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ABOUT
The White Doves
religion bond
Linguistic bonds
language brainstorming
Loanwords
mutual intelligibility
flabbergasted !
India
Some thoughts
music
taste buds
Wrong School
poem and snaps
games
Research and surveys
conclusion (click here)
Acknowledgement
bibliography
Behind the scene
comments
About and project parameters.
NATURE OF THE PROBLEM AND SCOPE
People fight on trivial issues based on religion, culture, language and race.For instance, people argue about God's names, their owned
land etc which is merely hypothetical. Has God allotted the land to specific groups of people ? No, then why all this ? In India issues
pertaining to caste, creed, religion and languages also exist. It is not only the case with India but most of the countries where ethnic
minorities are there.It is because the minority feels that the majority is suppressing them and not letting them have their identity and
independence.Here are some of the major examples
1.Israel and Arab countries -
■ Palestinians have been thrown out of ' their ' land and they want 'their' homeland back, but Israel is stating that historically the land
belongs to them and their forefathers were driven away from that land causing Jewish diaspora. This issue is yet to be resolved and
fighting continues in sensitive locations such as Sinai, Golan heights and West Bank.
■ Since Jews and Arabs have common history and prophets like Abraham and Moses, Arabs should go by what the common history
says and co-exist with the Jews. However, neither the extremist Arabs or the Jews want to live together.
■ This has given birth to terrorist organisations in both the communities as they want to evade each other and claim 'their' so called
land. Why is the land so important for both of them? Is there an infinite deposit of Diamonds, gold and platinum ? Why shouldn't they
form one country and live together.Even if not so much, at least they can form 2 separate provinces in the country.
2. Pakistan and India -Pakistan claims Jammu and Kashmir of India. When the British left India, India and Pakistan became 2 different
countries, and a referendum was held. Though the people of Kashmir wanted to stay with Pakistan, the king of Kashmir Hari Singh
decided to be with India. That has caused at least 4 wars between India and Pakistan.
3. Northern Ireland and England
4. North Korea and South Korea
5. Iraq and Iran
6. Within India, a lot of North Indians migrate to Mumbai in Western India seeking job opportunities. This in recent
times has resulted in conflict between Native Mumbaikars and North Indians. The Native Mumbaikars feel that these 'invaders' are
taking
away their jobs. All this has led to a lot of heartburn and conflict between regional groups within the same country and religion.
SCOPE
The problem we have chosen is reasonable in scope because the problem is ubiquitous and universal. The problem is very much
prevalent in today's
world. As you have seen with the examples given above. Although it is a universal problem it has been given
inadequate attention and is
rarely discussed. We have gone way too far without knowing the roots of the problem. It is a case where you
see people
fighting in the name of God or the Nation and people blindly join the fight without knowing the cause and what the fight is
really about. If
this would have happened i.e if all people today know the main roots and the cause, they will for sure feel ashamed that
they have been fighting on
such trivial issues.
If awareness about the roots of the problem are realised and if the new generation is inculcated with proper
thinking, then we are confident that peace will be the next scene.
TARGET AUDIENCE
Our target audience is almost the whole world.
We have targeted in particular the
younger generation. The reason is that the younger generation is the budding future of the world. It
is easy to make an impact on them.
They are very open-minded. You will be amazed to find many Pakistani youngsters considering Indians their co-borns and many Indian
youths
considering Pakistanis their brothers and sisters. You can see many youths drawn from various races and religions laughing and
having fun together. It doesn't matter in today's young world whether you are a Muslim or a Christian or a Roman Catholic. What
matters is that you
are a
human being.
We have also targeted the elders, especially the parents. Because, as small children, we have always witnessed parents telling
us
repeatedly not to play with children of lower castes and other religions (mostly Islam). We cannot change their mindset
now.
But, at least we can convince them not to poison the small delicate budding children with their baseless thoughts and beliefs.
We need to
bring communities together and that makes all of us responsible global citizens. Shedding our communal cloaks and
embracing
universal brotherhood are the only solutions to a world that is already torn between cultural and communal conflicts. It is
thus
imperative to realise that religions do not unite but divide. Let us break the artificial religious barriers we have erected over the
years and build a unified
world founded on universal love and mutual interests.
The accepted solution for international peace is to have cultural exchanges,
diplomatic exchanges, political exchanges, religious
exchanges and sports exchanges. Though these exchanges generate a feel-good
atmosphere, it lasts only for a while. For, it is clear that
these exchanges do create some bonhomie and short-lived cosmetic changes but do not create any
permanent peace.
This is because these exchanges do not go to the root of the problem. For example, the Jewish and the Muslim leaders met at
Camp David and signed a peace treaty and the whole world felt good. This bonhomie lasted only for a very brief period and it was
bombing and shelling all over again. This is because the root of the problem was not addressed. On the contrary, our solution goes to
the root of
the problem which is dissolving the differences created by religious ideology and theology. Our problem makes siblings
realise that they are the offsprings of
the same parents and two sides of the same coin. If the world realises that they are one family,
see how international peace comes about .
Basically, our main target audience are the children and youth, the budding future of the world. The minds of our audience is like clay -
easy to shape and effortless to mould. Once moulded, they become hard and remain warped in the imbibed ideology. That is why this is
the time to shape their minds. It is n
ow that the state of their minds is sculptable.
So, we have attempted to educate children about all this through an interesting and a very easy card game. With this game, we are
confident that we have achieved a major chunk of our objectives of illuminating our target audience. This has been vouchsafed by our
teachers too.
The other part has to come obviously from the teachers, the parents and the surroundings. We have talked to many
different people and
they too found this solution unique and effective.