December is a special month to each and everyone across the world. People irrespective of caste, creed and religion celebrate the birth of Infant Jesus in the month of December with traditional gaiety and fervour the world over. In the misty nights of December, stars come down to earth, illuminate houses and buildings, carrolls step down to the streets to the accompaniment of drumbeats, visit each house singing songs and hymns announcing the birth of Infant Jesus and Santa in red robes and snow-white beard make merry with children, distribute sweets to them and make each night memorable.
December becomes doubly sweet heralding the rise of a new dawn soon after the Christmas festivities – the birth of a Happy NewYear.
Soren Obeu Kierkegard, the father of Existentialist Philosophy – some prefer to call him a theologist since he put faith beyond reason. After going through the life of Kierkegard for a brief period during my academic years only on account of my interest in philosophy and with the passage of time my philosophical outlook on life shifted to another direction after going through Hegel ,Karl Marx, Jean Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Simon De Bouvier, Gabriel Marcel, Ayn Rand, I had lost interest in Kierkegard with the passage of time, though not forgotten him.
This time December has already come into prominence not because of Kierkegard, but because of his birth place, Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark. Kierkegard also gains prominence in another sense. The beginning of 19th century which brought about Industrial Revolution in the West and with the spread of Industrial Revolution, the resultant dehumanization – man going down to the level of a nut or bolt of an engine in a factory – a desperate Kierkegard’s contribution to the emancipation of Man from that level and again regaining his importance to a higher level- and the birth Existentialism are still to feel proud about by all of us. Perhaps, not perhaps, whether he won or lost in his mission the speed with which Industrial Revolution moved on towards the 20th century and now in the early period of 21st century our planet has reached the edge of an abyss due to pollution – carbon gas emissions, global warming with depleting ozone layer resulting in alarming increase of temperature, rising sea-levels threatening submergence of land, even countries like Maldives under threat of disappearing from the planet in the not too distant future (President of Maldives, Muhammad Nasheed has already expressed his apprehension), the melting glaciers threatening the existence of even sacred Himalayas, factories along the river banks without any moral prick and disregarding the disastrous consequences to the people particularly the future generation pumping effluents into the rivers and causing destruction to the aquatic wealth and respiratory and skin diseases to those who take bath in them – the developed and developing countries equally aware of the consequences and are panicky too – all consequences of their own ruthless exploitation of nature and the nature’s fury striking back after its prolonged patience reaching the bottom level.
As a prelude to the epoch-making Copenhagen Summit in December, more than hundred countries took part in UN General Assembly Summit on Climate Change in New York the other day and ventillated their fears and apprehensions, also thought aloud about the steps to be adopted to rescue the planet from total extinction and in the process rescuing the mankind as a whole. Means regaining the value of each one’s life on earth.
Heartening in a sense that each nation has come to grip with the situation and the significance of saving the planet by afforestation, nurturing and preserving the rich bio-diversity, depending more on solar and wind power, dependence on non-fossil fuels, generous financial assistance by developed countries to developing countries, conservation of energy upto the maximum level thereby extending a future of hope to all especially the coming generation.
It is a co-incidence that this nature-lovers’ summit is destined to be held at the capital of Denmark, Copenhagen, the birth place of Soren Kierkegard who prayed and wrote for regaining the lost glory and dignity of man.
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