How happy is the blameless vestal's lot! The world forgetting, by the world forgot. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd. -- Alexander Pope, "Eloisa to Abelard"
At the moment, due to my delayed reply, it is less of a happiness (relatively) and more of the tense speculaton of 9/11 all over again. It is funny how easy it is to point the finger at Osama, especially since he is still at large. Make a scapegoat out of a dead sheep is what i think. The mental side of it and the psychological approach in my homeland is that the British have at last been brought home what they sent to Afghanistan and Iraq. I cannot believe that if you wage a war against a tyrant or a terrorist in their respective countries, while sitting far away, with cluster bombs, the so called precision bombs killing civilians then it is a war for freedom. Yet if those same people, try to do the same in Ireland (in smaller bursts due to lack of sophisticated machinery) or in Palestine or in Cambodia, or Nicaragua, or in Bosnia, then they become either terrorists, or “the country's private matter". Despite the Palestinians, the Scottish, the Irish, the Zimbabweans, the administration has always been democratic to the Brits and the Americans. Yet if a Muslim ruler like Saddam rules his own country a bit tough, or Afghanis fight amongst themselves, America feels compelled to free them of the misery.
Being a Muslim and a human being i fail to understand the logic of suicide bombings. Any or all such missions are prohibited in Islam, in which it is certain that the soldier will die. No general is allowed to send his men in on a battle field where death is certain. Suicide is a deadly sin, in most religions, and one's own life is dear to everyone, no matter whether they follow any ideology, or whichever theology or not. But i am forced to consider that what is it that has forced the young men and women of Israel to leave behind this world of platonic and superficial pleasures to knowingly kill themselves just to take a bit of opposition with them. Are all the members of Hammas, Al-Qaeda, IRA and so on, crazy, or have they been driven mad. U2 an Irish band, has their lead singer in Bono. Beautiful singer, he once said, that it is human nature to share, and to want that others will share. And that if the dominant countries of the world don’t share their wealth and knowledge with others while considering them equals, and not calling it charity or pity, then the derelict will put their hand out and snatch it from you; because survival, believe it or not, is the first and the most banal human instinct.I read in the end of "The grapes of wrath" a woman while in the era of the greatest depression USA has seen, (epilogue) has lost her child, sees a man in destitute one who might have died of hunger. She offers him her breast to feed on, because if he doesn’t have anything to eat he will die, she has nothing else to offer except breast milk and there was also the underlying thought that if it is not used, it too will be wasted. It was the single most shocking thing for the Americans at that time, but I guess that is what the responsibilities of these nations are. To offer the kindness and fullness of a mother's breast to the tired and weary child, and not a slap on the arse of a drunkard father who comes home to a cold dinner, I hope they learn it before the dinner turns cold.
