Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Friday, March 29th, 2024

Pen is Mightier Than Sword

Sharp words may make a deeper wound in one’s heart than swords in body. Even though sword seems to reflect a blaze of rage and hatred boiling angrily in merciless hearts, it can neither defame nor damage the soul of a person, whereas, a pen can play the role of a foul language or the opposite that easily touches the hearts and souls. Sword can kill human but not humanity while human, proudly, sacrifices himself and, warmly, embraces death to protect humanity. So, it is believed that spiritual values are better than material ones and that is why people die for the sake of their beliefs and get their bodies butchered to free their souls and minds from evils so as to, victoriously, play the role of heroes in history and hold their heads high before the future generation rather than hanging in shame or being denounced. In other words, an honorable death is far more respectable than a coward life. Hence, sword is for polishing people off while pen is used to polish their souls and minds which is more effective.
Spreading awareness is the basic responsibility of the writers. Those who stoop to infamy of polluting pens in writing foul subjects, are responsible for poisoning the minds of people in a society. By relegating the position of pen, the writers will put their own positions under question. Just take the example of a flash light. It is used for lightening the way in the heart of darkness. But when it is used by a thief for stealing in a dark night, it is not the fault of flash light rather it is the fault of the user who has abused it.
Unfortunately, the role of sword is more prominent in our society than pen. Those who have power in our society, they can almost do anything that they want. They use their power against the poor and powerless people of the society and commit big crimes with impunity. In addition, preferring interest to integrity, which is widely rife in our community, is a highly painful disease of the time. The politicians, step on the rules and regulations of the country without feeling a single iota of fault or crime. Our people are not surprised with the news which report that some innocent citizens were beaten by the bodyguards, brothers, or groups of a politician. The government also turns blind eyes and deaf ears to the issue and common people daren’t ask a question regarding the case. It is common in our country that the more one gets power the more crime s/he commits.
It is crystal clear that our people suffered three decades war and now it is time to focus on educational and cultural fields. Bleeding, terrorizing and violence are no more solution to the serious injuries of our war-weary people. Hence, the only solution is centralizing the cultural role of pen and penning. Pen is an effective injection which can stop the infectious diseases of sectarianism, tribalism, nationalism, racism, and many other harmful isms of the society. Pen brightens the minds of people and develops moral values and human dignities.
It is beyond doubt that pen does not only denounce the histories which are polluted by sword but also reflects the cruelties, murders, bloodshed… caused by sword. Here, pen shouts against the violence of sword and condemns its cruelties, publically. Of course, murdering people is not a power whereas, reviving the mentality of people is a great power which is carried out by pen.
My humble ideas certainly have opponents and proponents but the truth is that if we think of developed countries, they are focusing their times more on education, and education is the infrastructure of power. In other words, education and understanding can give birth to power whereas power mostly denies the interference of understanding in its realm. So, education acts more wisely and peacefully while power acts violently.
Despite believing dominance of pen over sword and scholars over swordsmen, I cannot deny the fact that both groups, scholars and swordsmen, are responsible to launch cultural (holy) war, prophetically, against all corruption and the corrupt individuals are, shamelessly, breaking the sacredness of sword and holiness of pen and penning. Although sword cannot hold a candle to pen, I do not intend to reject its positive role and, strongly, condemn those who misuse any of these holy weapons. At the end, I would like to say that whether our hands get cut, let’s not cut the pen out of our life and use this powerful weapon positively against negative issues and shine this light to guide the society and develop the minds of younger generation.