Je Suis Humanité

I've just received an e-mail from Nick Clegg. It asked me about my priorities for the coming year; asked me if I might undertake 'his' mental health survey.

I was curious. I clicked upon the link and ended up staring into the void, The Lib Dem's website. I've done this before I thought. And I have! But the scenario was vastly different. Vastly!

The last time I was responding to a political party who professed to care about the betrayals of previous incumbent PMs. Last time Nick was wearing some sort of shiny new armour, wielding a 'trusty' sword of 'truth and integrity.' I'm sure it was a 'trusty' model. Slice off the end and it would have had 'truth' and 'integrity' written down the middle. And that's what the Conservatives did, sliced off the end. By which point somebody had sucked out the soul. Thus, the 'vastly' was far more pertinent to my own naivety than ever it was to Nick's intentions, which were always up for sale.

This time I was far more time-commitment aware. I deleted the damn thing.

Nick is on his election trip again, labouring under the delusion that he might stand for something. Blessed with memories, we know better. And it's important to know where we all stand, in these immensely difficult times of global unrest.


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Far more pertinent and like many people, I've been struggling to get my head around what's just happened in Paris. Like many, I've been watching the news. On Sunday I was 'virtually' in Paris, 'virtually' sharing my own particular dismay at the recent events in the capital. But I still elected not to 'virtually' link arms with the heavy-weight curios in front of the cameras.  

'Je suis Charlie,' was the heartfelt and immediate response, by many Parisian's, to the outrageous slaughter of the innocents. It moved me to tears, so powerful was this response. The murders took place on Wednesday and by Sunday 'Je suis Charlie' had swollen to embrace millions. How could it not? But, also curiously by Sunday, the sentiment had been mysteriously diluted.

Wednesday's murderers claimed to be acting to avenge the Prophet Mohammed, a man who supposedly longed to vanquish the merest concept of revenge. One wonders how thrilled The Prophet might have been, at the atrocities carried out by His Boko Haram 'followers' in Nigeria. I'm not a religious person- maybe this 'oversight' makes me a sinner- but I do have a strongly established sense of what constitutes wrongdoing. It's a huge field, absolutely vast, from the deludedly-noble exaggeration of my own given abilities (Guilty!) at any of the job interview that I might have undertaken, to the savage butchering of another innocent being, which I absolutely have not and could not.

Vastly preferring scientific rational to any of its religious 'alternatives,' which despite what some of the more 'enlightened' theologians might claim, does not sit comfortably with any religion-complete, I struggle with especially the concept of faith. I perceive, "have faith," or any of its ilk, to  be entirely the last refuge of the losing debatee.

Unarmed with any religious 'shield,' nor any political facade of 'decency,' I cannot claim to possess the solution to many of the globe's great problems, but from within my sense of wrongdoing-perspective I have readily recognised that the manner in which Sadam Hussain's militia ruled Iraq, and perhaps hoped to export such a (lack of) values, was wholly without justification. Which is rather more than the covert US value-system did, having massively supported the same regime for decades prior to a minute shift in global allegiances. Consequently, I also recognised that previous US support as corrupted. I recognised the internationally-condemned invasion and the proliferating car-bombings as wholly unjust and the US (and almost certainly Blair) endorsed renditions as more than unjust. Indefensible!

Wednesday's atrocities required no scientific nor religious analysis, the acts were quite simply inhuman. Were any 'religious' insight required it would no doubt be a relatively simple task to condemn the murders as anti-Muslim, anti-Christian, anti-Hindu, anti-Jewish, anti-Sikhist, anti-Buddhist, anti-Jainist, anti-Rastafari, anti-Taoist and anti-Secular. Thus the murderers were simply and inhumanly that, unjust murderers! Crimes against humanity!

Just as the US-backed Iraqi regime were guilty of murder, as were the US et al invading/occupying troops, as were those who piloted the 9/11 aircraft, and those who organise (yet curiously never appear to undertake) suicide bombings. As those who might interrogate the perceived perpetrators are guilty of crimes against humanity. As are countless others who might seek to impose their own 'value' system upon those who are helpless to resist.

* Even the tiniest 'proof' of the existence of any God remains scientifically absent, so instead adopting the curious premise of 'faith,' we might attempt to contemplate the existence of such an omniscient being. This phenomenon just barely-conceivably 'might' have invested us with the minds with which to do so.


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"God creates beauty, but requires that it be kept hidden. God creates a mind capable of exquisite reasoning, yet seeks to deny this mind full access to its richest outpourings. God permits free-thinking and yet also seeks to shackle these with extreme prejudice. God creates different genders, with equal potential, and yet demands that one gender should entirely subjugate the other. This is not omniscience!

The rational to analyse the lack of evidence and consequently to not believe? This is surely infinitely superior.

The logical progression of humankind would seem to 'demand' that "Je suis Charlie" was the almost spontaneous response to such horror. Yet still we didn't all march unequivocally together, 'virtually' or otherwise.

Slipping uncertainly upon the still-warm blood, Antonis Samaras has already sought to steer Greece towards ever more xenophobic ways, in a country where some of its poorest citizens have been forced to give up their own children for adoption, because of Euroze-led policies. Andrea Merkel, the Euro-champion of the region's austerity measures, that made such things 'necessary,' is still unhappy that the US regards the Eurozone as essential surveillance territory, and yet she was recently covertly steering the 'aligned continent' towards the little-talked-about TTIP, whereby US business interests might bankrupt Europe's essential services. Cameron was there talking about freedoms of expression, whilst back home the soup kitchens and the street-sleepers continued to proliferate. Francois Hollande linked arms with his fellow World mis-managers and showed his solidarity with even, "the toothless ones." Obama stayed at home, perhaps to catch up with gathered files on his 'allies, or else to study tapes of recently extracted confessions.

Some will hide behind terrorist atrocities, whilst imposing an ever-more draconian state, accepting of rough-sleeping and malnutrition as the flip side of preferential tax-cuts or greater 'security,' but from whom?. Others might cite indiscriminate bombings against 'its own' people, before calmly detonating shards of vehicular metal into child-crowded high streets, or they might interrupt the school day with a hail of bullets, or stone the victim of a rape. All prepared to lash out at, exploit or ignore 'its own' citizens in reverence to the 'higher,' self-serving cause. Precisely what any omniscient being should crave, fictional or otherwise.

Were there bankers, were there tax evaders? Was perhaps Mark Thatcher present, Jeremy Clarkson? I'll bet Piers Morgan was there. Did Rupert Murdoch make the effort? Was the NRA represented, were there many bailiffs, any zero-hours apologists, slum landlords? Perhaps GW Bush was 'virtually' there, although I personally didn't virtually see him. All these people marching for 'freedom of expression.'

And here's the thing, see. Freedom of expression really doesn't come without a price-tag. But the price-tag doesn't and shouldn't involve the butchering of other beings. It's far more to do with the sharing of that freedom to express and act independently, otherwise it's not really anything to do with freedom. If your 'freedom to express' or act in a certain manner, regardless of your political or religious affiliations, requires a significant sacrifice on the part of others, then it has absolutely nothing to do with freedom. That sort of 'feudalism' has existed since way before the merest concept of freedom was first hatched.

Leaving us all little time to worry about Nick Clegg's political misrepresentations.  

* This post in no way wishes to imply that a 'God' does not exist, simply that if one did he or she would probably expect rather more (or less) from his or her supposed 'followers.'