I was watching Gulal (A Hindi Movies by Anurag Kashyap) yesterday, somehow, it is available on Youtube.
That movie revolves around State of Rajasthan, kings of that state and their wish to get independent Rajasthan – independent from India. At first it sounds very weird, as the story unfolds different characters start playing their strategies for their own benefits. Whatever happens in the movie, that movie reminded me of Brexit – British Exit from the European Union.
After watching the movie, I was going through the documents of European Union. EU came into existence after two consecutive world wars. The wars which involved almost the whole world but centered around Europe. Just imagine a Europe between 1920 to 1938 (between the two world wars, or the Europe just after 1945. There was enmity, conflicts and the fight for economic dominance. This all actually ended with economic agreement! Isn’t it interesting?
The foundation of EU was more on economic development, social development – let me call it human development. Quote from EU website – “The EU regional policy starts to transfer huge sums of money to create jobs and infrastructure in poorer areas.” Such a wonderful concept that people can cross man-made borders, do business without trouble and follow one set of rules yet their countries do not lose their identity. Just imagine all European countries making a team to compete in Olympics or Fifa world cup!
The EU regional policy starts to transfer huge sums of money to create jobs and infrastructure in poorer areas.
The union started 21st century with a couple of aims – Peace in member states, Citizen’s security, economic and social solidarity. Such lofty goals require enormous efforts. These efforts at times become lobbying for one or the other. No doubt there may have been political and business interest groups who might be trying to get better deals or benefits for themselves. This type of lobbying – or cheating in some ways – can only be stopped when there is genuine connect to develop others and heartfelt desire to help those in need. EU adds close to 20% to the world GDP, what is more important to note is – its population is only is only 7% of the world population.
Just imagine if we get to see such geographic unions in other parts of the world, such as South East Asian Union or South American Union. These type of geopolitical, economical and social unions would require building trust first. A caution the union must only be on two fronts – economic development and social welfare. No! don’t even think of religion – religion is and must be an individual pursuit, those who make religion a group’s belief they mostly want to gain power. Also, religion is only used mostly for generating fear in the heart and mind of followers.
The movie Gulal had a very selfish and political motive. Can we compare that story of Gulal with British Exit from European Union? At times my mind says yes and other times no. No because it was a democratic decision, based on votes from common people. The statistics says older people were not in favor of remaining in EU. Reason – they were getting affected in many respect on personal level. By the way, these old people are the same who had benefited some or the other ways from being a part of EU.
My mind says yes because who says canvassing was not done? Who says there was no political motives, selfish goals? Who can deny all these? It has repeatedly proved that we select being individually smart and therefore we are collectively dumb – British exit from EU is an example of the same. Though we may argue that parts of Britain was against it and 51 to 49 cannot be generalized.
Also heard that those who voted against were fearful of immigrants. I wonder how big is the problem of immigrants in Britain! Of late, the fear of immigrant is evident in a way – every morning I am waking up to a city trending on twitter. There is some or the other attack at some place, European Union was built for peace and social uplifting – not for terrorist attacks.
My question came a full circle from the movie Gulal to British Exit to Gulal again – What drives people? What drives an individual? Ambition, selfishness or fear? I wish in future we would not be driven fear and selfishness and, in future we would see such union and countries coming together to prosper together, instead of people terrorizing and killing fellow human beings. This wish includes economic and social development – religion is a very personal affair, it should not come on streets and should not be forced.
Disclaimer – Author supports such collaboration and unification as done by the European Union. Such unions would one day make our world more connected and the interdependence will help us embrace each other with our respect, trust and support to each other as fellow human being rather than black or white, European or Asian or for that matter capitalist or socialist. We indeed are interdependent.
Image source – Wikipedia
