In a World Gone Mad, Humanity is a Rare Commodity
The first rule of journalism in the Arabian Gulf is: Never offend anyone with too much truth. It’s simple enough to remember, but hard to apply. In those Arab countries still languishing under totalitarian rule of one kind or another, the rule is stricter still: Never report the truth unless it is the right kind of truth, the official version of the truth.
While in the Gulf most foreign journalists get kicked out of the country for ‘going too far’, in other less civil Middle Eastern locales, the offending journalist can be shot, bombed, garroted, or can simply go missing. Ultimately, there is little one man, or woman, or a group of men and women can do, no matter how righteous or brave they are. Regimes bolstered and supported by global powers over decades are as unyielding, as fixed in place, and as hard to ignore as the Ancient Pyramids.
One thinks that if the world is shown proof in living, moving color, blood and guts transmitted daily over the sacred internet and some television channels that show the brutality, that somehow a sense of urgency would compel the people of Earth to act. Sadly, we live in a far less than perfect world and people, like the leaders they elected, have other pressing priorities as their own countries creak under the burden of decades of uncontrolled, profligate borrowing and spending.
At one pole, the Eastern churches and the mysticism and ritual of Christian orthodoxy. In a world of Ipads and YouTube, a bright flame still issues from the tomb of Jesus Christ in the Holy Lands on one sacred Saturday each year, it is then carried by devout priests out to the awaiting throng, and onward to all corners of the globe, from oil lamp to candle to candle to lamp, the flame, like Jesus’ love for mankind, travels the world on the wings and prayers of the faithful. How powerful we are when we want to be! How empowered by God’s love and his grace upon us that the flame is never extinguished. And yet, for many children today, going hungry or huddling in makeshift shelters subjected to the cruelest bombardment, or those whose fathers languish in torture chambers across the Middle East, the flame of human kindness has long since been extinguished and darkness reigns.
At the other pole, American white hats, eager to paint the world in black for evil and white for good, and yet we see that the color that consumes their thoughts is green, for green backs. Shoot first, ask questions later, is a poor excuse of a foreign policy. It’s wasteful and squanders precious resources fighting every suspicious character in a turban. So much so in fact that when a real global showdown beckons Uncle Sam is so skint he has to go hunt down cross-border US tax evaders and raid offshore nest eggs to fund a bloated and ineffectual government that today presides over the highest rate of illiteracy in the western world. Do we really expect the United States to come to anyone’s rescue? Pretty soon, out of sheer pity, Arabs may send over a few emergency care packages to feed the scores of homeless families living on American streets. Not gold-paved streets anymore!
If one where to ask oneself, how many small Turban-fueled wars has the US lost over the past two decades, or had to pull out from, or is still involved in, the list would include: Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, maybe even Pakistan at some point! No missions accomplished, only cash squandered and thousands of lives lost on both sides. By contrast, the last fiasco the Russians were involved in that bled them dry was Afghanistan back in the 1980s. Since then, the Russians have learned to be quick and brutal and attack the source of a problem, not allowing little things like right or wrong, decency and respect for human life, to get in their way. They even found an effective way to silence bleeding heart journalists who ‘protest too much’.
Yes, the Russian political machine is steered by assholes, but they are effective assholes, and after all our world is populated with assholes, everyone of who thinks they are right and everyone who is ready to carry an AK-47 and start shooting in the air and call themselves revolutionaries and heroes. I suggest they stick to Facebook, it’s safer.
This is a world carved out in the Devil’s own image, it’s full of temptation and injustice and opportunities for revenge, why must we be offended by a little show of state sponsored brutality here and there? We are offended simply because we are unused to too much truth. Blue pill or red pill, which one will you take: Dream world of light hearted frivolity, or real world of heartache and injustice? The choice is yours!
But in the Arab World we are adept are creating our own fantasy world and populating it with pseudo truth, much like the erstwhile Iraqi information minister under Saddam Hussein, who seemed intent on holding the Americans back single handed with his brave words and smashing olive green uniform. I am absolutely sure the propagandists out there screaming at a radio or TV host at the top of their lungs in defense of an indefensible argument are actually convinced they are right and that a global conspiracy is afoot to destroy their perfect little dream world.
Those I despise most of all are the political ‘cheerleaders’ who sit on the sidelines, those who cheer one group of dissidents in one country while they curse another group in the other country because it is politically expedient to do so. And then there are those who sow fear and fuel sectarian suspicions and mistrust to achieve a political end. In brief, I find I prefer the company of my cat, she is constant and unchanging, loving and devoted to the food I supply and the love I give her, she is far better than all of mankind put together and all their bullshit.
While in the Gulf most foreign journalists get kicked out of the country for ‘going too far’, in other less civil Middle Eastern locales, the offending journalist can be shot, bombed, garroted, or can simply go missing. Ultimately, there is little one man, or woman, or a group of men and women can do, no matter how righteous or brave they are. Regimes bolstered and supported by global powers over decades are as unyielding, as fixed in place, and as hard to ignore as the Ancient Pyramids.
One thinks that if the world is shown proof in living, moving color, blood and guts transmitted daily over the sacred internet and some television channels that show the brutality, that somehow a sense of urgency would compel the people of Earth to act. Sadly, we live in a far less than perfect world and people, like the leaders they elected, have other pressing priorities as their own countries creak under the burden of decades of uncontrolled, profligate borrowing and spending.
At one pole, the Eastern churches and the mysticism and ritual of Christian orthodoxy. In a world of Ipads and YouTube, a bright flame still issues from the tomb of Jesus Christ in the Holy Lands on one sacred Saturday each year, it is then carried by devout priests out to the awaiting throng, and onward to all corners of the globe, from oil lamp to candle to candle to lamp, the flame, like Jesus’ love for mankind, travels the world on the wings and prayers of the faithful. How powerful we are when we want to be! How empowered by God’s love and his grace upon us that the flame is never extinguished. And yet, for many children today, going hungry or huddling in makeshift shelters subjected to the cruelest bombardment, or those whose fathers languish in torture chambers across the Middle East, the flame of human kindness has long since been extinguished and darkness reigns.
At the other pole, American white hats, eager to paint the world in black for evil and white for good, and yet we see that the color that consumes their thoughts is green, for green backs. Shoot first, ask questions later, is a poor excuse of a foreign policy. It’s wasteful and squanders precious resources fighting every suspicious character in a turban. So much so in fact that when a real global showdown beckons Uncle Sam is so skint he has to go hunt down cross-border US tax evaders and raid offshore nest eggs to fund a bloated and ineffectual government that today presides over the highest rate of illiteracy in the western world. Do we really expect the United States to come to anyone’s rescue? Pretty soon, out of sheer pity, Arabs may send over a few emergency care packages to feed the scores of homeless families living on American streets. Not gold-paved streets anymore!
If one where to ask oneself, how many small Turban-fueled wars has the US lost over the past two decades, or had to pull out from, or is still involved in, the list would include: Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, maybe even Pakistan at some point! No missions accomplished, only cash squandered and thousands of lives lost on both sides. By contrast, the last fiasco the Russians were involved in that bled them dry was Afghanistan back in the 1980s. Since then, the Russians have learned to be quick and brutal and attack the source of a problem, not allowing little things like right or wrong, decency and respect for human life, to get in their way. They even found an effective way to silence bleeding heart journalists who ‘protest too much’.
Yes, the Russian political machine is steered by assholes, but they are effective assholes, and after all our world is populated with assholes, everyone of who thinks they are right and everyone who is ready to carry an AK-47 and start shooting in the air and call themselves revolutionaries and heroes. I suggest they stick to Facebook, it’s safer.
This is a world carved out in the Devil’s own image, it’s full of temptation and injustice and opportunities for revenge, why must we be offended by a little show of state sponsored brutality here and there? We are offended simply because we are unused to too much truth. Blue pill or red pill, which one will you take: Dream world of light hearted frivolity, or real world of heartache and injustice? The choice is yours!
But in the Arab World we are adept are creating our own fantasy world and populating it with pseudo truth, much like the erstwhile Iraqi information minister under Saddam Hussein, who seemed intent on holding the Americans back single handed with his brave words and smashing olive green uniform. I am absolutely sure the propagandists out there screaming at a radio or TV host at the top of their lungs in defense of an indefensible argument are actually convinced they are right and that a global conspiracy is afoot to destroy their perfect little dream world.
Those I despise most of all are the political ‘cheerleaders’ who sit on the sidelines, those who cheer one group of dissidents in one country while they curse another group in the other country because it is politically expedient to do so. And then there are those who sow fear and fuel sectarian suspicions and mistrust to achieve a political end. In brief, I find I prefer the company of my cat, she is constant and unchanging, loving and devoted to the food I supply and the love I give her, she is far better than all of mankind put together and all their bullshit.
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