Injustice at root of Mumbai terror

Two things get up my nose. One is cruelty in any guise and the other is injustice. Nothing hurts like injustice. Nothing rankles like injustice. It sears into the soul and will fester – for generations. Yet nothing is so unnecessary as injustice (and also intolerance, which is the flip side of injustice).

What gives you (or anyone for that matter) the right to think, or believe that you are better than anyone else? That your religious beliefs are better? That you believe, because you were born into money, or born with a name held, historically, in high esteem, that you belong to a ‘privileged’ class and are therefore ‘worth’ more (as a human being) than me? How dare you! What right have you to assume such things? The thing is that you will most probably have never thought about why you think the way you do, or hold the beliefs you do.

In most cases you have chosen to accept someone else’s decisions. A Mullah in some religious school somewhere says that a particular verse of the Koran must be interpreted in a particular way – that all ‘non-believers’ must be killed. Your parents tell you, as a child, not to play with that ruffian crowd across the road, because their grand-father did something very bad to your grand-father. You are brought up with the belief that coloured people are ‘different’ and therefore to be avoided – that they are not of your class. As a Palestinian you are told that all Jews are bad – just look at what they have done in Palestine; that Americans are bad because they are helping the Jews. As a Jew you are told that Palestinians want to obliterate Israel.

More often than not you have accepted the decision of someone who came before and who, presumably, must know better. Otherwise why accept their decision? Very few of the judgements you make on a daily basis, about what is “right” or “wrong” are made by you, based on your true understanding of the situation as presented. It often seems that the more important the decision, the less likely you are to use your own thoughts and ideas, based on your own experiences. Just doing what others tell you to do will not got you very far – in fact it will most probably get you into a great deal of trouble!

We cannot view the world as others see it. They have had their experiences of life which have influenced their views on all sorts of matters, and you have your views based on your experiences. I will stick my neck out here and say that injustice is the major influence in most of the problems besetting the World at this time.
The latest terrorist attack on Mumbai, with some two hundred killed and many hundreds injured, as tragic as it is just emphasises my case against injustice. Muslims in India, since the partition in 1947, have been treated abominably, in many cases worse than the ‘untouchables’ (the lowest caste in India). Why?
Disadvantaged people will align themselves with anyone who can show them some hope. Why wouldn’t they? I would.

If young Muslim hot heads are told – brainwashed into believing – that American and British people are anti-Muslim (after all the British gave Palestine to the Jews after World War II and the Americans help Jews), then in any attack you are going to single them out, with any Jews, for special treatment, as apparently happened in Mumbai.

Now I do not for a moment condone any action which leads to the death or injury of innocent people. I am just trying to understand why it happened and to suggest a course of action, a change in mind set which may prevent such events happening again.

Education is what is needed - to give these young hot heads (Muslim, Jew, Hindu, whatever) some idea of the opportunities that await them – if only they would think for themselves. To conform with what some Mullah, Rabbi, teacher, or elder says, means to go with the rest. But to go with the rest means to lose your identity. By conforming with what others consider normal behaviour you give up a great deal, and risk becoming a dumbed down version of who you really are. It means approval by others to be part of the ‘team’. It means being considered as one of the ‘boys’ or ‘girls’. It means being led by others; to do what the majority do; to think the way the majority think, whether or not this is a comfortable situation. Behaviour is adjusted to the accepted needs of the group, or other person or persons in the pursuit of a common aim or aims.

We now come to the nub of the issue of injustice which is ethics. To be ethical you must always remember two things:
(1) to always treat others as you would like to be treated, and
(2) to ask yourself, “if EVERYONE did what you are doing (or propose to do) would the world be a better place”?

There is no other viable option. We are all members of the species Homo Sapiens (reasoning man). Use that reason; use the innate ability to think for yourself. And for those leaders and people of influence, for God’s sake don’t just think short term, don’t just think for today; think for the future – what sort of a world would you choose to leave as a legacy for those who will come after you?

This leads on to the fact that most have forgotten, or never been told, that there is an unwritten law of Cause and Effect. No one can know the full effects of a cause (some word, action or task), but of a certainty there will be an effect, on someone or something, somehow, somewhere and at sometime, and it will always affect you. We have no means of knowing the ultimate outcome. People try to control one thread without knowing the pattern, which is not very clever and can cause a great deal of injustice with severe long term effects.

Pain

Pain has the effect of concentrating the mind in no uncertain fashion. It has the tendency to make one very self-centred. The rest of the world can go hang – nothing matters except the pain. And I do not just mean physical pain – emotional pain has the same effect. The strange thing about the pain is that it is not until it subsides or is alleviated that this effect is recognised. Pain is a warning that the body (for physical pain), or mind (emotional pain), is in some sort of trouble. In my case it is the physical pain brought about by my knee operation.
Generally I have plenty of thoughts about all sorts of topics for me to write about. I have never found myself short of words, as it were, that is until now. There is still no shortage of things to write about and comment on, but I feel tired and couldn’t be bothered – “I will do it tomorrow” sort of thing.
Energy, then sleep, then eat, then sleep, then energy, seems to be the cycle. Very odd. It has taken me nearly two days to write this little piece! Now I feel tired again. See you later.

Modern piracy

There are many instances of sad and failed States in the world. Somalia is one of them. While I certainly do not condone piracy and the hijacking of ships the Arab countries and the West (particularly Britain, Italy and the USA) have to look at their records in the area and remember the old adage, “You reap what you sow”. Much of the poverty and lawlessness in Somalia is because of previous injustice. I know that the Italians (before the Second World War) treated the Somalis in an appalling manner; Britain’s treatment of ‘their’ subjects (until 1960) would have been more humane – but still typically colonialist. The Arabs generally have ignored a major humanitarian crisis on the doorstep, as it were.
So now a desperately poor nation has some of its citizens resorting to piracy to live. Not a good idea as this will bring the wrath of the wealthier countries down upon their heads in no uncertain fashion.
But what can the West and the affected Arab nations (i.e. Saudi Arabia) do about the pirates (seems strange to be writing about pirates in the 21st century)? In my view it needs a four pronged approach:
1. Immediately set up a joint naval task force to seek out and attack any pirate vessels in the area. Not an easy task but necessary to protect ships using the trade route, unsettle the pirates and keep them guessing.
2. Use ‘Q’ ships as bait. ‘Q’ ships were used with some success by the Royal Navy in the past. These are seemingly innocent merchant ships travelling lawfully on the ocean, but in actual fact are heavily armed converted ships. Once the pirates appear the ‘Q’ship pretends to panic so as to entice the pirate's ship (or ships) closer, then specially designed deck cargo containers etc, are hydraulically dismantled to expose sophisticated weaponry, which are then used to destroy the pirate vessel now at point blank range.
3. Use unmanned, armed drone surveillance aircraft to monitor the ships in the area. These would report any suspicious vessels and attack them if necessary.
4. Use diplomacy to encourage trade, education, literacy, modern health facilities and law and order in Somalia. This would have to come under the United Nations as I do not believe the Somalis would welcome ‘interference’ by any individual Western country.
It will take many years and a lot of money to restore Somalia to some sort of normality but it is the only way piracy will be reduced. It will never be eliminated entirely as there are always criminal elements involved somewhere down the line.
Unless we do something the problem will only get worse and we will all suffer because of higher shipping prices (which is all the world needs at this time!). But it requires a unified approach – individual nations doing their own thing in a piece-meal manner is not going to solve the problem.

Being back

Will someone remind me why we have such things as a computer virus? What is the point? This one cost me both time and money to clean up. What has been achieved and by whom? Some nerds somewhere in darkened rooms devise these programmes to both damage computers and irritate the hell out of innocent users. The mind boggles at the mentality of such people.
The whole computer had to be cleaned up so I am slowly re-activating, upgrading and generally finding out what is missing, just to satisfy some idiot’s ego! Hah!
I believe that I have now sorted out my problems and all seems to be going well.

I'm back

I am back. I have some issues with both my computer and my health, so as soon as one or the other gets better I will be up to speed and commenting on all and sundry. The computer is the worst issue - I lost over a week because of a virus attack and the fact that the people who 'repaired' my computer caused me more grief that you would ever believe.
Anyway thank you for your patience.

Off line for a while

All being well I will be off line for a week or so while I have a new, replacement, knee inserted. Whether I can use a lap-top in hospital - and whether I will be able to connect to some wireless broadband I have yet to find out.

As soon as I am able I will recommence my writing, which I must say I have thoroughly enjoyed. I enjoy reading the various comments - they give me an insight into what people think and this is good.

So hospital Monday 3rd November. See you later.

Is Judicial Killing right?

Why kill someone? What makes judicially sanctioned killing ‘better’ than normal (if that is the correct term) killing? What brought this to mind is the immanent execution of the people known as the Bali Bombers. No one can offer any excuse for the abominable deed that they carried out – killing over 200 innocent people – but does executing them help anyone?

Not having followed very closely the trial which led to the conviction and sentencing of these people I cannot comment on the detail. All I know is that they were motivated by religious conviction and believed that what they were doing was ‘right’. Right in that they would please Allah, because they were removing ‘unbelievers’ from the earth. Now being a relatively straight forward thinking man I find this difficult to understand – killing something God made will please Him?

This is where I tread on thin ice – religion and spirituality are not the same thing (vide priestly paedophilia). A religious person may well be very spiritual but just because one can recite the Koran or the Bible or the Bhagavad-Gita from memory does not make you a spiritual person. In my understanding a religious text gives guide lines for living a ‘good’ life. These texts are stepping stones to union with God, Allah, Vishnu, Krishna, the Absolute or whatever your name for God is. 

All these texts tell us that union with God is the purpose of Life – after all He made us for some purpose. But they all stress that followers need to actually live the way the texts show – not just to memorise them and then do something else. To do that is being hypocritical – “I believe in God, but I know better.”

To be religious is to follow the letter of the texts – this is the dogma. This is what various interpreters of the texts say it means. In other words you are told what to do – don’t think for yourself – just do as you are told. This sort of mentality is very common and leads to all sorts of problems and misery and unhappiness. Quite the reverse of what it is supposed to do.

This is why I say that religion and spirituality are not necessarily the same thing.

To be religious you follow a creed; without thought on your part, you just follow and do what you are told. This leads to differences – “My religion tells me that I am right and you are wrong.” This mentality gives rise to entrenched attitudes, to wars and death and destruction.

Spirituality in inclusive and unifies. Religion is exclusive and divides.

Spirituality is not dogmatic – there are no rules. Religion is dogmatic – there are rules.

Spirituality recognises that ALL life arose from the one source. Religion teaches differently.

Spirituality loves all sentient beings. Religion loves only those that follow the same texts.

Spirituality encourages thoughtful reflection. Religion does not.

Spirituality is Love. Religion espouses love but doesn’t always show it.

So, while I am desperately sorry for those that lost loved ones ( I lost my only brother in Zimbabwe – killed on his farm by armed insurgents). I am also sorry for the bombers. In their ignorance they thought they were doing the right thing – for their religion.

In this case everyone loses.