Clench your Fist and Raise your Hand

Imagine.

1.

You are visiting a hospital to take your wife for a checkup and sitting in the hospital reception killing time when your wife is inside doing the checkup. A small argument starts out at the counter and you start overhearing (as the others around you). The counter people are bullying someone on following some never before heard rule and the receiving guy is thoroughly confused and hurt.

2.

You are waiting in a bus stop near a traffic light. You see some traffic policemen bullying some hapless guy over something missing in his document.

3.

While on lunch, you are waiting in a queue to get your turn to the food counter. Somebody senior in the company jumps the queue and starts haggling over something petty with the guy serving the food.

4.

Traffic at its worst. Some political or religious outfit having a show of their own.

What do we all do in such cases? Mute. Mute. Mute.

We take a look at the situation strictly to kill our own time. Do we step in? No. Partly because, we will get our turn with the harasser some point of time and we do not want to be in his/her wrong books at that time. Partly because, inside we are weak and do not want to stand up against the system. The system which can, in one sweep, make us a nobody.

Before I type anything further:

Am part of this 'us'. Am not a hero. I do not flex my muscle and stand up against the system. But my question is do we need to be a hero? If we take some of the known super humans in our history, we can clearly see that there were problems before their entry and there were still the same problems after their exit. So, what is a hero worth? Nothing.

Because one person cannot solve everything. Why are we always looking above for the miracles? We...humans... are the miracles. The system is our mess. Mess created generation after generation of humans. It is upto us to clear the mess. Collective response to a situation is the only way to stand up against the system.

So, what do we do in all the above cases? We need to start letting the system know that there are some things we do not like. How?

Clench your Fist and Raise your Hand.

Nothing more. Nothing less. The harasser and the system need to know. That is all. If everyone around there takes a stand and let's the system know, that is the change that will ripple through the system.

Eventually some day, maybe not in our lifetime, still the system will change.

For now and till then, just raise your hand. Take a stand.