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OP-ED
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2014
7
How Words Can Hurt
Sehdev Kumar
Dr. Sehdev Kumar,
Professor Emeritus at the
University of Waterloo,
currently lectures at the
University of Toronto on
Bioethics, Science/
Religion Dialogue and
International Films.
Author of many books, he
is also Distinguished
Professor of Culture &
Communication in Himgiri
Zee University. India.
email: Sehdev.kumar @utoronto.ca
www.Sehdevkumar.com
The dagger is sharp and has a
double edge
It cuts through deeply making all
vanquish
Using that dagger to push
everyone away
Unknowing and yet I slice,
mutilate, destroy
-
monicaspeaks
n the great epic Mahabharata, Draupadi mocks Dryodhana with biting
words as he fumbles into a pool of
water thinking it to be glass: "Andhe ka
beta andha hai", 'A Blind Man's Son will
remain Blind'. One humiliation leads to
another; after the loss of game, Draupadi is dragged into the court and disrobed; Bh?ma vows to take revenge.
Humiliation. Revenge. War. Devastation.
Can a war be triggered by thoughtless
words and acts of humiliation? After
the end of the First World War, the
Allied Forces heaped humiliation on
Germany at the Treaty of Versailles,
refusing to give, literally, 'five villages'
to them to survive. German currency
was reduced to mere paper. Out of this
humiliation was born Hitler and his
vision of new fascist Germany; over the
next two decades he set out to take
revenge by burning six million Jews
and scores of millions of others, engulfing the whole world in his fury.
The tongue has no bones in it, but it
can inflict wounds that no dagger can
match. In school yards, among brothers
and spouses, between strangers and
friends, in churches and mosques,
sometimes fierce words fly out like
I
arrows, laced with such venom that
puss oozes out of the wounds of the
inflicted for years and decades.
By labelling others infidel, heathen,
kafirs, slut, bastard, Commies, and
more, for centuries scorn and destruction have been heaped upon others.
Indeed, words have been far greater
weapons of mass destruction than cannon and guns.
I do not know how far back in the
human journey words have had the
power to heal or to destroy, to cajole and
inspire, to threaten and to devastate, to
seduce and to romanticize. But in our
epics - in Homer's Iliad no less than in
the Mahabharata - and in Chaucer's The
Canterbury Tales as much as in Man of
La Mancha and in Shakespeare's King
Lear, what is most evident is the power
of words, literally to shake and threaten
heaven and earth, and everything in
between.
ith words, we gossip, chatter,
inform, reprimand, explore,
invoke, refute, argue, threaten,
recite, sing, whisper, grumble, and on
and on. The list is quite literally inexhaustible. It is not only our personality,
and our self, that are so wrapped in
words, it is our very being, the very
essence of what we might be, or imagine ourselves to be.
Without an adequate words and language, we feel shrivelled, hesitant,
clumsy. We do not feel quite human.
Language gives us identity. It gives
ways to laugh and play with words. It
gives us poetry, a way to express
thought and a feeling; it even teaches us
how to go beyond words; it lets us imagine and build castles in the air.
slaves, language too went through transformation: from niggers to Negroes to
Blacks to Afro-Americans, there has
been a steady appropriateness of language that is meant not to be hurtful to
others in social communication.
Same is true in India with reference
to people who have been treated for millennia as 'untouchables' or 'achhoot',
and called by many other words that
were meant to denigrate them.
Mahatma Gandhi coined a new word,
Harijan' - 'Children of God' - to render
them some dignity.
Today that word is rarely used.
W
n every culture, however primitive,
a civilized man is one who weighs
his words carefully; he understands
their power to heal or to hurt. As such,
he must choose his weapons with all the
care he can command.
For instance, not too long ago, black
people in America were referred to as
'niggers'. With the emancipation of the
I
Instead, the new neutral word is 'Scheduled Castes', as many of them dismissed
the word 'Harijan' as condescending,
questioning the very motive behind
labelling them 'Children of God'. Many
of them now choose to be called 'Dalits' 'The Oppressed Ones".
In the same vein, the word 'bastard'
was the most devastating word for a
child born out of wedlock, of an unmarried mother. We see how this epithet in
so many of Charles Dickens' novels
humiliated children and adults alike,
and was a life-long stigma. Today, in
Bin Laden son-in-law
Sharma
sentenced to life in US prison Kailash
: 416-418-7465
most Western societies, such a word
would be considered thoroughly offensive. New words then begin to reflect
new social morality.
To rob a person of his dignity - however heinous a crime he may have committed - would now be regarded as
'Cruel and Unusual punishment'. Even
when Saddam Hussein was being
hanged for his crimes, it was forbidden
to take a photograph of him during the
hanging itself, lest it deprives him of
his dignity.
Religious wars which insult and infuriate people of other faiths as infidels
and kafirs now seem increasingly foolish and uncivilized.
At present, in all institutional settings - in schools and hospitals, in
offices and law courts, in banks and factories - what words and expressions are
to be used, or are not to be used, are
closely monitored. Any breech of the
accepted words and expressions can
invite discipline. It is clearly understood by such measures that every member of the institution has a right to her
dignity.
Not too ago, all over the world, in a
family, and between members of the
family, what words and expressions
were to be used, or were forbidden, were
clearly enunciated. That is no longer the
case. Family as an institution is faltering, whereas social institutions are
defining political and social correctness
far more clearly and rigidly.
Now bosses and colleagues cannot
easily curse and shout without consequences.
With use of less angry or more polite
words, are we less angry, resentful, frustrated or hateful? Perhaps not. We may
seethe with anger and frustration, but
mostly inside. We cannot easily express
it externally. But we do express it internally. Unless resolved, we slowly burn
ourselves. We live in a state of stress.
We live in a state that is far from harmonious.
How to create such harmony would
be the next and a necessary step in our
social evolution.
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A
seemingly
unrepentant
Suleiman Abu Ghaith, a son-in-law
of Osama bin Laden, was sentenced to life in prison on Tuesday
in New York following his conviction on terrorism charges.
A Manhattan federal jury in
March found the Kuwaiti-born 48year-old guilty of conspiring to kill
Americans, conspiring to provide
material support for terrorists and
providing such support, after a
trial that offered a rare glimpse of
bin Laden in the hours following
the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
US district judge Lewis Kaplan
imposed the sentence minutes after
Abu Ghaith made a statement in
Arabic, quoting the Koran and
declaring he would not ask for
mercy from anyone but God.
"Today, and at the same moment
where you are shackling my hands
and intend to bury me alive, you
are at the same time unleashing
the hands of hundreds of Muslim
youths," the former imam said
through an interpreter. "And you
are removing the dust of their
minds, and they will join the rally
of the free men."
In response, Kaplan noted Abu
Ghaith had expressed no remorse,
and cited a video in which Abu
Ghaith appeared amused by al
Qaeda's September 11 attacks,
which killed nearly 3,000 people in
the United States.
"You, sir, in my assessment, are
committed to doing everything you
can to assist al Qaeda in its mission
to kill Americans," Kaplan said.
Prosecutors had painted Abu
Ghaith
as
a
charismatic
spokesman for al Qaeda in the days
and weeks after the attacks, saying
he recorded inflammatory videos
the group could use to recruit new
members.
The government also contended
that one October 2001 video, in
which Abu Ghaith promised the
"storm of airplanes will not stop,"
indicated he knew beforehand of
an ultimately unsuccessful attempt
to detonate a shoe bomb aboard a
jetliner in December 2001 by Briton
Richard Reid.
"Suleiman Abu Ghaith served at
the very highest levels of al
Qaeda," assistant US attorney John
Cronan told the court. "Abu Ghaith
was a proud participant in al
Qaeda's conspiracy to kill Americans. And he was someone Osama
bin Laden relied on heavily," Cronan said.
Abu Ghaith's lawyer, Stanley
Cohen, argued his client was guilty
only of delivering fiery speeches
and that there was not a "scintilla
of evidence" to connect him with
any specific al Qaeda plots.
Abu Ghaith took the stand in his
own defense, where he described
meeting bin Laden in an Afghan
cave the evening of September 11.
He said bin Laden told him, "We
are the ones who did it."
The next day, he said, he
recorded his first video at bin
Laden's request. However, he
denied ever becoming a member of
al Qaeda and said his intention was
not to speak or recruit for the
group.
Abu Ghaith would marry bin
Laden's daughter Fatima years
later, a fact the jury was not permitted to hear.
France considers joining
Syria air strikes
Poroshenko says Ukraine
crisis approaching end
PARIS: France is considering whether to extend its
air strikes to Syria and increase security in public
places after militants linked to the Islamic State
group beheaded a French hostage, officials said on
Thursday.
President Francois Hollande's office announced that
France will "intensify" its support for Syrian opposition forces fighting the Islamic State extremists. A
presidential aide would not elaborate on what kind of
support or whether it could involve military action.
Hollande held an emergency defense meeting on
Thursday, a day after the killing of 55-year-old mountaineering guide Herve Gourdel was announced.
Hollande's office said France will increase security
in public places and on public transport.
Security measures were already stepped up after
France started air strikes in Iraq last Friday, becoming the first country to join the US air campaign
against the Islamic State fighters.
France initially insisted that it would limit air
strikes to Iraq. But the French position seems to be
shifting since the US extended its air strikes to Syria.
Ahead of Thursday's meeting, defense minister
Jean-Yves Le Drian told RTL radio that officials are
deliberating whether France's current actions in Iraq
are sufficient against the extremist group, which has
havens — and oil fields — in Syria.
"We already have an important task in Iraq and we
will see how the situation evolves in coming days," Le
Drian said. "We are asking the question."
KIEV: Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said
on Thursday he was confident that his peace deal with
pro-Russian insurgents means the "most dangerous"
part of the five-month conflict is over.
"I have no doubt that my peace plan will work. I have
no doubt that the biggest, most dangerous part of the
war is already behind us, thanks to the heroism of
Ukrainian soldiers," Poroshenko said at his first press
conference since he assumed office in early June.
The separatist uprising has killed more than 3,200
people and driven 650,000 from their homes.
The ex-Soviet country's worst crisis since its 1991
independence has also damaged East-West relations
and stoked fears across eastern Europe of Russian territorial ambitions.
Ukraine's parliament had last week backed
Poroshenko's plan for rebel-held parts of the Russianspeaking east to hold local council elections December
7 that would help restore law and order, but not pursue any independence claims.
However, guerrillas brushed off the offer and
announced plans to set up their own parliaments in
self-organised November 2 polls.
Poroshenko said he hoped neither Russia nor the
rest of the international community would recognise
the legitimacy of the separatist vote.
"I hope that neither Russia nor the rest of the world
recognise elections called by self-proclaimed terrorist
organisations in violation of Ukrainian law," the proWestern leader said.
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