Some dyes run deep
Changing you from out to in
It takes time. Little by little,
Layer by layer it soaks.
Until you reach the point of no return.
When you have morphed into an unalterable entity
My parents live in terror all waking hours. They fear that the Muslims are taking over their land and culture. They have taken up on themselves to join the movement as foot soldiers in freeing us of the malice, armed with a TV remote and a Smart Phone. They live in their bigoted perspective, channeled by fake information on a news channel or social media groups that they trust blindly because it confirms to their deep rooted bias. Those that fall in line with them are good and Right. Those who don’t are fools. They refuse to see the other side because “it is obviously wrong”.
It isn’t difficult to brainwash people by raking their emotions infusing religion as the jihadists remind us. The only thing that is different here is the colour. They have been conditioned slowly to what they have become now. One fallacious forward at a time. Ironically, they were the ones who introduced me and my sibling to lessons in oneness and secularism when we were younger. The hardest thing is that there is no hope to make them see reason. To see the picture from a higher perspective. To listen to both sides of the conversation. They live like ostriches with their head buried in sand tuning in to propaganda and nothing else. They marinate in these brain conditioning ideology day in and day out that incite fear and hatred.
Such a closed mind. Reminds you of the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea. Both are enclosed water bodies in Israel fed by the Jordan River. But the Sea of Galilee is a fresh water lake full of life because the Jordan river merely flows thru’ it. The sea feeds the river back as it receives water from it. The Dead sea only receives the river’s water. Our mind can either be the Sea of Galilee or the Dead Sea.
We avoid conversations around politics when we are together. Though it may be noted that they don’t make any attempts to hush down when we visit. But occasionally, on a call, with some physical distance between, things flare up and ends bitterly. At home, they are loud in expressing their displeasure, unrepentant and pathological in their bias, watching their bigoted and fear mongering news on a high volume. But it isn’t only the ears that have gone a little deaf. Or perhaps is that the reason why they don’t hear reason? Perhaps they are too old to discover they could be wrong and it is easier to perpetrate their ‘recent’ set ideas. With falling energy levels, they only have so much fight left.
So basically, whatever principles you have drawn for yourself as you grow old are the ones you will take to your grave. The point when you have decided to close your mind is the beginning of the end. If there are no more fresh ideas going in, the goodness will leave behind a stagnant pool, where only fear and hatred are left behind in increasing concentration.
Some terror mongering happens by organised terror groups. Some become prime ministers.
“Terrorists are like a fly that tries to destroy a china shop. The fly is so weak that it cannot budge even a single teacup. So it finds a bull, gets inside its ear and starts buzzing. The bull goes wild with fear and anger, and destroys the china shop. ”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow
I wish I could tell them about how political groups hack into our privacy via social messaging and condition the minds of consumers for their own agenda using targeted feeds. I wish I could tell them about Bots that are used to manipulate public opinion, about deep fakes and fake news factories…
Meanwhile, who should I hold responsible for dispossessing my parents’ peace and leaving them in perpetual fear?
