American abolitionist Frederick Douglass had once famously remarked, “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” Douglass might have made this statement in the context of the abolition of slavery in the United States, but it has resonated with a universal and timeless significance. In this Machiavellian world, all of us are fighters. From the sharecropper to the senator, from the writer to the wrestler, everyone is a fighter. Some of us fight to make ends meet, for a square meal, and some of us fight to make ourselves more significant and relevant in the course of unfolding events. Never will a farmer’s fight, who is perpetually fighting with nature for good produce, be similar to that of a footballer, who is tirelessly fighting to be better at the sport. No matter which walk of life we come from, we fight.
Everyone fights the ‘good fight’ in their own ways. If that person wasn’t convinced that what they were fighting for is not ‘good’, then they would not be fighting in the first place. Nothing is monochromatic and unidirectional in this world. Pol Pot unleashed a reign of terror in Cambodia and fought for the abolition of inequality. In this process, he ended up committing genocide and making millions of Cambodians homeless and severed from their near and dear ones. But, Pol Pot fought for what he thought was the greater good of Cambodians. He was an expert in Buddhist teachings but ironically executed monks. The point I’m trying to make here is that Pol Pot was never supercilious of Buddhism as a way of life, but considered fighting for a Communist Utopia, the greater good. The Black Panthers of USA raped, tortured and murdered innocent civilians, but fought for civil rights for people of colour. A person’s fight stems from the utmost conviction of the good that they are fighting for. In the event of such an antinomy, ‘good fight’ becomes highly subjective. In the gargantuan domains of dialectics and epistemology, ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are as intimately intertwined as Yin and Yang.
Consider fighting for the truth. Often, we find a dichotomy regarding truth, and tend to label truth as being subjective. We know that man landed on the moon in 1969 as a universal truth. But, often some people try to present an ‘alternative truth’ by offering conspiracy theories like NASA staged the entire moon landing event, and that the images were shot in a studio. Here lies the question of paramount importance, ‘What is truth?’ Here becomes contextual, Malcolm X’s proclamation, “I’m for truth, no matter who tells it.” The nature of truth is dynamic, and it changes with the speaker. An NGO fights for the rights of the child because the members feel that the ultimate ‘truth’ is children are being deprived, and hence it is ‘good’ to ‘fight’ for them. On the other hand, firecracker manufacturers keep employing children for their hazardous jobs, because they are convinced that those particular jobs are best done by children. The lines between right and wrong, truth and lie, moral and immoral, ethical and unethical, all fade away when it comes to ‘fighting the good fight’.
Every human being must stand for something. That person must have some values which they hold on to. Those values must be the guiding forces of their consciences. We know that no two persons are the same. Therefore, every person should be known by their unique ‘belief system’, something which separates Tom from Dick and Dick from Harry. Truth, lies, good, bad – all these are nothing but beliefs. Jesus Christ had an utmost conviction about the truth of his sermons, and he held on to them like a leech. For leading a symbiotic life to what he considered to be the truth, he was crucified. But, today, the world remembers and worships him. He fought a good fight against what he considered to be evil.
We must make our belief systems strong, and not believe in something because someone wants us to. Blind conformity is a scourge. We ought to employ our rational faculties, dissect and question everything. Only then can we be absolutely sure of what is true and good to us. It is sufficient that something is true and good to the individual and not necessarily to the world at large, and it can shape the individual as a human being. Only when we know what is good and true to us, must we fight for it, and thus it becomes a good fight. We must invariably tread the path which makes us feel assured and certain. We ought to break those ubiquitous shackles which try to contain us. From Spartacus to Copernicus, from Marc Antony as the Consul to Mark Wahlberg in ‘The Fighter’, each and every one broke away from shackles. As the venerated aphorism goes, ‘Be the change you want to see in society’, when the individual breaks the shackles and fights for what he/she, only then can the society get stimulated and change for the better. In this way, one either becomes a catalyst of progress or an antithesis to betterment.
Hence, it would be quite prudent to end on a high and hopeful note with Nelson Mandela’s famous adage, “…to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”