Sunday, August 30, 2009

Love Has Hope, Hatred Is Hopeless.



“There will always be a battle between the sexes because men & women want different things. Men want women and women want men.”

- George Burns

According to the Greek mythology there are sundry kinds of Love :

Eros – A haute couture kind of Love.

Ludus – A Selfish Kind of Love.

Storge - A love based on familiarity between the sexes.

Pragma – A more Practical kind of love.

Mania - Shahrukh Khan kind of Love precisely depicted in movies like Darr,Anjam.

& the purest of all

Agape – A parent child love.

There’s one common thread that binds all these loves’ together – Hope. All of them have hope as the genesis of love. Ofcourse in India we have a more prolonged & diversified kinds of love.

My mom & dad are possibly the two most rank opposite people I have seen. Decades have passed since marriage but they still grumble on petty issues, even on daily chores. If mom says east then dad says west. One fine day I spontaneously happen to ask my dad “dad,u and mom have grown old now, I think you people need not trouble each other so much.” My dad replied “those who love never grow old, they may die of old age but they die young.”

That day I realized that love is not only about compromise, dedication or sex but also lot about Hope. This Hope has made their relation infrangible. It is because of this hope that my dad deliberately does everything which makes my mom see red.

Moving out of my house, Love has done wonders on international borders. There is a ‘change’ in the White House. The new President of the United States has promised to bring in change by restoring his country’s bruised image on the international stage. He has vowed to change the way world looks at the world’s most powerful democracy – not with contempt but with respect, not as threat but as partner.

Walking the talk, barely few months back into his presidency, Barack Obama ,the U.S. President, has made an unconventional offer ,in an video message, to the people of Iran and its leaders. Given the decades-old animosity between the U.S. & the Islamic republic of Iran, this kind of video diplomacy is nothing short of a major move to initiate a meaningful dialogue.

Said Mr.Obama :”for years three decades relations between our nations have been strained but at this holiday (Nowroz – A traditional New Year Day in Iran) we are reminded of common humanity that binds us together. Indeed, you will be celebrating your New Year in much the same way that we American mark our holidays – by gathering with friends and family, exchanging gifts and stories & looking to the future with a renewed sense of hope.

With Mr.Obama having clearly expressed his support for reconciliation with Iran, this becomes an internal Iranian battle, and unfortunately, it won’t be resolved anytime soon. But Mr.Obama shows in the video that instead of tipping the scales in favour of the radicals, as the bush administration did, he will pursue diplomacy to undermine their narrative that a hostile U.S. government is bent on oppressing Iran.

Hatred on the other hand is like self punishment, it is the coward’s revenge for being intimidated. It is said that hatred is a boomerang which is sure to hit you harder than the one at whom you throw it.

Kim Jong II of North Korea is a perfect example of abhorrence. North Korea is a source country for men, women and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labour and sexual exploitation. North Korea’s own system of political repression includes forced labour in a network of prison camps where an estimated 1,50,000 to 2,00,000 persons are incarcerated. The illegal status of North Korea in China and other countries increases their vulnerability of trafficking schemes and sexual and physical abuse. North Koreans forcibly returned from China may be subject to hard labour in prison camps operated by the government.

All this by virtue of Kim Jong II, the Supreme Leader of North Korea, and often referred as “The Recalcitrant Pugilist” .His repressive & repugnant policies has brought North Korea on its Knees. It is probably the most politically isolated country in the world. Perhaps no other country other has as few friends as North Korea has. Far from having even to sustain any engaging relationship with the outside world, today North Korea shares working relationships with only two countries – Russia and China. Since the early 1990s, over two million North Koreans are reported to have died of starvation and malnourishment following acute famine and distorted economic policies. Even today there is a widespread hunger & famine. The UN and its agencies – WHO – have recently declared that North Korea is on the verge of humanitarian disaster. In the midst of these circumstances, the North Korean leadership is spending billions of dollars on building missiles and pursuing nuclear dreams. In fact, North Korea spends over one-third of its GDP on military expenditure, which makes it the world’s most militaristic state.

Clearly, the worst case scenario must be taken into account, and policies should be rooted in realities and not on the basis of wishful thinking. Only after a relaxation of tension with North Korea, through step by step mutual concessions, should definitive action be taken to put North Korean nuclear ambitions back into the freezer

This World is in a dire need of love, which will give them hope & efforts to do away with Hatred which is hopeless. To summarize

“Love is an exploding cigar we willingly smoke. Life is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination. Love is the master key that opens the gate of happiness. True love is like a fine wine, older the better.”