America in The Afghanistan War: A Hero or A Hypocrite?

June 22, 2022

“O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave

O’er the land of the free

And the home of the brave?”

“The Star-Spangled Banner” – National Anthem of The United States

The United States of America is a country well-known as a champion of courage, freedom, peace, and prosperity. In particular, it is a country that has a reputation for global leadership, liberal international order, and advocacy for human rights. The U.S. “tends to be the first or most important country for identifying or framing international issues, taking action to address those issues,” and “setting an example for other countries to follow” (CRS).

The mission of the U.S. forces in Afghanistan was in accordance with its foreign policy to propagate the same values of freedom and human rights across the globe. The U.S. administration was determined to thwart the tyrannical Taliban regime in Afghanistan. The American soldiers spent 20 long years in warfare, risking their lives to uphold this noble dream. In August 2021, when the U.S. forces evacuated Afghanistan, giving way to the Taliban to regain control of the country, the U.S. government remained concerned for the welfare of Afghan civilians and promised its support for a peaceful establishment of a civilian government in Afghanistan. They also promised America as a safe haven for the Afghans who were targeted by the Taliban.

In the book Sparks like Stars, a shaggy-haired American man asks, “Don’t you think we’ve done enough to clean up these third world countries?… We took the Taliban out for them. They should be responsible for fixing their own problems now” (279). As I contemplated these statements, my mind raced to grasp the deep irony embedded in them. The questions rampant in my brain were: Isn’t it obvious that the U.S. is mostly at fault for the desperate state of affairs currently in Afghanistan? Shouldn’t the U.S. be held accountable for the loss of thousands of civilian lives with its invasion of Afghanistan? Their participation in the Afghanistan War should not be classified as a heroic act out of altruism, but rather as a show of military power and interference in the sovereignty of another country.

Afghanistan is a multi-ethnic country located along the trade routes bridging Asia to Europe and the Middle East. It has long been a clashing point of other empires that seek to win the country over for its geographical economic gains (“Afghanistan”). The country itself has never been able to unite against invasive forces; however, the independent resilience of each Afghan made up for it. In 1992, the Mujahideen differed on the future of Afghanistan. Eventually, the Taliban rose to power in 1995 with a promise to establish peace after decades of unrest (Desk). They claimed to uphold traditional Islamic values, but they propagated extreme interpretations of Islamic theology that suited their authority and executed them on the Afghan population, like barring women from their education rights (Ibrahim).  

In 2000, the U.S. demanded that Bin Laden be handed over for trial against terrorist acts, but the Taliban refused. Following the Taliban’s continued refusal to extradite Bin Laden after he was accused of initiating the 9/11 attack in 2001, the U.S. and British forces launched attacks against Afghanistan. In 2017, the U.S. military loosened its airstrike rules, resulting in an increase in civilian casualties. Over the four years of Trump’s administration, the number of innocent civilians killed by America’s airstrikes increased by 330%. As of April 2021, 71,000 of the 241,000 killed by all parties in Afghanistan were civilians (“Afghan Civilians”). Innocent Afghan civilians were caught in the crossfire as these forces claimed to bomb the military bases of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. Ironically, most of the Western leaders and public justified the civilian casualties in consideration of the noble intentions of American soldiers to erase terrorism. 

The propaganda that the West is a saviour to the East has been rather systematic in the global narrative, As Clay says on page 278, “History books are sanitized, abbreviated versions of the story. One guy assumes power, another loses it. But the soldiers and civilians are living this war and suffering the losses.” Western media portray the U.S. as a heroic country and a self-proclaimed leader to establish peace and prosperity in foreign countries. But how do we then reconcile this claim against the 90% of the 5000 Afghan refugees who were refused refugee status in America without apparent reason (“U.S. Is Rejecting over 90% of Afghans Seeking to Enter the Country on Humanitarian Grounds”)? What about the ‘justified’ American airstrike that killed 10 innocent people on August 29, 2021, seven of whom were young children (Savage)? 

In the summer of 2021, 76,000 Afghan refugees fleeing from the Taliban’s control were accepted by the U.S., only to be living in poverty (NBCNews). For months, these refugees stood in long lines for food and clothing, and they had little privacy in the camps. They were provided with minimal assistance; local resettlement agencies offered assistance for housing and basic necessities that lasted for barely three months. This support included an insufficient amount of $1,200 per person as federal ‘welcome money’ which was only able to cover limited daily essentials while the jobless evacuees were left to find ways to pay for rent (Mansoor). It also took at least six months for the Afghan refugees to benefit from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, a federal program once known as “food stamps”. Due to the lack of education, the resettled Afghans are also deprived of a clear path toward U.S. citizenship, a status that would solve many of their financial issues (NBCNews). 

The U.S. has a long list of countries it has corrupted for its own political favour: Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq are just a few examples in recent history. The U.S. gets involved in such countries for political power and other gains; it’s never been entirely about justice or welfare. It is time that powerful countries like the U.S. be held responsible for the blood they have continued to shed in third-world countries. “People say ‘third world’ and think it just means countries without the internet and paved roads. But ‘third world’ is Cold War terminology. NATO countries are the first world and the Communist bloc is the second world. The third world was where those two clashed. So the mess in Afghanistan is actually a first and second world problem” (278). The U.S. has to take accountability for the losses they inflicted upon the Afghans and stop pulling the ‘heroic’ card each time of war. The U.S. has to provide more Afghan refugees with the safe haven they were promised; the American administration has to truly live up to the anthem they very proudly sing by granting the brave Afghan civilians a free life in the country of that star-spangled banner.

Reflective Analysis of ‘The Screaming Staircase’

The Screaming Staircase by Jonathan Stroud is the first installment of a thrilling paranormal series, Lockwood & Co. that is targeted towards children in middle school. In the book, England is struck with an epidemic of ghosts that appear at night and are only visible to children who have psychic senses called “Talents”. Consequently, psychic investigative agencies hire these talented kids to recognize any paranormal activity and aid in investigations. Lucy Carlyle, a 14-year-old girl with highly sensitive psychic abilities, is hired by Lockwood & Co, a private agency run by an orphaned teen and his friend. Contrary to other agencies which require an adult supervisor at all times, the trio—Lucy, Lockwood, and George—take pride in their independence and investigate cases alone, one of them being a murder case in which they swiftly destroy the victim’s ghost and eventually identify the murderer. However, in doing so, they accidentally burn down the house at the crime scene, for which they owe €60,000. Lockwood & Co. begins to seek more customers to pay their debt, and they become recognized in the region despite the continuous ridicule they receive for their juvenile age and non-normative practices, much to the disdain of their popular rival agencies, Fittes and Rotwell. The counter-hegemonic ideologies revealed in The Screaming Staircase, along with reception theory, explain why this media text resonates deeply with young teenagers more than adults who may share an equal—or even more—interest in paranormal thrillers.

The journey of Stroud’s main characters, Lucy, Lockwood, and George, to prosperity, despite defying adults and authority, constructs the counter-hegemonic idea that children are capable of becoming successful without adult guidance or management. This is counter-hegemonic because the dominant ideology in the world is that children are required to stay under the constant protection of experienced adults who know how to react in any emergency, especially in dangerous circumstances like ghost-hunting. The world revolves around adults holding authority over children and guiding them by using their own experiences, as indicated by the social and legal rules in Canada that deem a child under the care of a guardian for eighteen years (“Do I Need a Legal Guardian”). Growing up, the ideology I was taught in school and at home also centred around the same premise of obeying the elderly and trusting their instincts, for they always know what is best for us as inexperienced children whose prefrontal cortices are still undeveloped. However, the book’s plot challenges this principle, as the three kids believe that “adults just get in the way” (Stroud 14) of their explorations and that they are completely useless in psychic investigations because their “senses had long ago grown dulled” (52), indicating that their insights cannot be trusted. This counter-hegemonic idea of children not needing an adult to regulate their activity because they hinder their aspirations appeals to a young audience, as they recognize the freedom and individuality they are often deprived of due to authoritative figures and their strict rules. Hence, their acceptance of Stroud’s intended message results in many young readers having a dominant reading of the text, which is also fueled by the story’s approval of teenage behaviours.

When I first read “The Screaming Staircase” in early high school, I also interpreted it as a dominant reading because I agreed with Stroud’s unique representation of children. In his paranormal world, kids’ instincts are considered a vital component to the salvation of the country, and kids are even preferred as investigative employees over adults, causing “whole generations of children, like [Lucy], [to find] themselves becoming part of the front line” (48). To appeal to children even further, Stroud demonstrates how teenage traits like impulsivity and seeking validation, which are traditionally labelled as immature behaviour, can in fact yield positive results. For instance, Lucy refuses to delay the murder case for just one night even though she and Lockwood’s lives are endangered, simply because the owner of the haunted house “thinks [they’re] too young” and that if they do not “crack the case by tomorrow, she’ll take [them] off it and put Fittes or Rotwell’s on the job” (32). The kids’ determination to prove their strength and gain recognition supersedes their self-preservation, mimicking the typical adolescent mindset I also had when I would forcefully lift heavy objects to display my strength, knowing that I would pull a muscle, or when I would swallow incredibly spicy food to prove my tolerance but ended up with fiery ears and ulcers.Segue unclear

Although this adolescent trait of acting impulsively to gain validation is typically considered unsensible behaviour, Lockwood & Co.’s constant eagerness to prove themselves in society pushes them to complete tasks briskly, resulting in the prestige of the young agency. In fact, Lucy reflects that ever “since [they’d] begun [their] explorations, [her] confidence had slowly risen… [They’d] been careful, rigorous, even competent,” and it all “showed [her] what Lockwood & Co. might one day become” (207). Their hastiness and resolve to prove their talents and independence despite their juvenile age make them “competent” and encourage them forward. Hence, when I read this book as a fourteen-year-old, I greatly admired Lucy and her colleagues, and I agreed with Stroud’s representation of adolescent traits as tools to succeed in the teenage phase. His acceptance of my age-appropriate behaviours acknowledged me for who I naturally was. However, my reception of the book differs now, for my age has developed, and I no longer share many adolescent behaviours with Lucy, Lockwood, and George.Good segue

Rereading The Screaming Staircase while nearing legal adulthood changed my former dominant reading of the book into a negotiated one, for I now acknowledge the grave consequences of the sophomoric behaviour praised in the book. To be specific, Lockwood & Co.’s unfortunate burning of the house is considered a mild inconvenience because, as Lockwood puts it, “[the] house will have burned down, but at least it’s ghost-free” (43). The kids do not realize that their impulsivity results in the loss of a person’s house, and they believe that they will “totally offset the fact [that they] burned that woman’s house down” by simply “uncover[ing] the murderer and get[ting] justice for the girl” (125), who was the ghostly victim. This means earning €60,000 within a month, which, realistically, is not achievable. Because of this debt, Lucy Carlyle is not paid for a month (160), a significant circumstance that is brushed over in the text. Had this occurred in reality, bankruptcy would have struck the agency, and the employees would have had to quit—all because of the teens’ poor judgment and impulsivity. As an individual who will soon have to take legal accountability for my own actions, my interpretation of the book does not completely agree with Stroud’s intended message that adolescent traits like impulsivity should be considered favourable. However, I still find the story thrilling and captivating, and I believe it is an accurate representation of young teenagers. Stroud’s representation of children as strong and individual entities who use their adolescent traits as tools for success is a powerful concept that is not often portrayed in the media. The books I grew up with did highlight young protagonists and heroes, but there was always an element of parental or authoritative influence. The plot either followed children who explored the world and eventually sought protection from other adults after being kept in the dark by their own guardians, like The 39 Clues, or children who fought villains with the help of their guardians, like The Copernicus Legacy. However, Stroud presents a unique counter-hegemonic plot in which the characters defy authority and use their adolescent characteristics to progress in society, creating a story that empowers young teenagers to explore themselves and the world without limitations. Like me, young readers feel validated and acknowledged by Stroud’s representation of teenagers, as they are frequently shamed in reality for acting juvenile, even though that is who they are. The Screaming Staircase’s acceptance of children appeals to younger audiences and imprints feelings of worthiness, making it an unquestionably significant recommendation for young teenagers to read.

Work Cited

“Do I Need a Legal Guardian.” Ontario International College, https://www.oicedu.ca/show.php?contentid=184. Accessed 11 December 2023.Stroud, Jonathan. Lockwood & Co.: The Screaming Staircase. EPUB, Disney Book Group, 2013

The Effects of Trauma on Refugees Explored in Refugee Literature

Trauma is defined as the never-ending emotional response to a distressing event (“Trauma”). They are wounds “that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds” (Hamilton). However, trauma is a term now used in casual conversation to describe minuscule inconveniences one experiences, devaluing the pain real victims of trauma, such as refugees, undergo constantly. “We all have pain. And we all look for ways to make the pain go away” (Alexie), but the pain refugees face as a result of trauma manifests itself in various similar ways, affecting their daily lives. The authors of the novels The Beekeeper of Aleppo and Sparks Like Stars explore these effects of trauma on refugees using similar literary elements.

In her book The Beekeeper of Aleppo, Christy Lefteri uses a non-linear timeline to show how trauma causes Nuri to live through his past repeatedly as if a part of him is still stuck there. Every chapter that occurs in Nuri’s present links to an incident in his past; for instance, Nuri is imagining Mohammed singing a lullaby in England when he is suddenly pulled to an occasion in Greece where he also hears Mohammed calling him (Lefteri 183-184). The constant revisiting of his past is a result of traumatic events overwhelming his body and mind, leaving a lasting mark on his mood, relationships, and sense of self (Juby et al.). The back-and-forth timeline demonstrates how Nuri develops PTSD, as he ruminates happier times as well as the things he lost. This rumination drags him deeper into his depression and leads him to almost commit suicide. Furthermore, victims of trauma also feel stuck in their past because they feel a sentimental attachment to someone or something from their past. Nuri holds on to his wife Afra, who he feels he lost when he failed to protect her in Greece. He blames himself for Afra’s rape, recognizing that “something of [him] would always be left behind, trapped within the dank walls of this apartment” (292) because he made the mistake of misplacing the key to his room and chose not to atone to it for the greater good. Additionally, ruminating serves as a form of avoidance, a major defence mechanism developed alongside PTSD. Nuri chooses to think about his past because he wants to avoid the helplessness he feels in his present hopeless conditions. The author’s objective behind the non-linear timeline is to show how PTSD develops in Nuri, as it explains how trauma causes refugees to constantly revisit their past because they feel guilty about their unamended mistakes and to avoid the helplessness of the present.

Alternatively, in her novel Sparks Like Stars, Nadia Hashimi also explores the long-lasting effects of childhood trauma on Sitara by fast-forwarding 30 years in her life. Firstly, the author narrates the major events that occurred in Sitara’s life between 1978 and 2008 through her present to keep readers informed of her complete refugee story while also highlighting how she struggles with rumination. The trauma of witnessing her family get murdered by soldiers they trusted to protect them develops into trust issues within Sitara, making her hypervigilant and doubtful despite three decades passing since the traumatic incident. For instance, when she books a hotel room in one of the safe areas in Afghanistan, Sitara is grateful that her adoptive mother, Antonia, does not notice her “rituals—[her] careful study of the hotel floor map on the back of the door, [her] testing of the windows to be sure they open, and [her] evaluation of the space beneath the beds to see how many people it will accommodate” (Hashimi 368). The 30-year time skip emphasizes how Sitara’s childhood trauma develops into PTSD, stretching into her adulthood. Sitara wants to “move forward… but [she] keep[s] looking back” (324), refusing therapy to avoid sensitive topics, treating the “L word” —love— like “a nuclear bomb” (273) because of the betrayals she faced, leaving places “to stop [her]self from sliding headlong into the past” (291), and stopping “[her]self from thinking about [her] family because [she is] afraid of spiralling into grief that has no bottom” (405-406). Even as an adult, she represses her emotions because she is still afraid of “taking a chance that might break [her] all over again” (285). The betrayals of her past cause her to struggle with maintaining a strong relationship with her boyfriend Adam and mother Antonia, for she recognizes that if she wants “any relationship to work, [she is] going to have to figure out how to be more open” (281). Even after three decades of living with her childhood trauma, Sitara still struggles to cope with it healthily as an adult, as shown through Hashimi’s deliberate 30-year fast-forward in the book. The author’s unique manipulation of the timeline setting stirs empathy for refugees within the readers, as they understand how trauma from when Sitara was ten years old manifests into mental disorders and affects her daily life as a 40-year-old. 

To further explore how refugees cope, both authors use motifs to demonstrate how refugees become fixated on a certain object that marks their trauma. In The Beekeeper of Aleppo, Nuri holds on to a key that signifies his hopes for a new life with his loved ones, for the key Mr. Fotakis gives him finally grants him and Afra with the hopes of leaving Greece for England. In his hallucinations, the key opens the door to a safe haven—“a secret house that didn’t break” (Lefteri 289). Nuri misplacing the key causes Mr. Fotakis to rape Afra, filling Nuri with crushing guilt until he asks Afra to forgive him for losing it. Until then, Nuri unconsciously conditions himself to associate his trauma of living through war, his son’s death, and his wife’s rape with the key as it symbolizes his hope in a happy life that he feels he lost when he misplaced the key. 

Similarly, Sitara holds on to the ring she found from the Ai-Khanoum treasures buried under the rubble because it symbolizes the betrayals her family faced that left her orphaned. The story behind her unearthing the ring the day her family was killed is the one tale that she “never wholly told, not to the woman who helped [her] flee a country on fire, not to the woman who raised [her] as an American, and not to the man [she] almost loved” (Hashimi 1). Sitara is often found with the ring in her hand when she is alone, thinking about the lies and mistruths she had been fed throughout her life. She had “worn this ring like a shipwrecked person wears a life preserver” (306) because it allows her to feel her dead family’s presence without grieving for them. Over the years, Sitara feels the ring’s “weight grow in [her] hands… so heavy now that [she] wonder[s] how [she] managed to lift [her] hand with it on as a child” (306). After thirty years of being fixated on the ring, Sitara wishes to turn the ring over to a museum so she can properly move on from the betrayal that killed her family. Once the ring is out of her possession, Sitara “feels like [she] can have so much more back” (446), explaining that she “used to only think of those last moments” (446) of her family’s lives when she wore the ring but can now express grief for them without losing herself in a dark abyss. Similar to how Nuri holds on to the key signifying the loss of his hopes, Sitara conditions herself to associate her trauma of witnessing her family be murdered, being threatened by a trusted soldier, and being abused by her temporary caretakers Janet and Everett with a ring because it reminds her of the betrayal of the soldiers that lead to her lifelong suffering.

In a nutshell, both pieces of refugee literature use the literary elements of setting and motif to portray the many ways trauma impacts refugees. As Blythe Baird writes in her book If My Body Could Speak, “To live in the body of a survivor is to never be able to leave the scene of the crime,” for trauma continues to haunt refugees throughout their lives. The authors Nadia Hashimi and Christy Lefteri seek to evoke empathy within their readers for refugees by changing the chronology of events and using motifs to explore the development of PTSD in refugees, its consequences on their daily lives, and the healing required to overcome obstacles presented by their past. The common population fails to understand the pain refugees experience fleeing their homeplace, so Lefteri and Hashimi’s unique implementation of literary elements in their novels serves to open their readers’ eyes to a world of suffering that lies just kilometres away.

Are Electric Cars an Ethical Solution to Reducing Carbon Dioxide Emissions?

In 2020, the world emitted 34.81 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, 21% of which were from transportation (Tiseo). In an effort to protect the environment from further deterioration caused by greenhouse gases, the Canadian government has decided to ban the sale of new gas-powered cars; only zero-emission (electric) vehicles are to be sold by 2035. The irony, however, is not lost, as in the pursuit to become greener, the government is indirectly causing further environmental damage, infringing Indigenous rights, and supporting the abuse of children and workers.

To begin with, the manufacturing of electric batteries is detrimental to the environment and to people’s health. Electric cars rely on batteries that are made up of rare earth elements (REE) like lithium, cobalt, and copper. These REEs require extensive mining to extract quantities large enough to sustain the demands of electric cars. It is well known that the process of mining contaminates water, destroys glaciers, damages habitats, and endangers the health of people and animals. Jaya Nayar, in an article from Harvard International Review, states that “for every ton of rare earth produced, the mining process yields 13kg of dust, 9,600-12,000 cubic metres of waste gas, 75 cubic metres of wastewater, and one ton of radioactive residue.” The release of these toxic substances from mining procedures affects many components of the environment; the soil becomes unsustainable, water becomes undrinkable, and the air becomes unbreathable due to high concentrations of radioactive materials. The ensuing question is: Are electric cars really green considering their batteries are manufactured via an environmentally toxic process?

Not only is the REE mining industry dangerously affecting the environment, but it is also encroaching on the rights of Indigenous communities. Most REE mining sites are located in Indigenous-populated areas. In a rising competition of electric vehicles, governments and mining companies are neglecting the rights of Indigenous communities. According to an article from The Verge, mining the largest lithium reserve in the US would require digging up a gravesite sacred to local Indigenous tribes, and a proposed copper mine in Arizona would desecrate the land sacred to the San Carlos Apache Nation (Calma). The Puna de Atacama region located at the intersection of Argentina, Chile, and Bolivia is known as the global “Lithium Triangle” for its 58 percent of the world’s supply of REE. This region is home to millions of Indigenous people, for they have lived and farmed the Puna de Atacama region since at least 10,000 B.C., “but their millennia-old practices are being upended by the mining industry, stoking tensions that sometimes precipitate violent altercations with police and state officials” (Wilson). Indigenous communities around the world have fought colonizers from illegally occupying their lands, and mining their lands by desecrating them will further aggravate their relationship with governments. It is hypocritical for governments to publicly advocate for the rights of Indigenous people while also condoning the violation of their property rights through mining. 

The issues of mining REEs are not just confined to the environment and Indigenous people; rather, children and workers across the globe are also impacted by it. Primary consumers of REEs like China have several mining companies across continents (Nayar). These companies take advantage of the poor labour conditions in foreign countries and get away with establishing unsafe operations in addition to paying subpar wages. According to Amnesty International, miners have no safety equipment— no masks, gloves, goggles, or mining tools. Health problems like hard metal lung disease become more prevalent among workers under these conditions. In 2015, there were at least 80 artisanal fatalities in such mines, not including the burials in tunnels from numerous unreported accidents. Worker abuse is just one negative aspect of mining; child labour is another direct outcome of the growing demand for REEs (Amnesty International). In Southern DRC alone, there are at least 40, 000 children working in mines, most of whom are involved in mining REEs. These children spend up to 12 hours in poisonous, lethal, and toxic environments from the mere age of 7 instead of going to school (McKie)! By depriving children of their right to education (UNESCO), we are opening doors to their exploitation, early marriages, and low-income pay jobs. This “limits the future for their own children, thus repeating the cycle of poverty—the cycle that leaves an individual stuck in poverty—generation after generation” (Dubay).  To put this in perspective, our desperation to manufacture electric cars to solve a problem we created causes children who have barely learnt how to read and write fluently to suffer through the continuous cycle of poverty! Their abuse does not just end there; these children suffer severe physical and psychological issues from the lack of proper infrastructure and safety practices. A study by World Visions states that 19% of the children they surveyed said they had witnessed another child die on an artisanal mining site, clearly inducing permanent trauma and fear in them (Reid). For carrying heavy loads and working long hours just to keep up with the demands for REEs, child miners are paid only $2 per day at most.! In many cases, mine workers at these sites continue to work under life-threatening conditions, as it is the only employment available to them. The irony of it all is that these miners risk their lives to supply electric cars that they themselves are too poor to own! 

In addition to problems associated with mining, another issue with the batteries of electric cars is their disposal. According to an article in Forbes, these batteries contain non-biodegradable heavy metals such as cobalt and nickel. They also contain manganese which pollutes water, soil and air. Just 500 micrograms of magnesium in a cubic metre of air is enough to induce manganese poisoning in most people. Moreover, the degradation of lithium batteries produces pollutants such as hydrogen fluoride. The disposal of batteries of electric cars is a growing problem linked to a so-called environmentally friendly replacement of gas-powered vehicles. China, for instance, had to get rid of approximately 200,000 tons of electric batteries in 2020, a number expected to grow to 800,000 tons over the next four years (Ezrati). Worst yet, only 5% of the lithium batteries are recycled adequately at most (Woollacott), the other 95% are disposed of in landfills which further increases toxic waste in the environment. 

With the demand for REEs projected to a 6-fold increase over the next 18 years (Nayar), threats to the environment, dissatisfaction of Indigenous communities, and poor working conditions for children and workers are bound to rise as well. Electric vehicles need six times more minerals than gas-powered vehicles (Nayar). Given the negative consequences associated with electric cars, I believe it would be best for countries to sustain current modes of transportation until a truly environment-friendly option is discovered. Electric vehicles are not the right solution just yet because of the numerous environmental, economic, and social issues they yield. Perhaps in the next few decades, advances in technology will lead to alternative methods of mining and disposal which will allow electric vehicles to be less problematic. In the meantime, instead of focusing on electric batteries, the government should emphasize improving public transportation as a means to reduce the number of personal vehicles on the road and the related effects of gas emissions. Furthermore, the government should introduce additional policies and incentives to promote behavioural changes among citizens such as carpooling, minimal consumption of single-use plastics, water preservation, and tree plantation, to list a few. The proponents of the exclusive availability of “zero-emission” vehicles in the market should reflect on the following question: how can you label electric cars as eco-friendly when they cause further damage to the environment, promote violation of Indigenous rights, and encourage the abuse of children and workers worldwide?

Hadith of the Day – July 13

Two blessings which you may lose — health and free time

Sahih al-Bukhari 6412


Full Hadith

حَدَّثَنَا الْمَكِّيُّ بْنُ إِبْرَاهِيمَ، أَخْبَرَنَا عَبْدُ اللَّهِ بْنُ سَعِيدٍ ـ هُوَ ابْنُ أَبِي هِنْدٍ ـ عَنْ أَبِيهِ، عَنِ ابْنِ عَبَّاسٍ ـ رضى الله عنهما ـ قَالَ قَالَ النَّبِيُّ صلى الله عليه وسلم ‏ “‏ نِعْمَتَانِ مَغْبُونٌ فِيهِمَا كَثِيرٌ مِنَ النَّاسِ، الصِّحَّةُ وَالْفَرَاغُ ‏”‏‏.‏

Narrated Ibn `Abbas:
The Prophet (ﷺ) said, “There are two blessings which many people lose: (They are) Health and free time for doing good.”


Lesson

We should use our health for good deeds to its fullest extent before old age interferes. Also, we should use our time wisely before our death interferes.