Why?

I consider myself as “white” in that my ancestors all came from Europe and my skin colour is lighter than that of “people of colour”. And I recognize that in many ways this has allowed me privileges not given to those who skin colour differs from mine. Likewise I speak the only language I know – “English”! Furthermore my heritage and inherited customs are also “English”.  

But does this make me “better” than those with a skin colour that differs from mine?; or “better” than those who worship God in a manner different from the way I do?; or “better” than those who speak a different language – even two or more languages?; or “better” than those with different customs and a different heritage?

Surely, surely we can move on, beyond such puerile thoughts and beliefs?

We need diversity; we need the “differences” – these things give us a focus rather than just navel gazing. A lack of “difference” in a group or society often brings out the worst in people and the resultant “mob” formation may have disastrous consequences. One just has to witness the frenzied mobs at recent political rallies or at football matches in England and Europe, or the extreme neo-Nazis or any extreme religious group to understand the effects that may influence much larger populations. 

Should such extremes enter main-stream society then confusion and a breakdown of law and order is inevitable. This has unfortunately been witnessed too often in the 20^thCentury. Apart from the horrendous massacre of about 6 million European Jews by the Nazis (1933-1945), there was the awful Pol Pot (1975-79) in Cambodia whose henchmen killed an estimated 2 million people. Then there was the deranged Idi Amin, the Ugandan president in the 1970s under whose rule about ½ million people died. Also never forget the “ethic cleansing” in the 1990s in what was Yugoslavia and the similar, current,  “cleansing” of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar and the present day “re-education” of a million Uyghur Muslims in China. The list is almost endless. 

And why? In the name of all that is wonderful – why?

I know this sort of thing has been going on for centuries but can’t we learn anything from the past? 

Rene Girard, in his book “The Scapegoat” states that a Portuguese monk, Fco de Santa Maria wrote that, “As soon as this violent and tempestuous spark is lit in a kingdom or republic, magistrates are bewildered, people are terrified, the government is thrown into disarray….. All the laws of love and nature are drowned or forgotten in the midst of horrors of great confusion; children are suddenly separated from parents, wives from their husbands, brothers and friends from each other….” 

That was written in 1697! What has changed?

Here is a quote from a speech by Frederick Douglass (African American, a former slave, social reformer, orator and statesman) on the 24^thanniversary of emancipation, Washington, DC, 1886, which has great relevance today:- 

“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails and where any one class is made to feel that society is in an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.” 

Then there is the famous warning by John Donne the 17^thCentury sermonist and poet who wrote, “… any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

Maybe we should all bear this in mind?

Totally alone.

Now that I have experienced “aloneness” for the 14 months since my wife died I have a deeper understanding of the devastating effects that losing one’s home, possessions, country, and for children, their caregivers, must have.

When I read, see and listen about the human tragedy that is unfolding in the Middle East and North and East Africa I have some difficulty in comprehending the enormity of the devastation and the inhumanity of it all.

My imagination fails me when I try to put myself in the place of a child (particularly a girl) lost with no one to turn to for the normal care that would be expected. Having to scavenge for food, shelter, clothing and for just the basic necessities to live, must be absolutely traumatic. 

Add to all this the dawning realization the child must accept and the gnawing fear experienced, that there is no “family” to provide that most basic of human needs, nurture – Love.

To be in such a situation is almost incomprehensible. Not to have the emotional support or nurture that is so necessary for any child’s development is beyond belief. Not to ever get a hug or a kiss.

The long term effects will be etched on the child’s psyche and affect how they react to others and the World in general for the rest of their life – where ever that happens to be.

And we – the people of this world  - are the cause. Why? A “belief” that I am better than you? A belief that my “God” is better than your “God”?  A belief that money is the only important thing?

While I, as a mature adult, have my adult children to support (for their loss of a mother) they in turn support me. This is as it should be. We are, as human beings, social animals and are “wired” to support each other.

As the English poet and sermonist John Dunne wrote in the 1600s:-

“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

- Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind -.

Indeed!

Distant Death - effects of UAVs or Drones

Amended: 29 September 2019.
There has been recent research into the "moral dissonance" and "sniper syndrome" experienced by pilots of UAV or drone aircraft.

Amended: 8 Dec 2015:
Both the US military and the UK military are now finding that the stress of piloting a UAV (drone) is such that many pilots are "burning out" and suffering psychological problems.

I originally wrote this in 2012 - so while I may have been slightly "ahead" regarding this matter, to me it is a "no brainer" for the following reasons:-

I wonder what it must be like sitting in a chair in front of a large computer screen handling the controls of a Predator drone unmanned aircraft flying 12000 km away? I wonder especially how I would feel at the moment I saw a “target” individual appear on the screen and was authorised to press the “fire’ button sending a missile to destroy that target person? I wonder how I would feel after I witnessed the resulting explosion, knowing that the target individual was now dead or at least very seriously injured? I wonder how I would feel when I went home that night and spoke to my wife and children knowing that, through my actions, I had denied someone the ability to do the very things that I was doing?

Would I be glad that I had rid the Earth of a bad person? Would I be jubilant I had struck a blow for peace? Would I be aware of the irony in what I had done? Would I be interested in hearing the reasons why the person I have just killed – from my desk 12000 km distant – was deemed by my superiors to be a worthy target? Would I care that he had a family and that he loved his wife and children – and that they loved him? Would I care that some injustice, actual or perceived, suffered by this person was blamed on the “Great Satan” America. Would I be interested in hearing that this injustice (actual or perceived) had so affected him that he tried to redress the affects of the injustice in the only effective way he knew – violence against “The West”?

What would I have done differently if I had actually been on the ground seeking this individual? What would have done if I actually confronted him? What would I have done in the heat of the moment amid the flies and dust and heat and the smell of perspiration and fear – his and my own? What would I have done when I saw the expression in his eyes – the surprise; or the determination to kill or be killed; or the fear or pleading for life? What would I have done if I noticed he was unarmed?

In these circumstances would I be chivalrous and ask him to surrender? In these circumstances would I shoot first and damn the consequences?

Maybe, if I was still at my desk, I would compare notes with those at other controls at other desks flying other drones. Maybe I would be competitive and strive to “shoot and outscore” the others. Maybe, just maybe, I might experience a pang of guilt that someone I never knew, but was instructed to kill, died as a result of my actions; someone I knew only from a foreshortened aerial image taken from an altitude of 10 000 metres some 12 000 km from my computer screen.

Surely everyone has a right to live? Who am I to judge otherwise? Who are those unworthy of life? Am I? I wonder.

I wonder too, if at any stage of my day, the sentiments expressed by the famous lines written by John Donne, (1572 – 1631) would cross my mind:

“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

I just wonder at the psychological effects this distant death may have if I had to do this day after day? I wonder.