The Gulf Crisis and New World Order — Page 321
The Gulf Crisis & The New World Order and if there is a band of people of high society who take the rounds of these restaurants and hotels from early evening to late in the night, and continue to be submerged in a life of enjoyment and luxury as is seen in the glittering streets of Lahore and Karachi at night; and if this tendency continues and no one turns his attention to the fact that underneath these glittering lights there is such horrid darkness that if you peep into this darkness, you would behold such painful scenes of suffering humanity that it would make your hair stand on end. I shall give you one example. My daughter Fai71l bad gone to Qadian (India) for the Annual Conference of our Jamaat. On her way back, she was accompanied by two other children. While waiting at Atari railway station to catch the next train she decided to have her meals. As she did so, a horde of very young, poor hungry children gathered around her. She told me that it was apparent that they were hungry and were not professional beggars. So she distributed that food among them. Then, she took out some other items of food given to her by friends in Qadian, and distributed that as well. What I am trying to place before you is not the fact that she distributed these things. This was an act which any person with a humane heart would have done any way - but the special thing meriting attention is that even among the poor and the destitute, one finds humanitarianism of high degree. Indeed in these poor countries, one is more likely to experience humanitarianism at lower levels of society than in the higher levels. "When all this had been distributed", she went on, "I bad a can of Coca Cola left with me which I gave to an older girl to share it with the other children. She took a sip and then tum by turn gave this drink to each child. After each child took his or her sip, one could notice the same contentment and satisfaction on this girl's face which descends on a mother's face upon satisfying her infant's cries for milk. And she looked towards the children as ifto say 'see bow much we are enjoying this'. All the children formed a line and one after the other they would take their sip and it seemed as if they had just drunk from the spring of eternal life! Then, as the train moved, despite the attempts by the police to stop them, these children felt so compelled to show their gratitude that they kept running alongside the train and offering their thanks and waving their hands and kept on doing so for as long as they could see the train. . . " 321