outback to jungle

Musings on experiences of volunteering in Papua New Guinea with some gratuitous domestic social and public comment

Thursday, September 07, 2006

no better than the beasts

Society's response to the "non-mainstream" is an indication or measure of its own development above the level of the beasts. Society's response to "nine-eleven" or to "Bali" or to "London" or to "Madrid" or to "The Bali Nine" or to the "Israel/Lebanon/Hezbollah/Palestine" or to "rascol Activity in PNG" is a measure of its own purported level of human development.
No-one "deserves" to be the victim of violence. No-one "deserves" to be murdered or raped or assaulted or violated or bombed or to be blown up or to be left homeless or motherless or fatherless or childless or traumatised or turned into a heroin addict. The murderers, drug traffickers, terrorists, rascols, gangsters bring their punishment on themselves. Don't they?
Are some deeds more inexcusable than others? Until one has walked in another's moccasins, how can I know? Why do I "need" more than what I've I've got? Why does "the other" not do something himself - by honest and productive means - to get what I "have"? "Am I my brother's keeper?" The Arab World, having given the world so much mathematical and scientific and cultural and civilisational development over five thousand years "seems" to be a living relic and "seems" to have made no contribution since 1300. What did Plato and Alice in Wonderland have to say about "seems"?

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