Those Who Do Not Learn From History…

Dear Readers,

 

The rise in use of social media and messaging services – especially WhatsApp, becomes even more pronounced during the campaigning season. If only our IQ were half as forward as the number of times some of us ‘forward’ messages! …especially those messages disguised as ‘news’, which have a stranglehold on your attention, based on their sensational nature, tearing down people with personal attacks.

Now while it’s important for a voter to be informed, the rapid proliferation of this fake news has spoon-fed a warped sense of reality to a lot of gullible community members. Gullible and lazy actually – cause not many want to put in the effort to authenticate those sizzling words they’re reading, or even simply ask if the sender has verified this information.

This combination of this naïveté (in believing that what we read on social media and WhatsApp is the ‘truth’) and laziness (to distinguish truth from trash) is as corrosive to your IQ as it is dangerous to the future of our community. Because, unless we wise up, this attitude could very well have us repeating the same mistake… of voting in dummy candidates based on their words instead of their work.

This time, make more of an effort to interact with the candidates – nay question them – when they come visiting your baugs, asking for your votes. You know what they say… ‘Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it’. Or in our case, doomed with a rerun of bad leadership, yet again! Let’s do our bit to get in good leaders this time around. Wot?

Have a good weekend!

– Anahita