#YourLifeMatters

#YourLifeMatters

By Salil Waknis

2020 has been a tough year. We ave been faced by countless number of disasters such as the untimely death of the Black Mamba and Irrfan Khan, the biggest world pandemic the world has seen in the last hundred years, as well as the Locust swarms. The thing is, we as a society had nothing to do with these crises. We had no impact on the outcome here. However, in a few of these situations we do have a choice. I am sure you all have heard of the murder of George Floyd. A man who was killed in cold blood by four police officers. In the recent past, this has led to worldwide movements and protests around this issue and has sparked anger in the hearts of anyone who heard about this murder.

Now however of a crisis this may be, I fear that the American population has forgotten of another crisis we are living in. and this one, in my opinion, is far more deadly than a handful of racist cops. The fact of the matter is, The Covid – 19 pandemic has claimed the lives of over four hundred thousand people around the world and has infected a total of about seven million people and what makes this even worse is the United states is the country with the most amount of cases, and it is also the epicenter of the protests. The unfortunate thing is the people have the mindset that wearing a mask trumps the fact that there is a global pandemic amidst us, and the people think they are completely safe from the virus if they wear a mask. Only a few people know that the surgical masks that most people use filters about only 62% of the air you breath in. So essentially, if someone with the virus coughs in your one – meter radius, there is about a 40% chance you will catch the virus even if you wear a mask.

Now you might be asking how can we protest injustice by not going out of my house at all? We live in the age of the internet, and with unlimited data right in our hands, there are so many ways people around the world can collaborate and come up with different and unique ways to battle this. The internet can be a platform for everyone to give their various opinions on the matter and debate on ways to combat the issue of police brutality. The point is that there are so many ways which we as a community can gain the recognition of government authorities which don’t involve mass gathering of people. In India, there is a concept of” bandh”. In this concept, people who want to show their support of a cause in each city, state or country, will keep their shops closed, will not go to office and for essential services, they will go with a black ribbon on their shirt or dress. I think that this is a concept the people in the US should recognise as a form of a silent protest. If not this the people in the US should use the concept of ‘nonviolent non-cooperation’ set by Gandhi during the freedom struggle. This will lead to a much more constructive outcome as there are no direct laws being violated.

If you are alive, then you can make a change. What you can do for this cause when you are alive will be so much more then when you are not.

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_Dodo_