Every human being wants to live a free life in a civilized world – free from all possible restrictions. But is every human being actually able to live such a life?
Today, we are past the first decade of the 21st century, yet little has changed to ensure a free life for all human beings. Oppressive regimes in Iran, China, North Korea, Zimbabwe, Myanmar, Somalia etc have scant regard for human rights. Life is nothing short of hell in politically unstable regions such as NWFP (Pakistan), Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine. Even in the civilized and democratic world racism, religious fanaticism, gender discrimination is rampant.
All these issues show a common pattern - the tendency of a human mind to oppress that of another and enforce his/her school of thought by whichever means possible. A wicked tendency to make fellow human beings SLAVES – of your stream of thought, of your way of life or simply of the fact that you are a man (or, if it happens anywhere….that you are a woman!).
Which brings me to the major issue….’Slavery still does exist! Can it be solved?’ Well, I don’t have a readymade solution but I have a few thoughts on it.
Slavery by definition means, “The involuntary and complete ownership and control by a master”. Here, the key words or phrases are ‘involuntary’, ‘complete ownership’ and ‘master’. I’ll return to this definition later in this passage to make myself clear.
Slavery can come in all the various forms mentioned above, but the most wonderful (pun intended) among them is the slavery of nature. Mother Nature makes every human being a slave of all its needs. How many times in the morning have you fought off the urge to go back to sleep and wake up to go for work? How wonderful is the slavery towards sleep? Similarly, isn’t the slavery towards delicious food delightful? What about the slavery by sweet fragrances, the slavery to amazing scenery …Delightful indeed! All these are examples of involuntary and complete ownership of us by Nature. So, they indeed are all forms of slavery.
Why can’t slavery take a form wherein the subjugation is involuntary and complete but pleasurable? Can’t masters become custodians of the dreams and ambitions of their followers? Can’t masters be the motivation for followers to rise above the ordinary and perform miracles? Can’t masters set the trend and make the word ‘peace’ look cool all over again? Can’t masters urge their followers to work towards bridging all disparities in the world? I really think so. By achieving this only can a master be called a true leader and by achieving this only will ‘The involuntary and complete ownership and control by a master’ be something to be proud of.
Until then, the word SLAVERY which sums it all up is a sad, ugly and inevitable truth!
I'd just like to quote a line from the song Hotel California by the Eagles "We are all just prisoners here of our own device."
ReplyDeleteIt is a good write up and a thought worthy of appreciation.
ReplyDeleteRegarding questions put forth in the last paragraph, I would agree that involuntary subjugation – complete or partial - could never be pleasurable. However, if masters become custodians of the dreams and aspirations of their followers, such followers can no longer be termed a “slave” - which is the context of the article. Most of the Americans, which had 90% of Blacks – were followers of Abraham Lincoln in his fight for equality in civil rights, but they were not his slaves! And, more recently, we, the 65 million Indian citizens, were followers of Gandhi in his crusade against the British Rule, but were we the slaves of the Mahatma? In fine, therefore, your argument, though well intentioned, is out of place, as things like “peace”, “motivation”, the master being the “custodian of dreams and ambitions”, etc., are outside the definition of a “slave” which is just subjugation, involuntary and crude and totally commandeered. As you rightly summed up, “SLAVERY” is, and will remain, a sad, ugly and inevitable truth!
V.V. Narayanan
3/8/2010
A wonderful thought provoking piece of work, I must say. How even an old and a very common word like Slavery makes such a big sense in our day today life?
ReplyDeleteSlavery…Is there a solution? Well, as mentioned, Slaves are slaves when they are owned by a master I believe we are all slaves of one sole master that is our mind! Once we master our mind, we will automatically liberate ourselves from clutches of slavery. Be it the slavery to mother nature or thoughts (good or bad) or ideas (big or small) or be it the ultimate fear of death. Once we master our mind every individual has a unique identity, he is independent.
There is so much dirt outside that we conveniently act stupid about the dirt inside us. We are so keen about the happenings outside us that we hardly notice the happenings inside us. We realise it from others how addicted are we to things/habits. We hardly realise it ourselves. The day we realise about the biggest culprit of slavery the mind we can hopefully erase the term slavery from our life.
Thanks to the article but for it I presumed that the word slavery didn’t exist any longer.