The word change itself has a moving force. Whenever we fall in crisis, the forces of change move us, so are in happiness or in sorrows. Change is such a thing everybody of us wants at any state. The changes are the call of the nature, too. With altering seasons, the colour of leaves changes from green to yellow. With age, we grow from adult to old. Changes happen everywhere. The physics says every object in the universe is changing constantly. As assumed by the high-profile Big Bang cosmological theory, the universe will come to an end through its changing nature.
“The only thing that is constant is change”.[1] Probably this is the most cited thought on the change by Heraclitus, the self-taught pre-Socratic Ionian philosopher. “Change we need”,[2] is another most popular political slogan in the 21th century. The call of change made Barack Obama president of the United States of America.
If we look into the so called ‘new society’, the social media community, is apparently wrapped in slogans and urges of changes. Everyone of the netizen wants change. It is as if hundreds of pages are being written everyday calling for the changes.
But, who need to be changed? What is needed to be changed? Is change something we should attain or give up? Who should decide what degree of changes we need. And what amount of change would be justifiable for a society? Many such questions prop up when we sketch out a plan for change.
What does the change really mean? Changing ourselves or changing others? Changing the laws or our social practices? Changing the perception we cherish or the system we belong to?
Whenever we call for change we desire some laws to be enacted or removed, or some practices should be stopped or introduced. Certainly, the laws have some power. Laws can punish you, banish you or even can tarnish a life. Can laws really change us?
At the moment, the entire western hemisphere, including the vast Atlantic neighbourhood, is raging for change. The slogans for change are not the matter of the western society alone. It exits in our society, too, in a varied form. They want a change in systematic discrimination and racial laws. They want the racism in their society to be eliminated forever.
But, can the social injustice be changed by laws?
The economic status or social disparity on which we discriminate our fellow countrymen or the belief by which we hate our neighbours or the ethnicity on which we kill others in our society or the colour or size on which people are exploited are inscribed in our minds and prized in our practices. These are the ways we have been keeping the social injustice alive dividing into ‘US and ‘THEY’ for hundreds of years. Neither laws nor the protests, though raising the voices should never be stopped, can change people or the things which are engraved in their thoughts, which are fostered through their social practices, and which are carried from one general to another to give it a legacy.
Laws never can change the police officer who choked George Floyd to death in the broad daylight or minds of many others who are killing, discriminating and humiliating their fellows in the name of race, religion or nationalism. It was his perception that made him a murder. The laws never can awake the bystanders who observe how a man’s life groaning with ‘I can’t breathe’ came to an end.
Following the protests across the world, many political regimes have come up with so many of promises. Along with the US politicians, under-pressure the United Kingdom government has already launched a ‘Racism Commission’. Unfortunately, the French government, which took a historic decision banning chokeholds during arrests, has backed away from that after police protest.
Describing the recent public discontentment over death of George Floyd, former US president Barack Obama said, “It’s not an either/or. It’s a both/and to bring about real change.”[3] What Obama wanted to say is no partial adjustment can bring the change. It needs a holistic course of actions from all stakeholders in society.
Hence, whether it is about the changing the system or the laws or society would not be possible until we clean ourselves first from the dirt. “The racism” or social injustice our conscience winks must be eliminated, “…will remain as long as white cars are still using black tyres. Racism will never end if people still use black to symbolize bad luck and white for peace. Racism will never end if people still wear white clothes to weddings and black clothes to funerals. Racism will never end as long as those who don’t pay their bills are blacklisted not whitelisted.”[4] As popularly ascribed to the former Zimbabwean political leader Robert Mugabe, these are our psyche, the breeding ground of all injustice, leads us to commit the crimes against the ‘OTHERS’.
Bibliography
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/336994-the-only-thing-that-is-constant-is-change–
[2] https://www.amazon.com/Change-We-Can-Believe-Americas-ebook/dp/B001FA0IQK
[3] https://news.yahoo.com/obama-vote-protest-not-either-225142393.html
[4] https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/robert-mugabe-zimbabwean-president-best-quotes-1091639-2017-11-22
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