DUMP THE OSTRICH POLICY

Re: Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl

(Sebastian Eriksson Art "Ignoring the ignorance" )

After a long time, I finally put myself to the task of reading Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl. Having heard so many negative reviews from my fellow mates in 10th form about the book being terribly boring, flimsy, infantile, dull and monotonous, I never could bring myself to pick it up. However, once I held the pages open in my hands, then I simply couldn’t put it down. I have been so utterly moved by the diary, that I had to share my thoughts and make it known to everyone who’s looking for something real and soul-stirring. It’ll be inhuman to judge it because it isn’t a literary piece of work published to feed the critics their most awaited snack. It’s the heart of a young girl poured out on sheets of paper at the most dreadful stage of her life. 

I remember reading it in one of her entries, “Deep down, the young are lonelier than the old.” A teenager’s life is nothing short of persistent insanity and unasked for dementia. And add to that the horrors that wars entail. Robbed of the luxuries, the nonchalance of childhood, school and adventures, and cut off entirely from nature, friends and relatives, a girl of 13 is bound to lose her head in the confines of ‘The Secret Annexe’. On one side is our case of emotional outpour - eyes welling up with tears on the day we bid farewell to our school - and there, Anne had been living a surreptitious life with the constant guilt of not even having said goodbye to those she held dear. 

She had been counting days for over 2.5 years awaiting the moment when she’d finally step out on the streets and resume everything that she had had to abandon. Everyday sirens, machine gun fires, air raids, the fear of being discovered, of being dragged to the Nazi gas chambers, and the regrets of being helpless as her fellow Jews got butchered savagely during The Holocaust; Oh, to think of it scares the living daylights out of me! How courageous she was! Fighting the inner turmoil towed along by adolescence, and fighting for her life under constant threat! 

And to think of it, this is exactly what the Afghans must be feeling right now! This is exactly what war does to people! It’s hard to be struck with this realisation that we are happily proceeding with our lives - partying today, resting tomorrow - while some people are served gunshots for music, whip blows for dances and dirt for food. Why can’t we simply end all the torture, the craze for power and more power still? It’s so heart-rending and tragic that Anne Frank, a girl who stood brave in the face of all odds, who even infused humour in the desolate lives of the people surrounding her, who noted every event of the Allied conquest down in her diary with so much hope of her own liberation, had to embrace death just 2 months before freedom came to embrace her, only to find her gone… And there must’ve been hundreds of Anne Franks who did not even have the consolation of befriending and talking to a journal. 

Even in her last entry, she talked of her interminable woe, a great lot of which was caused by people. Her last words were - “…if only there were no other people in the world…” 

I’m horrified at those who call her work boring! I’m horrified at the mere fact that people can bring themselves to pass so much as one critical remark! How inhuman they must be! And yet, who learnt a lesson from it? Which politician ever cares for the mental torture the children and people in desperate state have to suffer? Which leaders have the guts to acknowledge the blood on their hands, to compensate for all the lives that are lost in their wars? They simply withdraw from people’s lives boasting of the promises that are never fulfilled. To help them is not even in question when these savages in power can’t even truly sympathise with their sufferings. 

To narrow the ignorance down to the confines of a household, then not just the high and mighty of the state, but even the older people of a family ought to reflect on their actions. Children, especially teenagers, are constantly struggling to keep their heads above water. A sudden surge of incomprehensible feelings and baffling worldly knowledge leaves them exasperating for a momentary peace of mind. It isn’t easy for them to articulate what they feel because they aren’t sure of it themselves. One shouldn’t condemn them, but think of them as people who are lost and need love and support. Sometimes their emotions may seem superfluous and their attitude flippant, “but feelings can’t be ignored, no matter how unjust or ungrateful they seem.” Instead of assuming a condescending attitude and looking down upon them, it is important to reach a mental level equal to theirs to understand them. 

To quote something Anne said, “Burying your head in the sand doesn’t work.” You’ll pay a heavy price for this ostrich policy.

This journal has taught me a lot in mere 2 days. Not many books can make a person think so deeply about life and everything that’s being done wrong. I’d ask the fault finders to man-up and look deep inside their own selves. Shouldn’t everyone who overlooks the welfare of others and makes lives miserable for them, be it the brutes spearheading crusades or the people in daily life who misbehave with their fellow beings in any way, be strictly penalised for violating a person’s right to life, personal liberty and dignity?