Your Rights Will Remain Ceased, until ...

Ink of a Scholar is mightier than the Sword of a Soldier ... and all the variations there of ... nevertheless ... the idea is powerful.

A recent survey of career choices reveal young Muslims' top three pursuits as: Medicine, Computer Sciences and Law. We all know too well, the world needs others too. How about Journalism? If you think - Why Journalism, you are not alone.

The answer is because of Double Standards. It is a justified crusade when few lives are lost, but it is not when entire generations are killed. Euphemisms like "collateral damage" and "civilian casualties" heightens these double standards to painful proportions. 

A Just & Universal Standard is badly needed. When a human being dies, a Journalist must write, a "human being" died. It is that simple. But in the real world it is not happening. 

If your antenna is fine tuned, you pick up signals of injustice, corruption, exploitation and you boil with rage. If you are a Cowboy, you go out or send someone out for you and physically force changes. But if you are not and we hope you are not, you deal with the Cowboys. And the most noble way to deal with them is with knowledge and words.

Journalism involves the huge responsibility of providing accurate information and reporting the truth. In the search of which, no hurdle is too high, no danger so perilous to retreat. A journalist is spurred by an inner pain about an outer reality and addresses it with the only weapon of wisdom - knowledge and words. Journalism is a quest for truth, a crusade to expose injustice and wrongdoing by getting to know the true facts and then using words to communicate them effectively.

Journalists are also spurred by angst: how can you let people suffer, how can you allow reality to be buried, how can you allow a lie to be perpetuated. You can and will make a difference with the weapons you have - with knowledge and with words.

A Journalist's moment of triumph is when usurped land is restored to the rightful owners, the guilty are punished, when citizens selflessly watch over each other, when food is distributed to the famine-stricken, when a corrupt minister or a careless King is dethroned and so on. 

Today we face a new angst: Neither many parents are encouraging their children to pursue Journalism or Mass Communication, nor many young men and women are willing to opt for higher ideals rather than higher earnings. 

Our rights to protest double standards will remain ceased unless we begin to learn to side step landmines, escape from tank fires and duck the bullets. The choice is yours ... Doctors, Engineers and Lawyers alone cannot save the world and bring peace, harmony and justice for all.