Thursday, October 18, 2012

Two Heroes In One

Hey guys, my apologies for being so patchy these days, but I've managed to overcome another one of those nasty deadlines that was clogging my brain. Now the adrenaline has left my body and I find myself at a bit of a loss for what to write about. There was one story that managed to penetrate my fog and make me take a minute to reflect on the fact that perhaps there is hope for humanity yet. Sometimes, when on the internet too long, one forgets that the real world isn't entirely made up of trolls, MRAs and Republican crazy people. 

So today when I found out about Madanjeet Singh and what he is doing for South Asia, especially for women, I had to take a moment and smile in knowing that there really are great people, who are also wealthy, on this Earth. I'll let Taslima Nasreen on No Country For Women explain far better than I can:


Madanjeet singh, the UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador and the Founder of the South Asia Foundation is one of the greatest secular humanists of our time. An attack on Malala Yousafzai prompted him to donate one million U.S. dollars for women's education and empowerment. 

Madanjeet Singh sponsored the bi-annual Unesco-Madanjeet Singh Prize for the promotion of tolerance and non-violence. He poured 200 million dollars to create South Asia Foundation as a regional secular youth movement and it has now grown to have chapters in eight countries, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. 

Madanjeet Singh has a dream. He dreams of having secularized South Asia, where everybody regardless of gender, origin, colour, caste, creed, ethnicity, race, religion, language, age, marital status, sexual orientation live together happily. He said, “South Asia, like the European Union, should have a common currency so that friendly relations between the countries can be created eventually,” Not only secularism, he also contributed to the green energy technologies, encouraged people in South Asia to generate solar energy. 
 
I had a great opportunity to meet Madanjeet Singh, a dreamer, a courageous truth teller, a fearless warrior. He has been fighting obscurantism, religious extremism, fundamentalism without any compromise. We do not meet many enlightened persons like Madanjeet Singh, who dedicate themselves to human rights, women’s rights, secularism, humanism and freedom of expression.

I salute him for his great contribution to humanity. 

As do I. If you are one of the ten people who have not heard about Malala Yousafzai and what an amazing person she is as well, I found this video perticularly good in explaining it


You are both heroes. The world needs more people like you.



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