Forgive and Forget

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”

   -- M. K. Gandhi   

On the day of Gandhi Jayanti, I am going to touch a very sensitive topic that is happening in today's world. The topic that I am going to write on is a derivative of what Gandhi Ji had once said, "The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong."

As I mentioned earlier the topic can have various opinions and I am only presenting one of my personal opinions in this Blog.

There have been widespread riots all across the the Middle East and South Asia, all for one reason, an offending film created by a rather unknown director from the United States of America. This film was created by Basseley Nakoula a.k.a. Sam Bacile. This man had a past criminal record of "Bank Fraud"[source: Washington Post] and has been arrested in the USA. The film is an amateur one with dubbed voices (here is another tale: The crew has taken Nakoula to court because they were told that they were doing an ancient film and that the film has been made Anti-Islamic through dubbing of voices).

The video was uploaded to the popular Video Sharing Website YouTube in July but late in September an Egyptian Television Channel made the blunder of showing a translated clip to the public.

There were widespread protests all across the Middle-East and South Asia and unfortunately in some places the protests turned violent. Insulting one's religion is equivalent to hurting one's sentiments and I believe that the protestors had every reason to express their sorrow but not violently. Gandhi Ji has shown us how non-violence can leave the opposition battered. An entire army, armed to the teeth, couldn't do anything to him as he had the Power of Peace, Non-Violence and Support of Masses.

The violence spread from Egypt to the Gulf Nations. The "Arab Spring" had just ended and another spark lit the fire in these nations. This time the target was not Government buildings but it was the United States Embassy in all these nations. There were several injuries and also death of a American Diplomat. Here I want to ask, "What is the Consul's fault if a lunatic creates a hate film?" These killings were senseless and didn't yield anything positive. In today's world the Internet is a source of libraries of information, but it also contains loads of senseless stuff uploaded by attention seeking people.

Wonderful messages sent out by Women in Pakistan.... It says that the film-maker doesn't have any religion and that he is violating peace.

All that was needed to be done was to ignore that video, consider it as one of the senseless videos on the internet and let it go. There was no need to burn things down to protest against an unknown man who had misguided himself.

The protest soon spread to Pakistan, India and Indonesia. Though protests here were restricted to slogans and peaceful gatherings, in some places they did turn violent and led to Police clashes.

Peaceful Protests in Thailand

Millions gathered in Russia to peacefully protest against the film and the Russian Government banned the film without hesitation. This was the solution in many countries like Brazil and Indonesia.

Some may declare this deed as unforgivable but as Gandhi Ji said, if we have the power to forgive and forget, we have a strong heart. If we follow Gandhi Ji's principles in today's world then we can have a safer and better world to live in.

Friends, always remember:

Forgive and Forget.

If you have any complaints or suggestions regarind the contents of this post, please contact Vihar Patel, vikoopat@gmail.com