By TFL Mawlong
The Biblical book of revelation in chapter 6, talks about the four Horsemen: ‘A white horse, whose rider is given a crown and has a bow in his hand. Another is a fiery red horse whose rider held a great sword. A third one is a black horse, the rider had a pair of scales in his hand. A fourth horse is a pale one and the name of the one who sat on it was Death, Hades followed with him’. These four horsemen of the revelation are evil spirits that bring destruction. The white horse represents false doctrine that we see in the world today. A man in a red horse is meant to take away peace from earth. This red horse brings forth war, terrorism, and violence of all kinds. With the black horseman the evil spirit brings famines and hunger. When a black horse is galloping through a nation, its economy becomes volatile, markets becomes ticklish, stock market plunges, unemployment rate rises and inflation creeps into a discomforting level, while some other economies are plagued with deflation and recession. No matter how much money one earns, it’s never enough when one is attacked by this black horse. It’s like putting the money one earned in a pocket full of big holes. The pale horse brings death to this world through war, terrorism, hunger, addictions (drugs, tobacco and liquor) and disease causing germs, bacteria and viruses (collectively referred to as beasts).
Today these four horsemen are galloping through some nations and running through many others. Horrifying events took place in and through the recent years right to the end of 2014. Planes were crashed into buildings. Buses explode, train catches fire. Recession hits the world’s biggest economies, galloping inflation was witnessed in many other economies and oil diplomacy turns deadly. Some heavily armed idiots walk the streets of Mumbai to kill. Bombs and explosions shake the world on a daily basis. Women and children are raped at homes, jungles, schools, offices, cabs, buses and trains; while many others girls are attacked with deadly concentrated acid. Our submarine explodes in its dock yard frying every one inside and planes vanish in mid air. Then there is massacre by ISIS in Iran and Syria with video footage in tow. Innocent school children were brutally shot dead in Pakistan. A group of hunters were throat- slit in Manipur. People were held at gun-point in Sydney for a straight 17 hours. And the ruthless killing in Assam continues. The situation in Garo Hills is no better. Oh, I almost forget there is also the SARS, MARS, Japanese encephalitis, swine flu, bird flu and Ebola etc. Not to talk of cancer and AIDS. This esteemed daily will not have enough space if I was to mention even just the recent major unpleasant news headlines.
We may or may not believe in Biblical prophecy, but newspaper headlines tell me that the apocalypse is real. It has been said that in these days we could hear a word ‘peace’ only in Nobel Peace Prize and occasionally in the Peace Pacts between parties. We continually live in fear. Today we are numbed with it. Fear has, by default, become a popular instructor. Young people dare not articulate their views and ideas for fear of being thought utterly perverse. Leaders and political parties fear their speeches are censured. Artists are exiled, books are burnt and movies are banned; so painters, authors and movie directors work with a fearful mind. Bureaucrats compromise their neutrality to avoid offending their political masters. Under the garb of honesty, government officers sit on files for fear of sanction. Communal riots burst from fear and mistrust. Then almost everyone fears about what newspapers may say. And so forth…
Society is being poisoned by the philosophy of making money. From the Arab streets to the rich and complete spectrum in between, there persists a continual worry and fret over money. People who were marginal and struggled hard yesterday, however rich they became now, are haunted by terror lest their children should suffer similarly. Wealth amassment for their grand children and great grand children becomes unceasing while being irresponsibly indifferent to the plight of the unfortunate children and the have-nots. For ostentation, splendour, power and security are all that people care to think about. When people become immoderately ego-centric, the Horsemen have their way very easily with the society. It never dawns upon us that we have all become victims of greed and fear.
Coming to our economy, our economic growth has been weak and inflation expectations remain high. Our growth prospect doesn’t look so good either, since, among other reasons, our infrastructure is lacking and global economy too is weak and uncertain. So ‘how will jobs come about’, is a million dollar question in our country.
Then whichever way we tread on, threat stares at us. The four Horsemen approach us from north, east, south and west. Threats of all kinds pervade our space. A rape culture makes women tread with their hearts in their mouth. Human trafficking sends shivers to female job seekers. A miscreant called ‘U Nongshohnoh’ is real and active: He hunts to kill for the purpose of the mysterious ‘Thlen (snake-vampire) sacrifice’. Then there is a terrorist killing at will, kidnapping and extorting money from businessmen. And there is this pot-bellied policeman all out for his daily dirty money. Explosions occur in the railway coaches and tracks. Road rage gets uglier day by day – crossing along a zebra crossing is never without a fear lest some idiots in bikes or cars will come screeching their wheels right at our feet.
And there is also a soft power threat from the dominating western culture: Perhaps we feel it’s difficult to be grand without resorting to a western life style. So we drive to college in dad’s car!.. Night parties leave our hitherto decent Khasi women in drunken stupor. In our kitchen, healthy organic food is being fast replaced by processed and canned food. And so on. At the moment it may seem innocuous. But blind imitation of the west has its own sour to bitter fruits. The intoxicating culture of the west produces a generation of men and women without shame in our society. I dread to think on what the coming generation will leave behind. Energy of the youth is being wastefully dissipated. Our ethical values are getting eroded and I am afraid today we are living in a morally suicidal culture. Further, our very own culture courts the danger of being lost.
Mother Nature too has its own design for robbing our sleep. We don’t know when the earth beneath us shakes to a similar magnitude registered in 1907. Farmers sleeplessly pass the stormy summer nights with crossed fingers, breathless with anxiety about the fate of their rice fields and farms. Blizzards, avalanches, cyclones, flash floods, landslides are indeed the formidable serial killers in a geographically diverse India. Tsunami, cyclone Phailin and Hudhud, cloud burst in Jammu and Kashmir, flash floods in Uttarakhand and Garo Hills, who doesn’t fear the nature’s fury? On top of all these there is a global warming threat which has panicked nations of the world. As if that is not enough, disease outbreaks are keeping laboratories of the world busy.
What a nightmare!.. Yet we seem oblivious to the fact that the four Horsemen have long begun working in our societies. The fact that we are being held hostage to a fear psychosis is too grave a matter to be treated with disdain. The transcendent merit of our civilization is facing the prospect of being languished prematurely. One ought not to be insouciant of the world’s conundrum today. How do we respond to the crisis we are in today? Are the governments, institutions, and citizens doing enough? I, for one, am sceptical about the efficacy of various bail-out measures for the society and humanity unless there is fundamental change in the mindset of people themselves. I feel that war strategies, science and technology, laws and bailouts are but temporary walls against the four Horsemen of apocalypse. Much depends on people themselves.
So, as we begin this New Year I feel compelled to share my message with society. What is it I am trying to say that will actually help folks in their daily lives? A simple message struck me: ‘Replace hatred with love’. I pray that in this New Year, humanity learns to value love. The cosmic significance of love must never be underestimated. For on the one hand love makes a society strong and on the other hand God’s favour is with a society that values love. According to the laws of inertia, ‘things continue doing the things they have been doing unless forced to change’. This means that ‘hatred,’on which the evil four Horsemen feed and revitalise themselves, will get worse unless we introduce a counter force called ‘love’. Love is our best hope.
(The writer teaches Physics at Sacred Heart Educational Services, Shillong)