THE DECLINE OF HUMANITY

Across the globe, humanity seems to be waning. Most of us today, whether we are in poor or impoverished nations, or in rich and progressive ones become indifferent when we see someone suffering or in trouble. This is an attitude that is on display across the world. We can help but we don’t like helping. Why is it that we walk past a beggar or a homeless person without helping them or acknowledging that they are human beings? This is not being human. It is being purely callous, indifferent and selfish. Conversely when we are in a spot of bother, we expect everyone to help us.

As human beings God expects us to be compassionate and merciful towards other humans regardless of their color, race or creed but we harbor biases and prejudices towards each other. We have become humans capable of intense greed, selfishness and hate. We don’t resolve our disputes amicably as a consequence throughout history there have been wars, civil wars and genocides. Instead of governments working to eradicate poverty, disease and hunger, billions of dollars are spent by them to build arsenals of Weopans of mass destruction.

Billions allocated by governments towards defense could instead be utilized for eradication of illiteracy, poverty and hunger. Wars could be globally directed to rout out terrorism and crime and bringing peace and prosperity towards the world but sadly that does not seem to be a priority. Governments today are corrupt made up of self-serving politicians and bureaucrats who often participate in a phenomenon called rent seeking whereby funds intended for welfare and development of people in nations are directed to the personal kitties of politicians and bureaucracy. Wars are created by many nations especially USA to promote its Weopans industry. This is a sad reality that we confront today.

Today under capitalism, the disparity between the haves and havenots in societies is increasing by the day and as a consequence, due to unequal distribution of wealth and income, a small percentage of the population in each country controls the entire wealth of that nation. People are becoming slaves in their own countries, especially within the poor and impoverished nations of the world. Nearly a Billion people across the world today live in abject poverty and these figures will rise unless economists figure a way to bring global economies out of recession. Corruption within governments and the nexus of governments, businessmen and cartels is slowly bringing about a decline in societies and nations.

As humans today, we are pitted against each other striving to outdo the others in everything except in those very things that differentiate humans and animals. We have become savage beasts catering and enslaved to our Self and to the ego. As a consequence we have become an embodiment of everything that God dislikes which includes gluttony, jealousy, greed, spite, arrogance and much more. As a consequence, cities, societies and nations have become citadels of terrible injustices, of moral vices and of deviation from nature and from God.

The concepts of humility and being happy with what one has in life has been replaced with the desire for having more and more and happiness is being associated more and more with the possession of material objects. But it is strange to find when one reads about the biographies of famous people that despite having everything in life, they were addicted to drugs or to alcohol. So many famous pop stars died due to drug overdose. Many committed suicide. Even famous actors and actresses have suffered due to severe depression. Some like the famous actor Robin Williams committed suicide. Therefore it seems that the world has all got it wrong. Our happiness does not lie in the fulfillment of desires and the possession of wealth, it lies in something else. According to the Holy Quran, the solace of hearts lies in His Remembrance. And the deeds that please God, include compassion, mercy, looking after the orphan, looking after the widow, looking after a poor neighbor or relative, visiting the sick and contributing to charity. It does not lie in selfishness and an indifference to the suffering of man.

The world could have been a beautiful place to live if our hearts had been free of selfishness, prejudices, racism and biases.