What Happened To Our World?

Sometimes last year, while walking through the streets of Nairobi, the capital city of Kenya, I witnessed one of the most shocking and demeaning human behavior. With my very own eyes, I saw a lynching of a young man who had been accused of mugging some old lady within the city streets. Shockingly, even the lady culprit, could not clearly attest and identify the young man as the real mugger.  It was a clear case of mob justice gone sour. 

I stood somewhere in the middle of the crowd, numb, speechless, motionless and full of shock and un explained despair. With my very own eyes, as I saw the young man being brutally stoned and forced to proceed to the world of the dead. In minutes, he was lifeless and covered in bloody pile of stones. You did not need the services of a Doctor to confirm that he had passed on. In that state, he was now unable to give any account of his story. From echoes of the crowd, some said he was wrongly accused, others claimed that he was the real robber…..but there was only one fact, that he was now dead.

Did he deserve to die? Did he ever have a family? Was he a Christian or a Muslim? Where were his friends or relatives? I had so many questions with no answers. Later on, I came to realize that such acts are ‘justified’ within the world’s major cities: Where people are robbed at gun points and even very innocent victims have ended up dying at the hands of their assailants.

What happened to our world? We live in a world where self interest supersedes public or group interest. Self gratification and greed has taken over. Today, world calamities have sky rocketed. Many people go without food on a daily basis. So many people are homeless.

The number of innocent deaths; including road accidents, illegal abortions, is on the rise. So many innocent lives are lost at the hands of merciless and almost ‘mindless’ fellows. There is a lot of public and private injustices that thrive in our world today. Has the world really changed this much or is it people who have just refused to care? 

Today, I met someone who was loudly talking to himself while walking on the streets. Shockingly, He wasn’t the only one talking to himself, there were two other aged men who were doing the same. ‘Maybe it is a disease of the aged’ ……. I thought. Later on, I asked an equally old man while most of them talk to themselves on the road. He told me that they do this to self-consult. That there are certain questions that one can only get answers from self-talk. That it opens up ones mind and lightens ones spirit. Personally, I thought it is part of world’s pile of ‘issues’.

We need to re-create our world and restore its lost systems. We need to re-do the way we do things. It begins with YOU. Mahatma Gandhi once said that ‘be the change you want to witness in the world’. And the only way we can achieve this is by practicing what the people from South Africa call ‘Ubuntu,’ … which refers to spirit of the community. It is a shortened version of a South African saying that comes from the Xhosa culture: ‘umuntu ngumuntu ngamuntu.’ (Meaning that I am a person through other people. It means that my humanity is tied to yours). 

This is the singly most important aspect of living in a highly connected planet: our humanity is tied together. We should always respect each other while keeping our interconnection in mind. Red or Green, White or Black, African of Asian, Indian or Portuguese, Rich or Poor, there is away though which all of us are interconnected. Love and respect yourself first, then do the same to your neighbor. True Love and Respect are the only way to re-create and re-define this world. We may not live Here forever, but we can forever make it a paradise while we stay here.