The pictures of the blood laden motionless body of Muammar Gaddafi are doing rounds of internet with popular portals like MSN, Yahoo, Rediff, BBC, CNN, NYT carrying it on their front pages like a trophy they had just won. Like the messiahs of truth, they are trying to show to the world, "What were the last moments of Gaddafi?" - Don't Shoot, Don't Shoot.People (including me) are watching this chapter in history with wide open eyes to see the naked dance of power - Power in its most vicious form. Is this the truth?
Did Gaddafi have to be killed if he cried - Don't Shoot, Don't Shoot. Wasn't that itself a victory for a civilized state?
The sad part is that the so called "saviors of the world" like United States that wish to democratize this world assisted the perpetrators in this barbaric act. The irony is that their present leader is a Nobel peace prize winner. Is it civilized to kill a powerless person? Is it civilized to take off his clothes and let the entire world take pictures of a cold motionless body? Isn't it as cold as the genocide of European Jews by Nazis?
But this is the truth and it hurts me. I find comfort in Tagore's words -
I shall not loose my faith: I shall wait. The passage from the narrow to the larger world is stormy. When She (power) is familiar with this freedom, then I shall know where my place is. If I discover that I do not fit in with the arrangement of the outer world, then I shall not quarrel with my fate, but silently take my leave... Use force? But for what? Can force prevail against truth?
- The Home and the World (1916)