More than a week after the invasion of Ukraine began, many ferocious battles are still being fought.
People are being hurt, relationships are fraying, frustration is growing, the tears are unnumbered.
Many are livid, and thinking of leaving. Do you know where these unhappy events are happening?
In WhatsApp groups, of course. Perhaps across the world.
My good and hapless friend tells me about the 'war' in his extended family's group.
"Ever since the invasion started, my uncles and cousins have been forwarding to the group everything from anywhere. Most of it is just plain ridiculous. Propaganda and nonsense cooked up by idiots."
There are videos with no context, or with accompanying messages designed to inflame passions, he says.
"My relatives don't read or view the entire thing, or consider its truthfulness. Yet they think it's necessary to forward the stuff."
It starts a chain reaction in the group, with others putting in their two cents' worth. Then they start arguing as if they are really fighting on a battlefield. "It's so stupid and infuriating."
The invasion of Ukraine exposes, once again, the craziness and contradictions of leaders and dictators and nations. But it has also put on full display the 'poverty' and 'richness' of the individual. Especially on social media and instant-messaging platforms like WhatsApp.
Poverty: there's an absence of common sense, a lack of civility. Richness: there's an overwhelming sense that "I know what I am talking about", merely after watching a few videos and reading a few stories written by charlatans or unknown persons.
Actually, they are not even reading the pieces. Merely lazily scanning them. Like a 3-year-old staring at Melville's Moby-Dick. Huh!
This is not new behaviour. People have been doing it for years. Sadly. Tragically.
Let's try to be a little smarter, please. Don't forward any story that you yourself have not read and understood in its entirety. Don't forward anything whose writer or source is unknown. It's probably a witches' brew of malevolence and ignorance.
Don't let one video imprison your thinking and free your hate.
Don't claim you are right based on the little that you gather from social media and WhatsApp drivel. Let me be frank. Only an attitude born of laziness makes a person do that.
Read history books instead. Read many books and fine articles in print and online. Then talk about these, in measured tones, in your groups. Discuss with a firm foundation beneath your feet, not quicksand.
Otherwise, don't talk about this war and that war, or which nation is right and which is wrong, in your WhatsApp groups. Don't let people get hurt, relationships fray, frustration grow and tears fall.
Know this. Some people sow bitterness and wrath in family and friends deliberately. Some out of ignorance. Where do you sit? You should ask and answer this question. Unless you don't give a damn.
The writer is NST Production Editor
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times
