Dear Lovers,
With Cordial greetings, I wish you a very happy Valentine’s Day!
It is not at all wrong to celebrate any day for a positive purpose. When the purpose becomes wrong, the celebration becomes wrong too. In this context, may I remind you that celebrating the Valentine’s Day involves a good purpose of loving human beings.
Had human beings no social ideology and humanity-promoting wisdom, the whole human civilization would perish soon. Because human beings have wisdom and knowledge in general, they have been preserving the essence of being human beings. But it does not mean that there exists no bestiality among human beings. Because of the bestial psychology growing among human beings, millions of innocent human beings are suffering a lot. Yet, only one factor such as bestiality is not responsible for the evil consequences we face today. There are many other factors that we need to consider in order to understand why the world is becoming more hellish and bestial than ever before.
Lovers, first of all, let me share with you what I understand by bestiality. It is a condition of not having the essence of being humans. The essence of being humans is humanity. Humanity is against cruelties. It is something to do with preserving the human civilization through transformative thoughts and actions. While human beings hunt human beings in the name of personal prosperity and political domination, this jeopardizes the very process of thinking and working like humans—a distinct species marked with conscience and co-existence character.
Lovers, today we are just being taught to collect money, become richer and become loyal consumers. In the name of hoarding mountains of wealth, the process of criminalization is getting accelerated. Today, smuggling and other criminal networks have become far more powerful than political forces. Even with huge resources and well-equipped control mechanisms, states have failed to control criminal networks. The mystery behind this is that generations of people with criminal mindset are being produced through our seriously flawed political and socio-economic structures.
To transform such seriously flawed political and socio-economic structures that continuously produce crime-minded generations, contents and motives of education as well as mass communication matter a lot. Unfortunately, education is also being hijacked. Today’s education has been designed in a way to brainwash people to become loyal customers of the products and services of multinational corporations on the one hand, and to train certificate holders to become high-selling salespersons for their products on the other. The existing educational traditions or approaches, whatever you call them, are not capable of producing transformation-minded people with moral integrity. Using the existing physical facilities and expertise, providing education geared to transforming the society one lives in is another challenge before mankind.
Essentially concerned with our education are our consumption patterns. Human beings have always become consumers because they need to consume to exist. But today’s consumption patterns are different; it is heading towards destroying the human civilization. For instance, huge arms industries definitely require customers throughout the world. Civil and ethnic wars in almost all countries create a global market for weapons. Weapons have never protected human beings. The huge production of weapons means there is no justice in the world. The continuous sale of weapons worth billions means the continuity of war brokering businesses. When war itself has become a gigantic industry generating profits for investors and politicians, the suffering masses of the world face pre-determined massacres. The word ‘massacre’ itself proves that it is against humanity. It is bestial.
The massacre industries throughout the world provoke wars, small and big, and destroy humanity. This is the bestialization of human minds and hearts. It is a process going on in the name of this and that.
Therefore, Lovers, I urge you not to be physical lovers only. Be humanity-lovers so that love can be shared to fight injustice and cruelties. Love democracy meant for the majority of people. Love the deprived. Love humanity. De-personalize your personal sufferings and mainstream them with the ones of millions of human beings like you. Connect your personal love with the ocean of humanitarian love.
On this occasion, lovers, I urge you to transform your interpersonal love into universal love for the sake of adding more essence and significance to your being lovers.
When we love belligerence, it becomes bestiality. When we adopt bestiality as our political ideology, we lose the whole essence of humanity. This is the crux of celebrating Valentine’s Day. Finally, remember that Stone Age human ancestors at least did not make a goal of hunting human beings. They hunted animals to survive before they were able to discover varieties of food and drinks. As for legacy, some ‘kings’ and their family members still aim at destroying wild life by regular hunting, poaching and smuggling. What is more horrendous in this context is the fact that millions of human beings are being hunted and massacred in different parts of the world. Modern weapons and market giants have facilitated human-hunting industries on a global scale.
Attention, Lovers! The human society has already gone through the World War I and II in 1914-1918 and in 1939-1945. The indicated periods definitely did not belong to the Stone Age. No Stone tools had been used in the two major worlds wars. Since human beings have already learnt about food and recipes, it is not necessary for them to hunt fellow human beings. May the Valentine’s Day remind people of this truth.
Now, human beings have achieved various advanced technologies that have led to remarkable material achievements. Despite remarkable discoveries, inventions and their market applications, the majority of seven billion human beings are forced to live sub-standard life because of morally sub-standard political habits. There has been high-level criminalization in political sectors.
It is the duty of fresh lovers’ generations to take initiatives for de-criminalization of our politics and society.
It is the duty of the mass media—involved in Valentine’s Day marketing campaigns—to create a sense among teenagers and adults alike that love is not a Robinson Crusoe thing to be celebrated at burial sites or crematory sites but something to relate to the contribution to the overall wellbeing of humanity.
Finally, Lovers, I urge you to love wisdom, ethics and pro-justice change—so essential for peace and order under which we can live comparatively better and love one another.
Valentinely yours,
Mohan Nepali