Kafka's The Trial - The Real Version

Imagine you wake up one morning arrested, prosecuted, accused for an unspecified crime on grounds never revealed. Sounds familiar? Nope, it is unfortunately not only the The Trial by Kafka. It is not the 1950's in Eastern Europe, where people disappeared randomly. It is not Peru under General Pinochet brutal ruling. It is unfortunately our world of today. The really sad part is that it is just getting worse - Guantanamo Bay, Prisoner 650 Bagram a.k.a. Aaafia Siddiqui, Aby Ghraib, a number of astonishing extraditions from European countries to foreign governments. To top that we are continuously trading liberty for a superficial and non-real sense of safety to the extent that Orwell's 1984 starts to sound cosy almost.

The disturbing part of Aafia Siddiqui is not the discussion about guilt or not. It is the amazing number of vague indications that have been brought forward and the denials about the reasons behind the arrest. It is also very unclear how an Pakistani citizen is charged with a crime in New York that happened on Afghani soil. Not to mention the complete silence of the faith of her kids. How come they had to get punished in all this? I do not know. It is just a disturbing number of aspects of this case that makes one wonder what happened.

Is this really how we see our future form? Seemingly arbitrary accusations, bargains with liberty to protect us against "them". Who? You know "them". ;-) I wonder when we ever would define who "they" are and who "we" are. Shouldn't we aim to form a more sustainable future? I for sure do not preferable want to live in a future as some disturbing combination of The Trial and 1984.