Prof. Adil Najam, Director of the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future and Professor of International Relations and Geography and Environment at Boston University, published an op-ed in Pakistan’s largest English newspaper, The News (August 25, 2010).
Too many people seem too angry, at too many things, too much of the time. Even in everyday discourse, we come across as angry and on edge.
Just turn on your television set and listen to any political discussion. You will not find any discussion. You will find arguments, accusations, attacks, and above all, anger. Anger enough to attack each other’s integrity. It is not enough to say that we disagree with someone, it seems necessary to inflict pain on those we disagree with – if not physical violence, then the emotional violence of words purposefully constructed to hurt. The same venom is now spilled all over the print media too. And anger when mixed with a validation of violence and a disregard, disrespect and distrust of all institutions of state, becomes a really deadly cocktail.
… we should also take a moment to think about how we–and, again, by “we,” I do not mean the government or authorities, I mean “we” as in me and you –have become such an angry and violence-prone society (maybe “mob” is a better word): violence in the name of religious difference, violence in the name of politics, violence in the name of ideology, and violence even in the name of justice!
