It is hard to look at the calendar on 26th of June and not feel bad for the events of 26-June-2015. It is worse when the day happens to be your birthday. I still remember waking up on that day to hear the deadly news and continue to hear more during the day. Over 400 died across North Africa and Europe and an equal number injured. The Wikipedia page on this attack provides some details.

I do not want to make this about me but it is hard to wake up to wishes and not remember this event every year. The selfish human trait does come to the forte irrespective of my will.

My daughter was 3 years old then. It continues to be gut-wrenching to think, how many of those victims had kids like me? How many were kids? How many had dependant families who are still in shock? How many of them were setup to take our civilisation forward?

I do not want to drone on or traffic on the abject misery of the victims. As life moves on, I want to pause a minute to hope well for the victims of not just this attack but attacks all over the world. I promise to continue the fight in my simple way to emancipate the world from the horrors of religions. Some part of me also hopes people who read this do the same. Empathy is hard in general but humanity can definitely come together to eliminate the evil cause that results in such horrors. It is a lot easier to be empathetic to this cause or at least I hope.

As a child, I read about Dr.Martin Luther King Jr and his famous speech, “I have a dream…” in my history books. YouTube gave me the opportunity to watch it and experience his gravitas. The speech was not just moving but also very skillfully written. I must have since watched it over 100 times. The beauty of his dreams was that none of his dreams actually involved Dr. King. It wasn’t like I have a dream to change the situation or I have a dream to live in a certain society. The dream was truly for the future of the society and didn’t even require him as a catalyst or a promoter. It was hard for me to ignore that fact. It struck a chord with me and continues to do so till this very date. For long, I wondered about writing my version of the same in the twenty first century. Here is my humble attempt at the same.

For long, I wondered about my version of the same. Here is my humble attempt at the same.

In the 150,000 years of human history, the last 150 years have been extremely significant. In this evolutionary flash, we have understood our universe a lot better through General Theory of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. We have written more books than the entire human history. In the field of Medicine, we discovered penicillin, eradicated small pox, have almost eradicated polio and now are able to perform organ replacement. We have understood the evolution of species by the understanding of the DNA and its switching. From the discovery of radio in the last decade of the 19th century, we have moved to connecting the entire world through internet by the last decade of the 20th century. We have sent humans to space, satellites to as far as Saturn and a spaceship outside of the solar system. We have developed techniques to improve agriculture productivity. We have spread arts and culture through the development of science. All this in the span of less than .1% of our entire history. The apes from savannas have evolved to some great extent.

With all these inventions, we still are on the brink of a Nuclear War. The narcissistic leaders of the world, who have no idea of what physical and chemical processes which lead to this, have been given the right to trigger a war which could end the human race. The parties of god are ruling more than 50% of the countries, still discriminating against, women, LGBTQ, people of colour and minorities in their respective countries. The top 80 rich people hold more wealth than the bottom 70% of the world put together. Children are dying of malnutrition and before I finish this sentence, one child has died somewhere because of lack of access to clean water. The only people who seem to go there are trying to capitalise on their misery to spread their religion. Slavery has taken a new form through bonded labours like the foreign workers in the middle east, Singapore, Korea and Hong Kong. There are child labourers still working on mines. Women are being treated as second-class citizens in many countries and domestic violence is still a big issue. The capitalists are still focused on individual wealth rather than collective growth of humans. Accessibility and affordability of healthcare is an issue globally except for a few developed welfare states. Terrorism is ruling the minds of people with fear. Human-induced climate change is a massive catastrophe waiting to happen and we have climate change deniers in key positions across the globe. The situation is nowhere close to where the world should be with all our knowledge.

I have a dream,

… where every child whether born in Africa, Australia, the United States of America, Chile, Pakistan or anywhere else get an equal opportunity to learn and be the best they can.

… where women all over the world have the equal right to do everything their male counterpart do

… where religious faith has no place in public life, so humility, learning, humanity, rationale, social welfare drive policies

… where discrimination on the basis of race, culture, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, class, vocation is not considered a right and protection of the discriminated is not a personal liberty issue

… where freedom of speech cannot be arrested by force or fear of intimidation

… where individual’s sexual orientation or preference is respected and treated equally

… where the majority opinion is not used to silence the minorities

… where the pursuit of science and arts is welcome to the betterment of the entire society

… where no individual has to ever stay hungry

… where power is in the collective hands of people and not in the hands of the wealthy

… where information flow is not arrested and intellectual property belongs to the collective humanity

… where no animal is hunted for fun and no animal is raised to be hunted

… where failure is celebrated and learnings from the failure a welcome

… where old age gets security and every individual has the right to a healthy life

… where every nation has the right to self-govern with a respect for pluralism and mutual respect

… where truth cannot be suppressed by the threat of offence

… where every woman has right to control her reproduction

… where nations unite to support each other

… where any individual who works for 8 hours earns enough to sustain themselves and their family

… where wealth is not transferred to generations by the virtue of birth and it isn’t necessary to be wealthy to achieve success in life

This dream cannot be achieved by individual will but by the collective will of people to create a system which works for everyone. A system which doesn’t need great leaders. A system which will learn and continue to improve itself. I have a dream that one day the world will be a place where we fight the real battles facing us through science and enjoy our life here through arts.

Thank you.