What to make of the world?

 What to make of the world.

You'd have thought that, after millions of years of civilisation, humanity might have got it right. Maybe in retrospect Eve should have chosen a different kind of fruit when Adam was given that famous apple. We should have known that there was trouble brewing even then but we failed to heed the warnings and now the world looks as though it's heading inexorably towards the land of evil, ruination and complete catastrophe.

This morning we awoke to conflicts in Paris, France, barbaric acid attacks on those people who were simply minding their own business and the USA sending back reprisal attacks on Iran after three soldiers were brutally killed just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. At any other time of the year this would have been considered as just another bad day in the office for mankind but these violations and abominations are now familiar, everyday occurrences and nobody bats an eye lid.

Of course we are not quite in hell in a handcart territory but it does seem at times that we've completely lost any kind of moral compass, remorse, self awareness and are now just resigned to a constant sequence of bloodthirsty murders, inhumane attacks on our civil liberties and war after war. In hindsight this has always been the case so why do we express surprise when thousands of people die day after day and are then stabbed to death repeatedly because they don't like you and this is the only recourse or option left open to us?

One day we may well fling open our curtains or blinds to another day and discover that this whole business of murdering and killing our fellow human being is futile and not worth the bother. The sight of US president Joe Biden standing next to his wife in a grievous state of mourning and loss for the death of three American soldiers is heavy with poignancy and we have seen all of this before so many times throughout the decades. 

For what now seems like an eternity innumerable political figures and leading heads of state have bowed their heads in shame at the despicable loss of life, the unprovoked assaults that have inevitably led to tear stained family funerals. If only they'd stopped bombing us much earlier on in the conflict the outcome could well have been completely different. When Tony Blair was Prime Minister there were the outrages of Afghanistan and Iraq to cope with and understand. So we just looked on with revulsion and just wished it would end as soon as possible.

Further back in time we saw a brave and defiant Margaret Thatcher wrestling desperately with the seemingly insoluble IRA troubles in Northern Ireland. The insufferable deaths, explosions, chronic religious divisions engendered by Protestant and Catholic communities, now feels like ancient history. But the Good Friday agreement eventually flourished beautifully like an early row of spring tulips and Blair eventually got all the deserved credit because he just happened to be Prime Minister at the time.

There were the savage fatalities inflicted in Kosovo and Bosnia during the early 1990s and you could go on but that would only be pouring fuel onto a festering wound. The hurt, endless pain and suffering and tragedy that war brings along with it can never be quantified, nor explained, even justified. We just keep falling into the dark cesspit of personal animosity and then feebly apologise every hundred years or so. And even then we retreat into our shell in shamefaced contrition because war with our neighbours seemed unavoidable.

We never seemed to ask any questions because those long held feuds and disagreements couldn't be settled through any other means. So they loaded up our ammunition, bullets, launched their bombs from different locations and strategic encampments and then turned the gun on the poor unsuspected innocents who just happened to be in the way and are injured fatally at times. Now from where the social and historical commentators stand this is quite the most horrific and painfully harrowing narrative that some of us have ever seen in our lifetimes.

Where are we now? There was Vietnam during the 1960s when thousands of American soldiers perished in the most gruesome, unbearably unnecessary and violent war of them all. The late, great Robin Williams portrayal of a local radio DJ emotionally and physically drawn into the killing fields and explosive battle grounds of Vietnam, is now a cinematic masterpiece. Then there was Tom Hanks extraordinarily brilliant depiction of a kid with severe learning and physical disabilities who emerges from childhood difficulties and then defies all the odds. Forest Gump was a wonderful metaphor for triumph in the face of adversity and none of us will ever forget this epic film.

But then we come back to the present day and try to rationalise with current day events? At times it almost feels as if the human race simply can't control all of that internal aggression that boils up inside us whenever we see injustice or inequality. So we rise up in revolt convinced that our territory has been invaded, lines have been crossed, boundaries broken and therefore we may be left with no alternative. But then we take a deep breath and consider the possibilities. We could exercise self restraint and discipline by holding back, taking stock for a while and just remember where we are.

And yet today it all seems so dreadfully inevitable. We switch on our TVs, radio and electronic screens and everything has an urgency and immediacy to it all, almost a shuddering finality to it. If it isn't a neighbourhood squabble or some vicious sex offender then it's an old warehouse set alight for insurance purposes. A young girl was senselessly murdered recently and the image is now very telling. The motive is beyond our comprehension and maybe we'll never know.

Suddenly the world's Press descended on a quiet street or road in suburbia, the police cordons have gone up, tents erected and a ghastly silence has fallen over Middle England. She was a sweet little girl, caring, kind, understanding, generous, considerate and sensitive. But nobody really cared about such wholesome qualities because somebody had a nasty grudge against her and just wanted some ridiculous revenge.

So here we are at the beginning of February and it may as well be any other month during the calendar year. The fact is that while the world keeps spinning, there will continue to be terrorists at loose and cold hearted and calculated criminals who will stop at nothing to maim, kill, destabilise, disrupt and play havoc with our ordered, serene lives. By the end of the day yet more casualties and loved ones will no longer be allowed to tell their life story because warped minds just had to attack them without thought, feeling or regard.

It is to be hoped and wished that one day that humans will come to senses and just keep the faith if only because even they may not know the reason why they believe. Of course we have our precious and loving families around us but the news agenda is incessantly negative, downbeat, almost programmed to shock, scare, upset and then leave us feeling devastated and heartbroken. It may be too much to expect anything less but some of us are optimistic enough to think that something good and positive may well happen within the next five minutes. 2024 has to be the year for the feelgood factor wherever you are and whatever you're doing. So come on world, it's time to put on a happy face and smile since there's no charge for it, as my lovely dad used to say.