From Mother’s Heartbeat to Bullet-Riddled Streets: Why Peaceful Protest is Hardwired in Human DNA. Born to Raise Our Voice: The Evolutionary Right to Protest and the Tragedy Unfolding in AJK - UKJNews

 

Science, anthropology, and psychology confirm what many cultures have long understood: these behaviours are not accidental but fundamental to human nature. While specific genes for “music” or “dance” do not exist in our DNA, the neurological and biological systems that make them possible are inherited and shaped from the womb.

The Mother’s Heartbeat: Our First Rhythm 

In the womb: 

• A fetus begins to hear around weeks 16–18 of pregnancy.

• The mother’s heartbeat (typically 60–80 beats per minute) becomes the constant, reassuring soundtrack of life.

• This primal auditory experience explains why humans across every culture instinctively respond to rhythmic beats. It evokes safety, comfort, and connection—the very first feeling we ever knew. 

Dance: Movement as Innate Language 

A mother’s daily movements—walking, bending, rocking—actively develop her baby’s sense of rhythm and balance: 

• Vestibular stimulation: The baby’s inner ear is constantly engaged.

• Rhythm and motion: The brain learns cadence, coordination, and equilibrium.

• After birth, this foundation manifests universally: rocking calms infants, dance expresses joy, and rhythmic movement builds social bonds and emotional regulation across all societies. 

Crying: Our First Voice and Survival Signal 

• Crying is a hardwired, evolutionary mechanism: Newborns cannot speak, feed themselves, or flee danger.

• DNA equips the infant brain to cry as an urgent alarm for hunger, pain, or distress.

• Simultaneously, the adult brain is wired to feel immediate discomfort at the sound of a baby’s cry, compelling caregivers to respond and protect.

In short: Long before birth, evolution pre-wires us for rhythm, movement, and communication. These are not cultural inventions—they are human nature. For years I have highlighted music and dance as essential expressions of our shared humanity. I now include peaceful protest in this same category: it is a natural extension of our innate drive to communicate needs, seek justice, and demand attention when basic rights are threatened. 

Peaceful Protest as Human Expression 

 

The right to peaceful protest is a fundamental human right. When peaceful assemblies—composed of men, women, children, the elderly, and people with disabilities—are met with bullets, deaths, and destruction, it crosses into tragedy. This pattern has been seen in Gaza and, more recently, in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK). 

 

In AJK, people from every corner of the region came out to protest peacefully and present their demands. They did not initiate clashes. According to eyewitness accounts and the sequence of events, protesters were holding sit-ins when they faced gunfire, after which some reacted in self-defense or anger. Yet much of the international media described it simply as “clashes between security forces and protesters,” which misrepresents the origin of the violence. 

These scenes reflect something deeper than politics: they show human beings exercising their pre-wired impulse to raise their voices when they feel unheard—much like a child’s cry, only on a collective scale. When that cry is answered with force instead of dialogue, it reveals a failure to honor our shared human nature.