M. Mohan Sawhney: Overcoming bad acts

The June 24 news article “ Era of Confederate flag ebbs” talked about how, in a matter of a few days, there were widespread changes in the attitudes toward the place of the Confederate flag.

The young misguided man who was hoping for and predicting a “race war” will live long enough to witness that the consequences of his dastardly act have been completely opposite of what he wanted.

Thinking about this recent tragedy, one begins to wonder whether the changes in the prevailing ideas and attitude would have been as dramatic and consequential if President Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi, President Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King had died of natural causes rather than being assassinated. The answer is no. The assassins unintentionally became a catalyst for changes they abhorred.

I believe that upon witnessing inhuman dastardly acts, people of goodwill find it difficult to remain callous or indifferent. This dissonance gives them the courage to change the status quo.

One also begins to wonder whether Islamist terrorism, which has highjacked Islam, will eventually become the catalyst for a more peaceful world as has other historical terrorism (Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin).

Somehow, “we shall overcome” comes to my lips.

This story was originally published June 29, 2015 at 6:01 PM with the headline "M. Mohan Sawhney: Overcoming bad acts."