Arms, legs and dignity of man

You will find in some of the ancient writings of the Arabians that Abdala the Saracen was asked what was the biggest wonder on the stage of this world, to which he replied that there was nothing more marvellous than man. Think of Jesus Christ who was crucified, his arms and legs were pegged to the cross. This world means little if your hands are tied and legs are chained. You cannot hold a pen or pick up a sword. You will be resting all the time, and after supper cannot walk a mile. It will be difficult for you to be healthy, wealthy and wise! The marvel that man is, has a lot to do with the sleight of his arms and legs.

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, the great 15th century Italian philosopher, wrote in the Oration on the Dignity of Man, that (Prophet) Mohammed was known frequently to say that the man who deserted the divine law became a brute. Mirandola said that man was an intermediary between the gods above him and all creatures beneath him. The acuteness of his senses, the inquiry of his reason and the light of his intelligence set man midway between the flux of time and the timeless unchanging.

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Are you then so much human as the power of your arms and legs? Or, are you so much human as the power of your minds and heads? Franklin Delano Roosevelt lifted his country from the wheelchair, while a paraplegic named Larry Flynt, publisher of Hustler magazine, turned pornography into a state contention. Both had their mouths and hands to make up for invalid legs. But Superman-famed actor Christopher Reeve is paralysed neck down, and he is only able to think and talk.

Minds and heads are important, but sheer talking would become mere lip service if your arms and legs do not act. Empedocles teaches us that there is in our souls a dual nature. One bears us upward toward the heaven, while another drags us downward toward infernal regions. But you need your arms and legs to ascend or descend, because thoughts are not vice or virtue unless translated into actions.

If you think of a man without his limbs, think of a fish without fins and flippers. Mirandola suggests that it was not the bark that made the tree, but its insensitive and unresponsive nature. It is not the hide, he wrote, which made the beast of burden, but its brute and sensual soul. And it was not the orbicular form, which makes the heavens, but their harmonious order. Finally, it is not freedom from a body, he concluded, but its spiritual intelligence, which made the angel.

But the whole thing is different for man. Even the most sensitive and intelligent man cannot work without his limbs, even though he can feel and think, which does not always make sense. Pythagoras, that wisest of men, warned us that we must avoid at all cost to make water facing the sun, or to cut our nails while offering sacrifice. Do these thoughts mean anything to us? Do these thoughts mean anything at all?

Your hands are important, because you may fold them in humility, again fanning them out to hurt someone. Your hands beg, your hands offer, they give, take, snatch, scratch, fondle, caress, touch, torment, squeeze, serve, steal, flourish, hang, write, paint, fight, decorate, destroy, unite, separate, hold and release. Your legs are important as well. You walk with your legs, you run with them, you march, take steps, escape, dance, leap, tiptoe, kick, jump, sit, stand, cross, squat, straddle, stagger, hopscotch, trot, straggle, skip, and bounce.

You need both arms and legs to make love, play sports, climb, crawl, wrestle, exercise, lead revolutions, and fight a duel. But arms and legs can be at odds unless they are on the same person. We have recently seen the picture of a victim, who died in the hands of self-proclaimed vigilantes and was hung upside down from a tree by his legs.

Relationships of people are often defined by the way they use their legs and arms. When two hands shake, what is obvious is that it is a gesture of goodwill. When two legs cross, one man is surely trying to trip the other. If one's hand touches another's feet, it's the sign of respect. But then the same hand grabs another man's leg, asking for mercy. If two people embrace, their hands wrapped around each other, it mostly shows goodwill between them. Make no mistake, when two men throw their legs at each other they are definitely fighting. Do not forget, a slap in the face, or a kick in ass, are still two of the worst kind of insults in the world.

The reason why more emphasis has been laid on the head and the heart of man is because we have taken his arms and legs for granted. Psychologists say that those who are crippled often go through mental disorder, because they try to lash out angrily at the rest of the world. They are often inclined to commit brutal acts of murder and harm, in order to take revenge on their fates by bringing woes and miseries to others.

If you take this life as a journey and your body as the vehicle, think of a car without its tires. Its engine will roar, but it will not run, perhaps, spin, crawl, clamber, and make a lot of noise. Anton Chekov, the Russian writer, wrote in The Lady with the Little Dog that everything in the world was really beautiful, everything but our own thoughts and actions when we lose sight of the higher aims of existence and our dignity as human beings.

Your thoughts do not count until you have gone into actions. And you cannot go into actions unless your arms and legs propel your thoughts into motions. While there is no denying that minds and heads are sources of thoughts, these thoughts also drive your limbs like a motor runs an engine. How you use your arms and legs is also the manifestation of what you think. It works like the three organs of government. Your head is the legislature, your mind is the judiciary and your arms and legs perform the executive functions.

The naked men in the Iraqi prison are glaring examples of how human beings are reduced into blocks in a pyramid of flesh. Those prisoners still had their minds and heads, but their hands and legs were tied. The world saw them and felt more sympathy than respect, because dignity of man is like a bird in flight, which falls down when the wings are clipped.

Mohammad Badrul Ahsan is a banker.