P. A. Chacko
I have come across some European survivors of the 2nd world war. They narrated the terror they faced as children by ducking under tunnels during air raids. Life was never normal after emerging from the tunnels into the outer world.
Psychological tremors chased them all along. Sleepless nights accompanied them with scenes of horror and terror.
Even in their adult life they showed weird characteristics of fear, suspicion, anxiety, abnormal mental behaviour and the like.
Today, looking at the faces of the child victims of war in the Middle East, I wonder how these children will cope up with life as they will grow up.
Some saw death staring at them from close quarters as bombs fell around or when flames of fire and smoke leaped up like dragon figures.
Some saw their parents felled lifeless beside them. Their cries rending the air were smothered by deafening gunfire.
Some saw their dear homes reduced to rubble and the dome of sky above for a roof.
Some underwent the horror of bomb splinters being removed from their bodies.
And more …..
Are we living in a cruel world where our leaders, our politicians are merchants of death and contractors of coffins?
Not wanting to live in a given space, they want expansion. Hunger to venture into alien territory to grab their neighbour’s land and property even by wiping out him and his family brings out the devil in the warmongers.
Power hungry leaders ride roughshod for territorial expansion. Itching to press the nuclear button, many megalomaniac leaders turn mentally deranged like modern day Hitler.
Ancient kings and many modern rulers share the same spce of pride , arrogance and ambition. They turn people into pawns and victims by thier misdeeds. They least care who suffers what. Politics is business for them. Cut throat business at that.
The surviving victims of war and destruction will live a life of agony and anxiety. They will nurse, all their life, pangs of separation and memories of horror.
Who will bring those politicians to their senses? The silence of the lambs is not the answer. Nor the silence of the general public. The more we are silent, the more the suffering. The more we close our ears to the cries of the victims, the more we become collaborators of the crime. The more we decide to turn blind, the more we become insensitive.
Time to speak up. Time to turn prophetic. Time to say ‘No’.
