated. Happy New Year.
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Happy New Year 2015.
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An even-handed look, with a killer ending. Nice job.
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