(MENAFN- Kashmir Observer) Intolerance prevails in most of the societies! It lingers on. Some claim their side to be the ultimate truth whereas others have their own stuff to narrate-and the process of refuting each other continues. Unfortunately, the crux of the matter is that none even wants to spare a moment to understand what others will have to say.

Of such kind, I recently came to witness inside my area where a man who by making some constructive criticism about the animal slaughtering was abused threatened. He tried to suggest that animals are bound to feel physical pain, unlike plants that have no nervous system, so does it not behove a normal being to chose the latter as food rather than cutting off the formers' head and causing them pain?

The people who took exception to the remarks passed by the free thinker emitted so withering sounds that I personally felt we have lost our humanity. A completely shocking discourse that, 'beat him till welts are seen on his body....'Some would say, 'he deserves to be stoned to death, & the corpse be left for hawks to savour....'

What frightened me downright as the deep wounds on his soul, he muttered: 'Ideas could have been shared, everybody should be given a chance to give vent to his ideas-but I always have been bereft. I wonder at people for being so extreme and control freak to boot. Who has given them the absolute authority to obstruct one's basic rights? I too deserve to express. I deserve! Whenever there is some work outside my home, I wear a mask on my face so that I would not be seen, & protect myself from these predators disguising as humans. They have made my life tough. If else one has a dogmatic belief, it ought to be debunked by rational means. Does threatening help? It leads us nowhere, & exacerbates our miseries more.

In the era of understandings, when no such thing should happen, there are many other voices being heard about the plight across the globe where one declares his/her beliefs as gold and others' as muck. Such zealotry to mere ideas implies that we are entangled in the web of ignorance. We reside within something, and our comprehension can't roam outside its fixed boundaries.

Anyways, the dire need of the hour is to get out of such trap onto something that describes us as 'human beings' first—humane, tolerant, & understandable to each other, incorrigible attitude notwithstanding.That's all!

Faizan Bashir

Srinagar

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