A Review of Aim: The Fight for Survival

“You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory. Victory at all costs -- victory in spite of all terrors -- victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival.” Sir Winston Churchill, Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat, May 13, 1940.

So I am asking you, what is your aim? I am not asking you about the means to the end, I am primarily concerned with the end for now.

                                                              
Sir Winston Churchill’s aim might be victory, going by his words, but no, it is not about victory, it is about survival.

For the everyday people, victory means to survive. The frequency of the fight for survival and the battle ground for such fights is what makes the difference between all of us, both great and small.

You may be whiter than Churchill, or darker than all ‘em Luther and Jacksons, you have your fight to fight.

Fight your own battle friend. Is it going to be a battle to win? If you must survive, yes.

What Winston fought for is altogether different from what you will fight for. What Rev. Luther King Jr. fought for is different from what you must fight for. I tell you, what I am fighting for is different from you are battling with or fighting for.

Those people from far away shores fought their battles and we are fighting ours, we may not be able to identify with their battle ground or use their artilleries, but we are united; though separated by time, color and creed we are still one in the fight for survival.

Survival for Churchill may mean victory, but victory for some of us might mean surrender. Victory or surrender if our aim is achieved, we survived.

Our aim is to survive at all cost and that cost may be a temporary defeat for a permanent victory.

If you must win, you should be able to define your aim. Winston Churchill could say his own in one word; you must be able to define yours too. Simply put, your goal of surviving should be definite.

I may not be able to promise you much, but this I can assure you my friend on a road that is not often frequented, “blood, toil, tears and sweat”.

Feeling down is not my usual terrain, but I have enough hold on the ambivalence of my mind to know that, man may (to put it mildly. It is often a must) suffer to survive.

I would have loved to tell you most assuredly that ‘toil, tears and sweat’ always turn out sweet. In a sense, ‘toil, tears and sweat’ does turn out sweet, but not always. Here, I talk about men like Martin Luther King Jr. and Ken Saro Wiwa. The difference between the two men is not much; they both survived but ‘toil, tears and sweat’ turned out sweet for the cause of the first, the latter? It turned out sour.

Since you cannot tell of the outcome if you fight the fight for your soul, sweet or sour, you may need to rise now and fight. But this is the outcome you and I can tell: if we do not fight, we are sure going down in defeat and in the end not going to be a survivor.

Without fighting in this battle (whatever yours is), there is no talking of victory or defeat, and without one or the other there shall be no survival.