We shall overcome!

 

During the last three weeks following the onset of monsoon season, a wall that separates two terraces in our garden collapsed and needed rebuilding.

The monsoon brought new life to flowering plants and we are delighted to see the rose bushes bearing buds! 

The two aspects of the monsoon is the damage it brings as well as the benefits it provides to the vegetation!

Global leaders like episodic territorial war because the gain is more than the losses. During the recent Iran-Israeli-Hamas conflict, some nations stay thinking of the gains they would have in the long run. 

But ordinary citizens loose their houses, household articles and all that formed their neighbourhood! Their losses are colossal and often they are left alone to fend for themselves after ceasefire. 

This resilient flower in our garden brought an encouragement! It survived the incessant rain!

The message Martin Luther King Jr, who was a civil right activist and political philosopher in the USA from  1955 till he was assassinated in 1968,  awakened people with his favourite slogan, 'We shall overcome'!  It was his campaign that gave equal opportunities for the black Americans and migrants in the USA, in all walks of life. 

A bronze bust of him was quietly removed from the White House recently because the current president of the USA follows another slogan, 'America for Americans'! 

The have nots, marginalised and outliers are denied opportunities. 

The war benefits those with vested interests and harms the weaker section of people in the society!

And yet, a fragile rose flower was bright and colourful in our garden even in heavy rain!

This to me is the message of hope! 

'We shall overcome, we shall overcome,

We shall overcome some day;

Oh, deep in my heart I do believe,

We shall overcome some day! 

We 'll walk in hand, we 'll walk hand in hand

We 'll walk hand in hand some day;

Oh deep in my heart I do believe,

We shall overcome some day' 

The song's lyrics composed by Rev Charles Albert Tindley, 'express a belief in eventual triumph over adversity, particularly in the face of injustice and inequality'. 

This message will hopefully resonate in human hearts, who have a long journey to recover from the after effects of  the ongoing war!

M.C.Mathew( text and photo)