In his seminal novel, Lord of the Flies, William Golding has shown how innocence transforms into crudity, generosity into selfishness, cooperation into conflict and peaceful cohabitation and camaraderie into domination and supreme authority. What begins as a genuine expression of love and care for each other, particularly for the weak and younger ones of the stranded large group of British boys on an island after their plane crash, the elder of them in their teens, ultimately sours into wickedness and bloody rivalry for leadership. The transition from fellow feeling and mellow mentality to brutality and unlimited capacity for the evil is a treatise on how the civilisation nurtures within itself the seed of its own destruction.
Indeed, all gregarious animal species including human beings are supposed to live in peace because they have known from their experience from time immemorial that they preserve their existence best when together. Interspecies relations have also thrived in the form of symbiosis. But within a herd or a community, there is a need for leadership. If elephant herds have opted for matriarchal leadership, most other animals, including man at the top of all intelligent species, are usually led by a male member of the group. One less known fact is that where the matriarch is the leader, there is no fight for the crown. The transition is smooth and happens only when the matriarch dies. In other cases, mortal combats for the commanding position mark power transition.
If raw and brute power decides the leading position of a group of animals such as lions called pride in which the dominating male achieves the monopoly right to procreate with the lionesses under him. In the animal world, life is hardly secure and the overbearing instinctive concern is the preservation of lineage. The human species has come a long way off from its nomadic life in the wild and its civilisation has attained enviable peaks many a time. Some of those ancient civilisations have perished and thousands of years have gone before the present one has spread its roots deep down the soil.
This modern civilisation has also seen exterminations of the peoples who hardly knew of conflicts and wars. Thus the today's Europeans and Americans carry the unenviable legacy of violence, blood-letting and all kinds of oppression, brutality and barbarity. When they had decided enough was enough, there emerged leaders among them who declared equality of man irrespective of colour, belief and customs. But the Europeans were reluctant to let go off their stranglehold on their colonies and to make it happen, not just one but two world wars had to be fought.
The inherent human trait is that when there is no enemy, fights break out within its own rank. But the troubling question is, why can't the most rational and civilised species rise above selfishness, avarice, violence, repression and even killing of its kind? At personal, community, national and international levels, the systems are yet to be reasonable enough so that conflicts and rivalries can be avoided. Human beings are much too possessive in terms of money, power and resources. The instinct for self preservation has not drawn a boundary line anywhere. Thus some people strive to amass wealth that could more than finance annual budgets of many nations. They are lavishly praised for their ability to earn mind-boggling profits and over time to turn into billionaires. A few of them are poised to earn the unprecedented status of trillionaires.
What will all the wealth so possessed finally come to? Concentration of wealth and power in a few hands is dangerous. This is a by-product of consumerism at its most despicable. When millions of people across the world wallow in poverty, remain hungry and are dehumanised, some lead a notoriously lavish life. This happens at the global, national and community level. All because some people are power- and wealth-hungry.
When the wickedness responsible for creating intolerably unbalanced societies is passed as success stories, people gather enough mettle to rebel. Some of those are suppressed by brute force but others bring down the people in power. Bangladesh has seen once such mass uprising orchestrated by students with no clear political affiliation. But one thing that is often missed is that each revolution and war gives some kind of legitimacy to cruelty, aggression and violence by default. After 1971 liberation war that saw the killing of 3.0 million Bangalees and sexual abuse of 0.3 million women and girls, the people no longer remained the same. Their mental makeup accepted such human aberrations as something not quite foreign to human nature. The ease of feeling in case of murder and sexual abuse is reflected in such subsequent crimes in independent Bangladesh.
This latest revolution in the country has set its sight on establishing a society free of discrimination. A lofty idea no doubt, but the chain of violence, anarchy and retributive aggression set in motion has not only to be discouraged but also brought under control with an iron hand in the interest of maintaining social peace and cohesion. After all, the aim ought to be allowing the rule of law to prevail. The accused have to be brought to justice not subjected to summary trial by the mob.
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