(no subject)

A very congenial weekend in the end, involving booze, curry, BMW's, and large engineering and machining equipment. The former two were my idea, the latter two were Tom's idea (Tom being a similarly cynical bachelor, though with rather more need of shitty sticks than I).

Unfortunately, the downside of the above is that with 2:30am finishes Friday and last night, my brain is now not really up to the rigours of real life...

(no subject)

I find myself thinking much about Norman Kember at the moment, as we find ourselves in the terrible position of a story which, at a critical moment, goes absolutely silent and motionless (which is very rare in this modern news world). And also (and I know this isn't a good thing) the story has been brought much closer to me by knowing people who know him - the glass wall of the television screen is broken down by the realisation that in this case the voices you hear are those of people who you interact with, not merely observe.

I cannot find words to describe how I feel at the thought that a man of such manifest peace, and with such a desire to make a positive contribution to the world, could find himself in mortal danger from the very people he wishes to help, as a result of political decisions he deeply opposed. This is not an intellectual argument to be dissected, it is a profound difficulty in understanding the world I find myself in, and the guiding principles and/or hand by which it operates.

All I can say is this:

When the leading national newspaper can, in rejecting a man from a different faith and worldview, not consider his ideas and explain why they are unacceptable to our society, but instead make a joke about his missing hand and splash it in 72-point type across their front page, we create the world that these things happen in.

When the most powerful nation on Earth attempts to justify the use of torture by redefining it, and claims that causing physical harm in the pursuit of information is jusitifed, we create the world that these things happen in.

When people are taught not to think or to evaluate, but only to follow what their leaders say, and are shown that in our democratic society, their voices are of no consequence to those they have granted power to, we create the world that these things happen in.

We live in aworld that in many ways is more fragile than it has ever been. Conflicting worldviews interact with each other on a constant basis throughout the world now, and have powers of creation and destruction that their forebears could not dream of. If we are, as our leaders believe, "the good guys", then it is our job to make manifest the world that we believe is the result of our "goodness". And if that is a world where torture is now "enhanced interrogationm techniques", and where other cultures are first and foremost a threat, then we must urgently examine whether we have any right to tell anybody else how to live their lives.

The terrible, heartbreaking irony is, of course, that the finest ambassadors of the world we claim to represent (regardless of how you view religious faith) are men like Norman Kember.

Mahatma Gandhi spoke a profound and terrible truth when he said:

"An eye for an eye will make us all blind"

My only hope tonight is that the world, and whatever governs it, will deliver Mr Kember from the lion's den into which he was thrust, and into which he went in peace and charity.