Abandoned?
The world has embarked on a grand new adventure, surging with great hope into the still-new promise of a new millennium. So much was accomplished in the thousand years preceding, let alone the technological advances in the preceding decades. Humankind has the potential as never before to feed itself, house itself, medicate and treat itself as well as recognize our debt to the environment which surrounds us and reach a balance in what we can extract from it and degrade it beyond its tolerances.We've soared above our own atmosphere into the great beyond, set foot on the moon, deployed intelligent mechanical devices to explore the surface of sister-planets and have delved into the seas to discover heat beyond belief near the earth's core along with the unbelievable life forms which thrive there. Discovered too that primitive forms of life flourish in icy climates never believed to host living creatures.
Our scientific communities are mapping our genetic DNA in a manner never believed possible, opening up all kinds of potential for better understanding our bodily structures and those of other animals with whom we share this thriving experiment in endurance, stability and survival. Mankind's eager, creative mind is busy unravelling the mysteries of nature and our very existence.
Yet the greatest mystery of all remains before us, unrecognized, unrealized, unknown. The human mind, the human soul, what it is that compels us to behave as we do, why it is that we lose sight of conscious intelligence and become submerged in those very emotions which have the potential to destroy us - on auto-pilot, incapable of regulating our primitive impulses, unwilling to turn darkness into light.
History has been witness to many spine-chilling occurrences of inter- and intra-tribal bloodlettings where humankind has unleashed ancient bloodlusts one against the other, leaving unspeakable carnage in their wake. We've seen manaical dictators come to power, bludgeoning their populace into acceptance of their reign, accepting the inevitability of murderous conquests against others.
From Hitler to Stalin to Mao, the world has watched as millions upon millions of people lost their lives through starvation, mass deprivation, disease, and deliberately planned and executed mass murder. These events go well beyond the usual wars unleashed by one country against another throughout history. These deviously inhumane acts were carried out over lengthy periods of time for the purpose of satisfying the whims and perceived needs of brutal dictators and their brutal regimes.
After the liberation of the death camps throughout Europe post World War II, the nauseated world claimed it would never againt turn its collective head away from the unpleasant need to directly address and counteract the deliberate intent to obliterate from the human record a group of people sharing a culture, history, tradition, religion, ethos setting them apart from others.
One can only imagine that the world has grown weary of standing on guard, of its self-imposed rigor in ensuring that mass harm no longer comes to specific groups of people, so readily identified by obviously identifiable characteristics manifest in their nationhood. We have become so inured of late to the ongoing pursuit of power, prestige and wealth by one group or another, one country or another, that the tedium of expressing outrage is barely evinced.
The United Nations - that body set up for the purpose of universal representation of the good that resides in mankind; to express its collective determination to ensure that all the representative nations were are deserving of protection from aggression; to ensure the encouragement of development for all to join the ranks of progressive nation-states, able to offer security and prosperity to their populations - has been hard put to do its duty.
That same body that seems now to have adopted the attitude that "countries will be countries" and they need to straighten themselves out, and will with maturity learn to get along with their neighbours. And then there's the ugly child in the family, the one whose parents and siblings deride it and penalize and torment it for it is different from the others. What parent stands by while one of its charges is threatened with death by the others and does nothing?
How is it possible that a country like Iran under the iron fist of its hard-line Ayatollahs, its frenetically-fascist president can utter threats of annihilation against the State of Israel, and suffer what amounts to mild rebukes from "outraged" UN member states, and nothing more.
How is it possible that a country like Iran can consistently defy the unease of neighbouring countries along with the UN's elder-statesmen oversight countries regarding its drive to achieve nuclear armaments without the type of censure required which would lead to cessation?
How is it possible that a country like Iran can take upon itself to make a mockery of the single most devastating undertaking to destroy an entire people and raise what amounts to a disengaged yawn from the world community?
Yes,there are disparate condemnations, from the United States, from Great Britain, members of the European Union, Canada, the Pope, all of whom state unequivocally their hostile distaste for the shameful display of historical revisionism, blatant anti-Semitism.
There are single, lonely voices calling out for condemnation and direct action to hold president Ahmedinejad to account in an international court of law, like that of outgoing U.S. Ambassador to the UN John Bolton, like former Canadian Cabinet Minister Irwin Cotler.
While the world community rose as one to condemn (in fear and trepidation) the publication of Danish cartoons held by Muslims to be insulting to Islam and the Prophet Muhammad, the world community now seems hushed and quiescent in the face of attacks against Israel, against the memory of millions who perished under the Nazi plan of mass extermination.
A kind of mass extermination, just incidentally, more than hinted at by Ahmedinejad and his accomplices, by Iran's and Syria's proxy armies of terrorists like Hezbollah and Hamas. Where is the united voice of humanity's outrage?
Israel stands alone, bereft of firm support in her determination to surmount this indignity to the memory of the very same number of Jews which now represent the total population of this country.
Little wonder she feels abandoned.
posted by Pieface @ Friday, December 15, 2006
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