Dialectic Monologue

Buses explode and Families are attacked with missiles.

And from one Domino the world explodes. We cannot just shrug our shoulders. Sat here safe in our Sunny Northern Towns with the weekend coming up and our friends happy and in love. Religion is an excuse maybe but while you are passionate about one over another how can you not feel that you are right and everyone else is wrong. Richard Dawkins is a cultured and intelligent man who absolutely believes in the correctness of his disbelief in any form of religion and yet I do not seem any form of Existentialistic Nihilistic Pronouncements from him. He appreciates the infinite beauty that is present in this Cosmos, this world, even in the religious creations of man, the music and the architecture, which of course you have to look on as the positive aspects of belief but then you get into "My Cathedral is bigger than yours." and we are back to blowing up people you never know or care about just because they are different. It is hard, after an upbringing where every section of society to which you belong has some form of religious component, school especially, to say to yourself "I don't believe in anything you could call religious". From recent polls in this country 45% of people don't believe (whatever that may mean) and I am afraid that this is not because of any committment; it is simply that they do not care. Now the question is how many of those who do not believe do have the morals to back up the lack of believe. "I don't believe so I don't care about anyone other than myself and my family". I care about the world. I cannot care about all the world all of the time otherwise I would go mad but I can keep in the back of my mind that I have to care sometime about something or I have lost my humanity. It is a battle to keep sane in the face of bus bombs, massacres and the fact that somewhere there is a Helicopter pilot who fires missles knowing that he will kill a two year old girl. This sounds unbalanced. The other week I read an interview with the Loyalist who I will not dignify with a name who was jailed for killing a number of people at a republican Funeral. He was released as part of the Good Friday Agreement (something which should not get worked up about - a small price to pay to stop more killing). He was interviewed in London and be bemoaned the fact that in mainland UK he was "just another Paddy terrorist". Too right he is. I do not distinguish between terrorists; Republican, Loyalist, Government or otherwise. I know the situation and the history in more detail than a lot of people; I know of the hatred that goes back years, the atrocities on both sides. Most people from either side, don't want to fight. They want to live happily, most of them do. Catholics and Repuplicans are friends, they drink in the same pubs and they die together at the hands of the mobsters. So what happens if Northern Ireland becomes part of the Republic? How many of the "brave warriors" who fought for it will then campaign for Ireland to leave the European Union? Or is it just a religious thing? Those great European countries France and Germany, what religions are they? I can see the sad Tank-topped anti-Europeans from the UK becoming so insensed that they will start an escalating campaign of resistance. Where will we be then? Independence for Manchester? for Salford? for Timperley? Where does it end? We have the intelligence as a species, to use the old cliche, to send people to the Moon and create technology of breathtaking complexity and yet the only social engineering we have is left to the Media, the Church and advertising. We should be able to nourish intellect to recognise what is positive. Are we not living in a huge and complex version of the Prisoner's dilemma? Given the choice, we always defect and maybe sometimes we are better off but in the long run co-operation is the only option. This sounds so much like the line from the Hitch Hiker's guide to the Galaxy :-

...And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, a girl sitting on her own in a small cafe in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything.

I know I cannot do anything but I can let people know how I feel and it makes me feel a little bit better. There is no point in worrying about all this if you are safe and happy. You will probably be safe and happy (All things are relative remember) for your whole life.

Finally, to end this rant, something to make you feel a little better. Read this and be a little happier.

Keep happy.