It’s Time To Make Our Choice Of The Greatest ‘ism,’ Humanism

A cursory look at the world we live in today would make us shudder in awe and anguish much more than it would fill us with elan and ecstasy for the civilisational journey thus far taken. Our world is filled with more stories of dominance, distress and death than with tales of tolerance, togetherness and trust.

We have exploited and killed more members of our species than any other in the name of security, religion and progress, our high philosophical pronouncements notwithstanding. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is the most recent example of our brutal and barbarian character coming in the line of Cuba, Vietnam, Tibet, Iraq, Afghanistan and multiple West-Asian killings of post-WW-II years.

The driving force for governance today is the naked acquisition of personal power leading to the emergence of autocratic and despotic rulers at the very worst and capitalistic economy-driven exploitation and subjugation through trade and commerce in complete indifference to human lives and emotions at the very best. This mindless craving for market control has not just polluted our physical environment of air, water, soil and space but also all systems we have put in place like political, economic, social, religious and cultural.

Democracy, long thought to be the best form of governance based on defining rules like “ by the people, of the people and for the people”, is fast losing its representative character. Elections are increasingly fought and won through muscle and money power. The whole population, so to say, play the mute role of the electoral laboratory Guinea pigs to subserve the power-hunger of a few party supremos. Elections, thus, go on to legitimise the increasing influence of rich frauds and criminals in the power corridors subverting the essence of democratic governance.

Again, the emergence of “democratic” leaders like Donald Trump who find it more comfortable to cosy up to the autocracies of North Korea and China than to the democracies of Europe, deny science in the business of governance and of leaders who aspire for lifelong leadership portend dangers for the future that the world must guard against.

The scenario of minority rich wielding political power in almost all countries and also in the comity of nations has led to stark economic disparity at both intra- and inter-national levels. The Governments, particularly in poor and developing countries, love and plan to thrive on the illiteracy and poverty of the people. They are happier to dole out freebies than to execute programmes that would grant economic independence to people and provide them access to decent lives. The exorbitantly high cost of good education, healthcare, agriculture, the dispensation of justice and access to political power etc, cunningly crafted by the successive Governments as their masterstrokes, have completely marginalised almost the entire population.

This inevitably fuels unbridled corruption, exploitation, terror, violence and war jeopardising equality, independence, sovereignty and peace in our world. The culture of elitism in governance also led to the corrosion of instruments like bureaucracy, judiciary and press, which were created to serve and uphold the dignity of all citizens irrespective of caste, colour, sex and creed.

These institutions, created and maintained by public money, think it suffices to serve only those who wield power guided by the pragmatic philosophy of “ foul-is-useful, fair-is-not”. The pain and pangs of people at the bottom continue to soar, completely buried under the “doublespeak” of prosperity and progress by the controlled media. Two of the most painful experiences of modern times have been finding religion, supposed to be a road map to strive to see the images of God in all elements of creation from the smallest to the largest, metamorphosing through fundamentalism to a doctrine of intolerance and terror in complete denial of “religion of man “and to find technology, an offshoot of man’s crowning glory of understanding the mysteries of nature through science, being increasingly used as the tools of national and global
misinformation by electronic media, economic exploitation by the monopoly of industries, unsustainable desire to conquer nature and of deadly wars.

In fact, the arms industry has been the greatest channel of amassing wealth by advanced nations. Trade and commerce in fields like oil, gas, weapon, technology, food and medicine signifying international cooperation, unfortunately, end up in forming unholy alliances and shielding hegemonic practices by the rich and powerful companies and countries. The wealth of the countries, which otherwise should have been spent on education, healthcare, agriculture and other measures to usher in the prosperity of their people, has found its road to the arms race and other destructive purposes in the hands of “elected” tyrants.

We seem to have lost balance and a sense of proportion in every sphere of our activity; from personal to global. Human souls no longer stir at the cries like “I cannot breathe”! The chants of unfettered individualism and nationalism exclusive to societal and international order are becoming louder. In our eagerness to master nature and be the emperor of all we survey, we may be closing in on a Frankensteinian world and orchestrating our own doom.

The United Nations, with its limited power and especially with its veto system of treating some members more equal than others, would not be able to tame the power-hungry affluent nations that are the prime contributors to global dangers like climate change, arms race, expansionistic invasions and creation of nuclear and biological weapons etc. This may be the time ripe for the establishment of a world government enjoying arbitrative powers on the serious global issues threatening human existence.

However idealistic and naive it may sound, sustainable existence and wellbeing of the entire mankind would, perhaps, need complete de-militarisation of individual nations given the frailty and immorality of human character and more so of the leaders heading the national governments.

“Let all be happy, let all be healthy, let all be noble and let none suffer” must be our guiding philosophy. All ‘isms’ adopted
in the management of our political, economic, religious and personal affairs must harmonise with the highest of them all – humanism, based on love, faith and peace. The decisions on these concerns hold the key to our future; as much to heaven as to hell.

The choice, needless to say, is ours. Hope we have learnt the lesson and would cast our lot right.