When Words are more Deadlier than the Sword

A man who was visiting a small town in the States, saw a vicious dog attack a young boy. He quickly grabbed the animal and throttled it with his bare hand. A local journalist who happened witness the incident, came and congratulated the man, and told him that the headlines the next day would say “Brave Local Man Saves Child by Killing Vicious Animal”. However the gentleman told the journalist that he was not a local but only visiting a friend in town. So the journalist told him that the headline would then be like this “Patriotic American Saves Child by Killing Dog.” Once again the man corrected him that he was not an American, and was from Pakistan. In that case, said the journalist in a huff, the headlines would be “Pakistani Kills Family Pet!”

A few days back there was a headline stating that a pregnant elephant was killed after it was fed pineapple filled with crackers. The immediate reaction to the headline was that of disgust and disdaine. How could someone do something so heinous to such a gentle creature and it’s unborn child? Had we lost all our senses that made us humane? How cruel  and sadistic could one get?

And slowly and surely social media was flooded with messages and images of the elephant, and how we failed the poor creature and have lost all our humanity in the process. Some of these illustrations were indeed heartbreaking. The who’s who of social media, including the celebrities, politicians and sportspersons, posted pics and condolences and expressed their disgust of the act. Even the veg section of society accused the non veg section of society on the hypocrisy of their support and condolences, since they consumed meat (not quite sure of the logic here).

So you had all this reaction to these headlines and messages that seemed to floating around social media. However, when you peeled away this initial information you realise that there’s more to the story than just the headlines. The elephant wasn’t fed the pineapple but accidentally ate the pineapples that were not meant for it. This was a way (not a legal one though) used by farmers to keep wild boars from destroying their crops. So this was not a case of a heinous prank but a classic case of man v/a wild and man encroaching the animal territory, a constant struggle for survival. The poor animal mistakenly and fatally got caught within this battle.

Words are indeed mightier than the sword. They have the power to motivate, to inspire, to captivate, to move mountains. But at the same time it can be more deadlier than the sword. It can be used to manipulate, misinterpret and mislead and can even be a source of tension. The case in point being the initial headlines resulted in a condemnation of the act and an outpouring of emotions based on words that were factually inaccurate. The incident indeed had taken place but not in the way the words made it to be. And then there was also an added communal angle about where the incident occurred, which once again was factually incorrect. Even the date when it occurred was incorrect.

All this shows that it’s so easy manipulate our emotions with the help of mere words. We are willing to jump to conclusion based on our interpretation of these words, which is more than willing to manipulate and mislead us.

So before we decide to condemn, let’s get our facts straight. Let’s not be mislead by mere words, cause social media and WhatsApp universities are willingly waiting to twist words and manipulate and mislead our emotions, and we like fools fall for it time and time again. So we need to be careful on how we react, cause words can indeed be more deadlier than the sword.