Malcolm Little to Malcolm X

I went to Prithvi theater few days back with a friend. Just could not resist myself from visiting a bookstall in the premises. Actually it was a month end and was running low on cash. I knew I would get tempted so was very nervous. I also felt to ask my friend to buy for me something but I am an introvert kind of a person. I could not ask him. In fact, to avoid any purchase I went out of the store for some time. Then again went in.

Guess what i found? The Autobiography of Malcom X, as told to Alex Haley. I had heard so much about the book from an another book nerd friend. He always used to talk about the book and also recited many lines and paragraphs from the book. I had tried searching the book in my regular stores and secondhand bookstalls also but didn't get it. Unexpectedly I found it there. So bought it and started reading with lot of curiosity.

Its amazing to read it. I need not discuss who Malcom X was but his conversion from Christianity to Islam was very interesting part of the book so far. I personally do not believe in any religion but after reading the book reached to my same old conclusion. Men create new religions or sects to overcome suppression, injustice and many inhumanities committed in the earlier one. But the new one also goes in the same way of the previous.

Malcom X was a negro by origin and paid a heavy price of life in his initial years. Elijah Muhammad changed his entire life and showed him path of Islam. For the blacks that time in America, it was definitely a way out of the white world. It gave them different identity and forced them to think out of 'white'.

I must share some of his thoughts here. He talked so much immensely about oppression of black race. How it was cut from its origins in South Africa through a slave business. Their condition was worst than the animals. He asks a question somewhere, (sorry I could not find the exact quote) 'how can a God (Jesus Christ) of black men be white?' This also made me to think, he was correct. The origin, the history, the real names, skills of the black men were forced to forget and given them an identity as a 'nigger'.

Converting to Islam was a life changing experience for him and may be for many black people looking for their real identity. But a lot of stories and mythologies were created to convince people to convert into Islam against the whites. The stories were very ridiculous but I must give a credit to them for elevating lives of the people. I think that's the beauty of religion though I many times hate its existence in human life. It is destroyer at the same time saviour.

But I was really astonished to read lot of things about circumstances of the blacks in America. in my visit to the country I had observed this that the situation may be changing slowly but still the blacks are doing the low-dignity jobs everywhere like the backward castes people in India.

The friend who took me to the bookstore said the gist of the book is simple, white men cannot be good because being good to others is not in his favour. He said the same thing is applied to Brahmin caste here. Evidently he is true.

But in the beginning of the book there are lot of funny things I should have shared them earlier. Anyways I will try to post it soon. One more thing I must mention that during my America visit I went to the state of Nebraska and travelled from Omaha to Lincoln. I talked with many people there, journalists, lawyers, bankers. They talked about the speciality of the state in all the sense. None of them forgot to mention the great industrialist Warren Buffett who was born in the capital of the state, Omaha and stays there. But they conveniently forgot to say that Malcolm X was also born in the same capital city.

Child Soilder

"We had been in the village for only a few minutes when the rebels attacked again. They didn't want to give up the village easily. We looked at each other sitting around the fire and angrily changed our magazines and went out to get rid of attackers for good. We fought them throughout the night and the following day. None of us wanted to give up the village to other, but in the end we killed most of the rebels and captured a few more. The others ran away into the cold and rainy forest. We were so angry with the prisoners that we didn't shoot them but, rather, decided to punish them severely. "It will be a waste of bullets to shoot them," the lieutenant said.

So we gave them shovels and demanded, at gunpoint, that they dig their own graves. We sat under the huts smoking marijuana and watched them dig in the rain. Each time they slowed down, we would shoot around them and they would resume digging faster. When they were done digging, we tied them and stabbed their legs with bayonets. Some of them screamed, and we laughed an kicked them to shut them up.

We then rolled each man into his hole and covered him with the wet mud. All of them were frightened , and they tried to get up and out of the hole as we pushed the dirt back to them, but when they saw the tips of our guns pointed into the hole, they lay back and watched us with their pale sad eyes. They fought under the soil with all their might. I heard them groan underneath as they fought for air. Gradually, they gave up, and we walked away. "At least they are buried," one of the soldiers said, and we laughed. I smiled a bit again as we walked back to the fire to warm ourselves. "

This is a true story of a soldier Ishmael Beah who was just 13 years old when he committed the merciless act. Unrest in Sierra Leone was forced Ishmael to join Army to survive and get food. He had already lost his entire family in inter conflicts and wanted to save himself from rebels.

'A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of A Boy Soilder', This is assumed to be the first memoirs of the boy soldier out of three lakh child soldiers the world has today. Hopped-up on drugs, wielding AK-47s and killing people on the orders by senior soldiers is what these children do in more than thirty conflicts prone countries.

Before knowing the world around him, Ishmael sees lot of violence and gets pool into it for survival. I remember seeing movie 'Blood Diamond' has similar story that how children were exploited to get diamonds.

Such stories are not only terrible but they leave a permanent impact on the child's mind. Like in the book, when Ishmael gets into better company, he could not accept it initially. He has to hide his past life from others and gets frequent migraines.

Children are very vulnerable in the society and therefore they are the easy target. They have been used, abused, beaten up and killed for political gain. How to stop this is the big question.