Today's deep thoughts
I am petting my dogs with a strange but eager fervor today, I want to hug and feel their love seep into my seemingly tainted consciousness.
I fell into a restless slumber last night after reading and seeing ghastly short videos of young men being systematically slaughtered. In one clip their executioner was indifferently one by one shooting them in the head then pushing them over a blood stained step into a river. In another clip thirty or so young men were herded off the back of a truck like cattle into a field then unceremoniously machine gunned to the ground. Even after this mass murder other executioners rushed into the event proudly wanting to be seen machine gunning the already dead.
It brought back awful memories as a child what I saw on a TV documentary; wheel barrows full of dead emaciated people being tipped into huge open graves during the atrocities at the extermination camps in Germany. I remember crying like a baby afterwards followed by many nightmares. My mother ensured I never got to see late night TV again after that episode.
What is going on? Has the world gone completely insane?
I try to comfort myself, I have been mostly insulated from this kind of carnage. I constantly tell myself how fortunate it is that I have been brought up in the West, as it were. I can simply turn off the TV, close the paper even switch off my IPAD. Ah! Those people are all nuts anyway, what do I care. Let them murder each other until there is none remaining. Then I can at least turn on my TV in peace!
I don’t think I am alone with these callous thoughts if we were all to be brutally honest with ourselves.
Yesterday I spent trudging around Marineland Exhibition Park while Joan’s niece and kids enjoyed the many rides. It was a beautiful day everyone having fun and enjoying life. Smiling laughing kids without a care in the world only to get to the next ride and the ensuing thrill. I couldn't help noticing that I was definitely a minority; English speaking white male of the Caucasian race. Now you might already be thinking this is a blog about: what are these people doing in ‘OUR’ country. And that Kevin has gone to the other side! Nope not at all in fact probably the opposite. I feel quite proud that Canada; my home for many years is so cosmopolitan. We go so far trying to make foreigners (like myself) feel welcome and at home. Sometimes we have to remind ourselves that we are ALL of the same race; ‘human’. I lost count of the amount of turbans and brightly coloured sarongs. Somehow I do take offence to the women that have to wear a yashmak or niqab covering their faces and even to the guy who actually wore a curly sword on his hip.
I also noticed how few smiles were returned. It almost felt like, Oh oh he is a white male – the enemy! Most of the kids however that were out of their national dress seemed carefree just like any other kid. I wonder when it is that the dogma that is probably hammered in to them take effect and they have to become like their parents. And I am not only talking about turbans, I am talking about Amish and Jewish that are so obvious by their different dress or uniform but also the Catholics and whatever religion that is among us. Not one of these religions is without guilt of some atrocity or other against the other team or even their own.
Religion separates and divides, anyone that has studied history just a little knows that to defeat your enemy that is exactly what the leader’s first need to attain.
I certainly do not profess to be a conspiracy theorist there is a lot of silly stuff out there already. But while half of the world is committing genocide on a grand scale and terrorism has become a common by- word spread by presidents. The rich are becoming staggeringly richer, the multi billionaires of the famous one percent are now the multi, multi billionaires of the now point five percent. Basically there are a few people so extremely rich that it is beyond our imagination who are probably calling the shots. It is no doubt in any thinking mind that these people support both sides of any war. This happened in the Second World War in England by a few English gents while many brave men lost their lives. The facts are available to any one that can read. Vietnam was one president’s greed for power while many thousands of other brave men lost their lives.
I dearly love my freedom, I love the people that I have been in the good fortune to acquaint, you all know who you are. I love the fact that I can travel and see and feel others point of view, the world is such a wonderful and very different place. I have been gifted with many rewards not least my Daughter and Son and my wonderful grandchildren. I don’t want them killed by some idiot’s missile while flying. I don’t even want them to have to witness the atrocious videos I saw last night.
I am absolutely no different than any other father/grandfather. If I had to kill to save them, it goes without thinking, of course I would. I would probably have an enemy for life to someone who had harmed me and or my family. I would be a Jihadist call it what you like. A Catholic or Protestant on the streets of Belfast. And the wars would go on and on for eternity until the dried out and burnt crust of humanity was nothing but blowing dust.
I did two long military tours in the Middle East for Her Majesty’s Service on Naval ships. Thankfully it was in peacetime, I did however board suspected vessels of transporting arms. I was armed and saw the terror in the faces of the men on board. I have had guns pointed in my direction and I know the feeling very well. I don’t ever want to repeat either.
I witnessed the extremely rich Sheikhs driving by in their luxury limousines with the tinted glass windows, guarded by truck loads of soldiers. They were completely above ANY law and could pick any female at will, alcohol and drugs was for them the norm. Meanwhile the rest of the population almost starved and any minimal breach of law or religion was dealt with -- extremely.
I Fear that what I witnessed in Bahrain many years ago was a microcosm of what could become of our society should we allow it to happen.
Come on boy’s time for your walk, stay close now.
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