Mumbai
By BBennettJ • Dec 1st, 2008 • Category: Lead StoryMumbai
I think the question we need to be asking ourselves is “what in the world would motivate these people - to walk into the Mumbai financial district – knowing that they were going to die, that they would be going up against the best that the Indian Army had to offer, and open fire on the innocent?” What happens in the 24 hours leading up to such an act? What were these people doing 2 weeks before this took place? What have they been doing for the last 12 months?
I mean, put yourself in their shoes for just a minute.
Use your imagination.
After all, isn’t that how most of us are living our lives? Via our own imaginations? Or someone else’s imagination?
Merriam Webster says it this way, “the act or power of forming a mental image of something not present to the senses or never before wholly perceived in reality”.
If you ask me, once you arm yourselves and calmly walk into the public square and begin to kill anyone in sight – you have lost it somewhere – and you are no longer in touch with reality – or at the least, the reality that you embrace is sufficient to send you into the fray in the manner that these people, and other’s like them in countries around the world – have done.
There are some that will say that “we just hear about the bad news more nowadays, because of TV.” – and they may be right. “Balanced” news reporting these days means that our gory story is better than your gory story, and you are working hard to find one to topple ours from the “top news story of the day” so that you can enjoy the income from advertisers. Let’s face it – today’s commentators are paid actors.
However, to use this as a premise to ignore the actions of these human beings in Mumbai – or to discount the mounting prevalence of people around us losing their hitch pins – and coming apart in some final explosion of violence and inhumanity, is not only absurd, it is dangerous.
Have you come to any conclusions yet as to what truly motivated these people? What purpose or cause was compelling enough to spawn these unthinkable acts of violence?
I would be interested in your comments on this – or news reports you feel are relevant.
It is sunny and cold here today – and in Mumbai, like so many places, there is fear in the air, and blood on the sidewalk. - The Fool
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Considering this most likely was an act linked to Pakistan/India tensions, it seems to me they lost their “hitch pins” in the indoctrination or “historical review” process. It’s how history shows tensions, kill 1 of theirs and they’ll come back and kill 10 of yours.
Like John Lennon says “war is over, if you want it”. Sadly most people want the “eye for an eye”, or more simply put war and confrontation. So we will not see folks lay down their arms but rather because of this act and many others like it we will see more wars and people taking up arms and violence against each other.
“For nation will rise against nation and ethnic group against ethnic group.” (paraphrased from Matt 24).