The New Nation - Internet Edition

Maswood Alam Khan

Exactly 39 years back on July 21 in 1969 at 8:56 in the morning, Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) Time (02:56 UTC), Neil Alden Armstrong alighted on the moon's surface his footstep, first as a human being, and spoke his famous line "That's one small step for a man; one giant leap for mankind" six and a half hours after the Apollo 11 mission's lunar module had landed safely on a location called "The Sea of Tranquility" at 20:17:40 UTC July 20---fulfilling an American dream President John F. Kennedy wished to translate into reality during a 1961 speech. The moment was stamped indelibly on the page of history and the word 'Armstrong' turned out to be a household name for all generations to come.

I don't know how the Moon had felt the first soft touch of human footsteps on her surface or whether the planet Earth had forewarned her only satellite of bad days ahead if humans were allowed to walk and run free on the lunar surface! But I am sure, if the Earth could somehow whisper to the Moon, the planet's advice to her satellite would have been: "Beware of humans; they are savages!"

Our Earth, the third planet from the Sun and home to millions of species, was formed about four and a half billion years ago. Of millions of species only humans' steps on this Earth are the heaviest, the cruelest and the loudest. All living species, except humans, give more to the Earth than take from her during their lifespan. Humans only take and are not content with what Earth can afford; now they are poised for outsourcing in the havens far away in the space leaving the Earth, bereft of her treasures, in the lurch.

Humans, more appropriately Homo sapiens or bipedal primates from the evolutionary point of view, have been walking on this Earth for about 250 thousand years with their highly developed brain capable of abstract reasoning, language, introspection, and emotion compared to any other quadruped animals, flying birds, swimming fishes and visible or invisible living beings.

The Earth has since silently been tolerating humans' exploitation of her resources, though once in a while the Earth twitches and jerks her body when humans excessively flirt with the planet's cores. When thousands of dumb species are becoming extinct at rapid pace as victims of human oppression and subjugation, the ever-rising human population on Earth now stands at 6.7 billion.

Earth's only natural satellite, the Moon, began orbiting it about 4.53 billion years ago, that induces our ocean tides, stabilizes our planet's axial tilt and gradually slows our planet's rotational speed---all these phenomena vitally needed for our very existence.

The moon's magnificence agitated our scientists; they sent humans in spaceships to step onto her body and pry into what lay on and beneath her skin the way after being enamored of a rose in the garden we pluck it off from its plant, imprison it into a vase, forcibly inhale its fragrance and mutilate its petals to our whims and caprices.

Nevertheless, as a motif in the visual and performing arts, poetry, prose and music the shining Moon while waxing and waning or while playing hide and seek behind patches of hanging clouds evoked romance in a man to serenade his fiancée, stirred up Frank Sinatra to sing: "Fly me to the Moon" and inspired Kanak Chapa to hum: "Nishi Raat Baaka Chaad Akaashey, Chupi Chupi Baashi Baajey Baatasheyt." (A whispering tune of a flute comes floating in the wind when the nocturnal sky is beautifully studded with a crescent moont.).

Why are we humans doing what we are doing? Are our small steps opening up windows for mankind to leap forward in giant steps? Knowing full well mistakes or missteps committed by a king can leash the whole mankind to regress back to square one why do we remain silent when a powerful king or a prime minister commits mistakes after mistakes and transgresses all the bounds of justice? We take fatalistically a decision taken by our king as it comes. We are speechless when a powerful nation uses its veto to block 'a proposal to save the Earth'? Questions challenging the corrupt and the unjust are often drowned out by the noises of dollar diplomacy and brave questioners are always stonewalled by loud voices of the perpetrators!

We should always mind our steps. We should think and look twice---or thrice---before we leap. We must rehearse time and again before making an announcement. A letter of protest spiced with threats and stewed in anger should be kept as a draft. Waiting for a while or a good night's sleep may cool me off and in the morning when my mind is fresh I may feel an urge to rewrite the draft letter of protest deleting most of the angry words before snail-mailing the letter or clicking the 'send button' of my internet mail box.

Mankind suffered heavily from a lot of missteps by a few. Neil Armstrong has also been suffering from mental humiliation for a minor misstep, a grammatical mistake he committed in stage fright; he flubbed his historic 'one small step' remark as he became the first man to set foot on the surface of the moon.

What Neil Armstrong meant to say as he descended from the ladder of Apollo 11's Lunar Excursion Module and stepped onto the lunar surface was "That's one small step for (a) man; one giant leap for mankind." Unfortunately, however, Armstrong in the excitement of the moment omitted one small word ("a") and delivered the line as "That's one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind."

The missing article "a" made a world of difference in literal meaning. Instead of a statement linking the small action of one man with a monumental achievement for (and by) all of humanity, Armstrong uttered a somewhat contradictory phrase that equated a small step by the human race with a momentous achievement by humankind ("man" and "mankind" having the same approximate meaning in English).

Armstrong after his return to earth said he was misquoted and he insisted that he did not omit the article 'a' before 'man'. The debate is still on. Maybe, some of his supporters reason, the letter ('a') apparently went unheard and unrecorded in the transmission because of static or any other fallibility of the tape recorder!

But, NASA's own recording of Armstrong's transmission from the lunar surface reveals that his words are clearly audible over background static; that the word "man" follows immediately on the heels of "for", with no gap between them into which Armstrong could conceivably have inserted the word "a"; and that Armstrong pauses noticeably after the word "man", as he realizes he's fumbled his line and hesitates momentarily before completing the sentence.

Armstrong's flubbing a small letter and his bungling incompetence in English as an announcer exemplifies how a minor misstep can spark a major upheaval.

Fundamental knowledge, whether it concerns the origins of the Universe, metamorphoses of inanimate matter or the human psyche, determines our ability to evaluate our place in the world, grasp the past and prognosticate the future. The search for knowledge and truth distinguishes human beings from all other living creatures known to us. The desire for a deeper understanding of the great mysteries of life has defined not only human intellect but also some of the most remarkable human actions and achievements. But, knowledge gathered by humans has been used more for destruction of the Earth than for her preservation.

People the world over felt elated on hearing Armstrong's voice, traveling a long distance of about 350 thousand kilometers from the Moon to the Earth across the space that heralded his small footstep on the Moon presaging a giant leap forward for the mankind. 39 years have already passed since Armstrong made his epoch-making pronouncement in front of the world's largest audience ever; but, not much of a leap forward the world has witnessed.

The mankind has since undoubtedly progressed in harnessing the creativity of the scientists for application of technologies; but in inverse proportion to technological advancements the same humankind has lamentably regressed in terms of humanity. Mankind under the captaincy of the allied superpowers has been stone deaf to the cries echoing out of hunger pangs in Africa, to the groans of the war-injured in Iraq, to the eerie silence of the oppressed in Burma and North Korea, and to the rallying cries of the Greens. With giant leaps made forward and backward since the dawn of civilization small footsteps of great men on this earth are gradually becoming frail and feeble.