Letter to Editor -March 2006

English — the universal lingo (www.khaleejtimes.com)
30 March 2006

• I READ your Comment, ‘Much ado over language’ (KT, March 26) with great interest. English still has a long way to go to become a global language. Though, at the moment, English is the only language which can stake its claim as a global language. Two-thirds of the world’s population doesn’t speak English.This may be because India and China, the two most thickly populated countries, do not have English as their national language. Languages are in the heart of the people. For example in India, the provinces are demarcated on the basis of languages. Even a country was split on the basis of language and formed like Bangladesh. It is fresh in people’s mind that there are certain languages like Aramaic, Sanskrit, and Latin etc., which have disappeared and are not in use, except in books of reference. So, it is obvious that people like to retain their cultural identity.I think this could be the reason people are so passionate about their language. Also, people are aware that language also brings with it its cultural baggage, and people are hell-bent on maintaining their own culture. This is the root of resentment.The ingress of English language is so powerful that even in remote villages in India, you will find people mixing English words in their native language while communicating.
  — Ahsan Ghori, Abu Dhabi
  

Appeal of dictators (www.khaleejtimes.com)
22 March 2006

• HOW come dictators appeal to people. How can a tyrannical person hold sway on tens and thousands of people and I find it ironic that Milosevic’s coffin was given a public viewing, despite the fact that he was held on charges of crimes against humanity. Milosevic was an evil dictator who presided over the deaths of countless thousands. He died a lot more peacefully than his victims. I expect that even Hitler would have had bleeding hearts follow his casket to hell, but it is hard to mourn the killer when the victims are unavenged.How come people support dictators like Hitler, Mussolini, Saddam Hussain. It really makes me sad that some people talk of Milosevic as if he was a man who had some kind of noble goals of keeping Yugoslavia together. He, of all people, is responsible for Yugoslavia falling apart they way it did. He is also known as the Balkans butcher. Dictators will disappear only when all the people unanimously reject them. These dictators thrive on the weakness of people who support them for their favours to them of power, money and idelogical brainwashing that they feed into the weak minds of the otherwise normal people. There is hope only when people consciously respect humans irrespective of cast, creed, race and gender.
  — Ahsan Ghori, Abu Dhabi