Tendring Topics……on line
Greek mythology has it that when Pandora opened the forbidden box (rather as, in Hebrew
mythology, Eve ate the forbidden fruit) all the evils of the world escaped to
plague mankind – greed, cruelty, hatred, death, famine and disease. Right at the end, when the box had seemed to
be empty, came hope – and, in the face of every disaster, hope has remained
with humankind ever since.
The
Middle East and in particular Syria
has had a surfeit of all those evils during the past two years. Armed rebellion against the regime of
President Assad, and the resistance to it of forces loyal to the President,
have brought death and destruction on an unprecedented scale to that unhappy
country. Thousands have been killed or
mutilated, thousands more – refugees from death and violence - have been
rendered homeless and have sought shelter either in their own or neighbouring
countries. The situation has been made
worse by foreign interference. Britain , France
and the USA have joined Saudi Arabia and other Arabian Peninsula states
(unlikely champions of freedom, tolerance and democracy!) in supporting the
rebels, while Russia and Iran
support the Syrian government. Surely
non-one can possibly imagine that ‘victory’ for either side can justify the
carnage and destruction of this Civil War made even worse by the use of
chemical weapon attacks, for which both sides claim their opponents were
responsible.
The
glimmer of hope appeared when, after a particularly appalling chemical weapons
attack the USA ,
convinced that the Syrian Government had been responsible, threatened missile strikes
on government targets. The Syrian Government
declared that they were not responsible for that outrage, but that they were
prepared to surrender all their
chemical weapons to the United Nations for destruction. There was considerable scepticism in London and Washington
about the genuineness of this offer – and anger from the rebels and their Arab
(Sunni Muslim) allies who had hoped that missile strikes from the U.S. would give
them a decisive advantage.
But,
confounding the sceptics, the Syrian government has given the United Nations’
inspectors all the access they demanded, and destruction of these dreadful
weapons has begun. The civil war with conventional
weapons (and heaven knows they are terrible enough!) rages on, but the Russian
Government is urging that both sides should be brought together at a Peace
Conference to be held in November.
There
surely lies at least the hope of peace.
I have little doubt that the Russian Government will be able to coerce
the Syrian Government into attending the Conference prepared to compromise, but
will the rebels be ready to do the same?
They consist of a number of quite separate groups sometimes (so it is
reported) fighting among themselves and with quite different objectives. Those
enjoying the support of ‘the west’ believe they are fighting for a new
democratic and tolerant secular state in which Sunni and Shia Muslims will live
at peace with each other and with Christians.
It seems quite likely that they
would be prepared to compromise to reach agreement with the Government in
the interest of peace and reconciliation.
How about the fervent jihadists, some of them members or supporters of Al Qaida? They are determined to turn
They may be in
a minority among the rebels but I fear that because of their determination,
their conviction that God is on their side, and their willingness to die (and
to kill!) for their cause, their will is likely to prevail. I wish I could imagine them reaching a
compromise agreement with the Syrian government – and keeping it!
We can only
hope – and pray. The God revealed to us
in Jesus Christ loves all his human children – Christians, Jews, Hindus,
Muslims, Buddhists; even those who deny his existence. I believe though that there may be just one
human action, the ultimate blasphemy, that always provokes God’s wrath.
That is deliberately harming a fellow human being – and claiming that it
is being done in his service!
‘Dear Lord and Father of mankind, forgive our
foolish ways’
John
Greenleaf Whittier, 19th Century American Poet and Quaker
A 21st Century Heroine
Mention
of Pakistani teenager Malala above reminded me of the thought-provoking
Panorama programme on BBC tv on Monday evening 7th October, in which
she and her family were interviewed about the attempted assassination that
brought her to the front pages of the world’s press – and, thanks to British
surgery, her almost miraculous recovery.
I
presume that English is not Malala’s first language yet this unassuming
sixteen-year-old spoke fluently and eloquently in English of her campaign, in
defiance of death threats, to be educated herself and to achieve education for
girls world-wide. To silence her, a
Taliban assassin had boarded a school bus and shot her twice in the head. Thanks to the fact that she had been
immediately rushed to her local hospital and thence to Britain for
extensive surgery she had lived to tell the tale. Now, with the full support of her family, she is determined to continue her campaign for girls to have the same right as boys to a proper education.
What a
contrast between this Pakistani teenager who fought, and is fighting, against
tremendous odds, for education for herself and others and the many British children
who have to be bribed (sorry ‘offered incentives’) to get to school regularly,
who do not value education for themselves and who, by disruptive behaviour, do
their best to deny it to others!
Just the day
after that Panorama programme we learned that a world-wide survey of standards
of literacy and numeracy among young people between the ages of 16 and 24 had
revealed that British young people within that age-group had come near the
bottom! How sad it is that oldies like
me are not greatly surprised.
A Glad Farewell to Party Conferences
I
am glad that the political party conferences are over. I find listening to top politicians,
whichever party they support, is a depressing experience. One regular blog
reader who emailed me after the Conservative Conference seemed even more angry
than I was – perhaps he had paid more attention than me!
‘I really don’t think
even Mrs Thatcher so skilfully turned public opinion against one minority after
another, blaming each for our economic woes.
It has been the migrants, the not-so-disabled, the subsidised
tenants, the ones with subsidised bedrooms, and now the 200,000 ‘life style
choice’ claimants who have been unemployed for more than 2 years. And each pronouncement has been lapped up by a willing public
and press eager to find someone else to blame. No attempt to explain how
any of these issues could possibly have caused the economic crisis. It is really easy to see how easily Hitler
was able to use the same tactics to turn a nation against the Jews! And there were the pre-conference
announcements that “we don’t need to be at the forefront of green energy, and
it is adding too much to fuel bills and – we are minded to block all future
land wind farms” (which are actually the cheapest form of green energy), on the
very day that the worlds scientific community warned of the consequences of
climate change.
I felt that
the Conferences of all three main parties reinforced my conviction that they
really all have the same policy – to get
elected at all costs and to remain in office as long as they can persuade a
gullible electorate to let them. Gone are the days of conviction politics –
when political parties had fairly clearly defined final objectives and devoted
their efforts to persuading the public that those objectives were desirable and attainable,
and that they were the ones who could
achieve them. Nowadays not even the Mail and the Express ever refer to the Labour Party as Socialists. Nor can the
Conservatives claim to be ‘conservative’. Mrs Thatcher’s governments made more
revolutionary changes to the British way of life than any of her predecessors
or successors. It was under her
governments that we lost our manufacturing base and became reliant on ‘service
industries’ (money lending, share juggling and the like), and the policy of
wholesale privatisation began. Our efforts were to become directed towards satisfying
the shareholders rather than serving the public.
An exception
is sadly the one Party whose policies I believe to be totally mischievous and,
if they were implemented, disastrous. UKIP has one principal aim; to get the UK out of the
European Union. It is obvious to me that
the United Kingdom ,
on its own, cannot hope to compete or to co-operate effectively with other
world political or economic blocs. As an
active part of a more closely integrated European Union we could do either or
both. Europe
is the biggest recipient of our exports.
We are Europeans –
geographically, historically and culturally. Of course the EU is imperfect – but its
imperfections are largely due to the determination of individual states to
pursue their own short-term interests rather than those of Europe
as a whole. The EU is not some alien and
hostile state. We are an important part of it. We
have helped to create it and make it what it is. We, if we summon the will to
do so, can perfect it. For all our sakes
I pray that we will not fall for the Neo-Fascist nationalist charms of Nigel
Farage and his disciples. Their
policies, including that of a rapid exit from Europe ,
are simply those of the ‘raving right’ of the Conservative Party. If that is really what we want, I am glad
that at 92 I am unlikely to have to live under the UKIP/Conservative coalition
government that I can see on the not-so-distant horizon..
.
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