Monday 15th September

We are living in truly barbaric and frightening times.  Possibly life has always been barbaric though the nature of that barbarism is changing.  When once upon a time it was armies slaughtering each other, or criminals being disemboweled in horrific ways – now it can happen to anyone.  Or almost anyone – we hope.  Before about a hundred years ago ordinary people were fairly safe.  Armies might slaughter each other, and with total wars young men could barely escape being enlisted and only a hundred years ago millions died for nothing at all.   Then it all started to change with aerial bombardment putting more and more civilians at risk.  Wars followed wars and more and more bombing was the weapon of choice; very few pilots died after all.   But thousands upon thousands of civilians did, but somehow nobody seemed to care about them.   Then we moved into the era of suicide bombers and terrorist attacks like the World Trade Center where out of the blue people were killed – for nothing.

And now we have kidnappings of aid workers and internet beheadings too awful to be watched.   What have we been reduced to?  Are humans really capable of such merciless atrocities?  Apparently they are, and all in the name of a religious idea.   Possibly this sort of thing has always happened but now with a cheap camera phone and a laptop the awful reality can be beamed into every front room.   It is up to us, as what we think of as civilized people, to not watch them and to reject their twisted logic and hope that with time and education these atrocities will end.