THE DECADE THAT WAS

As the 52nd. Week of 2009  approached its end to leave ground for the new decade to take control of the times,the Common Man had no choice but to look ahead with a sense of Hope that was restricted with caution. After all, the past decade had been all but times of comfort for him.I represent the Indian middle class common man and I have had my share of troubled minds too.I dare not compare my little troubles with the profound tragedy that had besieged the entire world with failing finances and senseless spillage of blood.As I sit down to pen down these lines,I find myself lost in a maze of frowned thoughts looking back upon the decade that was.And I feel strange,my senses numbed and a heart that refuses to respond to the extreme of emotions as it used to do 10 years back . 

The last decade is likely to go down in history as one of the most shameful episodes of the human civilisation,and specially prominent so as these are modern times,in active and consistent interaction with neo-consciousness,a phase in history where man has made good fruit of everything he has learnt since the time he came down from the trees and walked erect.And it is the vain irony of things that man has drawn blood from his own brotherhood with logic distorted to insanity.The emerging pattern of socio-religious and political polarization in the last decade is transparently apparent even to a conscious child(again a dangerous social trend which gives the common man nightmares about possible resultant forms of future social orders and equations)in the form of hatred-speeches which are televised all over the world,reactionary rhetorics of the highest pitch whipping up mass hysteria in entire nations to cater to vested interests,and the resultant extreme manifestation of the ultimate corruption of humanity in suicide bombers,AK-47s,countries harbouring active terrorist schools with United Nations and the Security Council doing absolutely nothing(kept in hostage by over-zealous human rights organisations who seem to pop up at random like mushrooms every week. 

The truth is that the common man has become used to it all and he continues to exist with an apathy that has grown over his conscience-such was the profoundly negative impact the bygone year had left for him.He does not react anymore.The very fact he continues to live,where his neighbour gets killed everyday by acts of terror,makes him feel comfortable.It is immaterial whether the coward killer is a self-proclaimed Jehadi driven by distorted ideologue from a neighbouring country who is being ripped apart by civil war,or from a perverted political belief that has its seeds in the tribal forests of Central India,that makes man a remorseless demon killing people by scores "on behalf of long-exploited tribals"  which is taking the shape of a civil war that is bleeding India's heart. 

One cannot deny the anthropological fact that in case of human beings,a fraternal bondage continues to exist as an ecological statement of Nature-and that it has long been forgotten(and this progressively increasing amnesia of human conscience seems to be keeping in tandem with his coming of age in our planet,to become the one of the leading ultimate survivors in the struggle for existence,and emerging to be the most developed species in the bid for survival of the fittest.)For us, the hunter and hunted belong to the same genus and species.( It is a sad irony that a discussion on latest patterns of human behaviour should push the common man,to sharp satire reflecting upon Man the Animal). 

I have been slowly exposed to small packets of violence and events day by day by a media that still thrives on yellow journalism(and there is no dearth of 'subjects' to feed upon) exposing the darker shades of the human mind and his community.One day I find myself totally devoid of reactions.My heart does not bleed anymore as it used when I was younger by a decade.I try to hide.Perhaps this represents the utter frustration and a state of absolute inertia of immobility that has slowly taken possession of the common man in me who comments but does nothing constructive. 

I,the common man, try to escape and hide behind defensive walls of calculated intellectualism that tends to impose,to the extent of subconscious auto-suggestion,upon me and through me to my neighbours that man has evolved a long way as far as conscience,philosophy of morality and values regarding the propriety of things are concerned.After sincere introspection I concede that it is nothing but the cowardice of cliched jingoism that I try to pass on as constructive intellectual exercise. 

Yet I don't hold myself solely responsible for my fall in moral standards. 

The common man didn't start the train of events(a non-linear train)that started shaking the world with the impact of violence.Yet it is him who caught in the crossfire.When highjacked planes rammed into New York City on 11th.September 2001,blowing to pieces the hollow aura of security that the city lived in.The Americans just couldn't comprehend that the suddenness of shock,panic and fear of Pearl Harbour could reoccur in the 21st.century.The perpetrators of the Pearl Harbour Attack at least had a justification-that a war was going on,though the fairness of the Code of Battlefield Ethics-the protocol of armed combat that existed at that time was violated,to gross extremes by a conditioned delusion that a war was being fought to be won,win,though Pearl Harbour continues to be one of the most heinous war crimes that have ever taken place).The Attack on New York left every one bewildered with shock by the sheer audacity of the terrorists.And it was just the beginning. 

Around the same time,the Indian Parliament was attacked by Pakistani terrorists.(I have become thoroughly disgusted with the 'non-state actors' excuse the Pakistani government(or is it the army that actually calls the shots?)so I would rather tag these terrorists with specific nationalities.Three years before this,the Kandahar highjack drama had already brought our country to her knees as the erstwhile Ministries of Home Ministry and Foreign Affairs tackled the situation with an apalling decision by releasing terrorists as ransom in exchange of the passengers' freedom.I think That was when the frustration of the common man started to grow-the frustrated confusion over India's weakness in blinking first.After all,he had witnessed the Kargil War-an audacious exercise of aggression on part of Pakistan.A stage had come when the Indian Army was in a position to burge into her neighbour terrible,and destroy for good the infrastructure of
state-sponsored terrorism of Pakistan.We were shocked when India withdrew her military from strategic positions.It shall forever remain a mystery as to WHY it did so when politicians vowed to preach Zero Tolerance as message of political stand to the people.

Bush declared war on Iraq after 9/11-a war that hurt America more than Iraq.The long years of American military presence in Iraq showed loss of human lives and violation of human rights.The result-the Al Qaida still stands as a potential danger,perhaps even greater now.India saw the 2006 train-blasts and finally Mumbai under siege,once again by Pakistani terrorists.And every time the animals responsible for acts of terrorism were shielded by Pakistan,with India failing to arm-twist its neighbour into submission.India's coy Tolerance is simply unacceptable for the common man for whom the nation's pride stands much higher than the cliched jingoism in the name of propreity of diplomatic exercises on the international stage-well that even has gone to dogs if one looks at the the current state of complete anarchy in Pakistan,and these again it is the common man who gets killed a hundred times every week with Zardari,Gilani,Kiyani and the masterminds controlling the LET & AL-QAIDA(apparently  in collisive strategies,or is it actually collusive?)alive and kicking.The USA is fighting the very Frankenstein it had created and sponsored thirty years back-the Taliban,to act against forced Soviet occupation in Afghanistan.

The simple,scrupulous common mind gets into a jumble trying to figure out who had slept with whom,and who had betrayed whom in this bloody game of dirty complexities of international politics.And it is he who gets to suffer on till apathy develops.Apathy often turns to antipathy as these is a limit of tolerance.It would be unfortunate if the common man rises from apathetic slumber to decide matters for himself in the most direct of ways.And that would Disaster.Hopefully the current decade will oversee  a collapse of terrorism-no more famines in Africa,no lost limbs to landmines to blow them away in Central Asia.And maybe no more teenagers carrying hand-guns to school and shooting them dead in the USA,no more violent demands to fracture Indian states-the ridiculous list is endless.It would be imprudent for world leaders to sit back and think of the Common Man.

Don't tempt the Common Man.