Irene Elza
Herbert Spencers’ famous line years ago is as apt for Darwinian theory of evolution as it is for man’s survival today, only in a different aspect.
Its just a few days since news came of a 14 year old girl sent back from the Burmese border, after India tried to deport her back to her native. The girl who was found unconscious in Assam 2 years ago, has no idea how she landed up there. Despite her request to send her to Bangladesh where her parents stay in a refugee camp, we as a nation stand helpless as she would be as much of an illegal immigrant there as in India. But on what humanitarian grounds can we justify our need to deport the child who maybe subject to religious persecution or abuse of any kind in an unsafe environment as the one in Burma?
Not many of us would have forgotten the face of two year old Aylan Kurdi, the Syrian boy who drowned while on a dangerous sea trip to gain refuge in Turkey. The world stood shocked, sad and we h
ad an outrage on social media. But the situation is not any much better today. The International Rescue Committee states that there are nearly 80 million refugees in the world today. The struggles they face are devastating and ranges from hunger, lack of education, vulnerability to crime, abuse and trafficking to the latest pandemic. They are in an unimaginable struggle to survive.
Ironically, the world is almost at the zenith of civilization. From electric cars to Mars missions, the elite and lucky have their share of comforts and treasures.
What nags me, surprises me, enrages me is - is this crisis really unresolvable? Are man-made laws liberating us or restricting us? Have we become insensitive to the cries of the people around us?
Are we selectively blind, deaf and mute? Are we in a race to exterminate the vulnerable?
While Darwin’s theory described a process of nature’s selection, we are now in a ‘deliberate semi-blinded’ conscience. Dancing like puppets in the hands of few authoritarians, we are running a blind race for our own survival.
Do we not know the solution or aren’t we looking for the solutions?
