Time for another pause for reflection

Arthur Conway Young “Sacrificed to the fallacy that war can end war”

Earlier this year I said I would scale back my twice-weekly postings in order to give me time for reflection. I was profoundly disturbed by the world around me. I used the word “depressed”, and though this sparked worries by friends about my mental health, this was, and remains, a good word to describe my feelings. I am being numbed into a sense of apathy. After that pause a surprise General Election was called. I was swept up in the excitement of it all, and indeed the British political landscape changed profoundly. But as the British situation regresses to stalemate, the excitement has gone. I don’t feel that my thinking is adequate for the situation the world is in. I need time to reflect, and, if need be, to change course. So I will scale back my postings again.

That process has already started, as I haven’t posted for about two weeks. Last week I went on a centenary battlefield tour of the Western Front, from the Somme valley near Albert, and north to Ypres and Arras. That was an experience enough to cause a pause for reflection in itself. It was an example of how political misjudgements can lead to devastating results for millions of individuals. It is hard for us to say what it was all for, even if we accept that many of the changes that the war ushered in were good. These changes were a profound understanding of the futility of war and the brotherhood of man, across class, nation and sex (alas it took another war before entrenched attitudes on race started to change). But, as the remarkable epitaph on the tombstone in my picture, taken in the Commonwealth cemetery at Tyne Cot near Ypres, says, this war did not end war. And indeed, what I find so depressing about now is that in so many ways the lessons humanity learned a century ago are being cast aside.

Look at Myanmar, where the hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas are being ethnically cleansed, with many thousands murdered while others are forced into inadequate refugees camps. This has caused barely a ripple in world affairs. The recent coup in Zimbabwe, which changes little, is causing more fuss. Chinese, Indian and Russian politicians, who these days constitute great powers in the emerging world order, couldn’t care less. The Americans are doing a bit more, but it is not in the new “America First” philosophy to care that much; and, to be fair, their power in the neighbourhood is greatly diminished. Europeans worry a bit more, but they are so far away that closer concerns crowd them out. This is the new normal: people’s lives just don’t matter compared to narrowly defined national interests.

Meanwhile, closer to home in Europe, grand liberal gestures, like Germany’s acceptance of Syrian refugees simply generate a fierce backlash. Polish and Hungarian leaders stoke up Islamophobia; our own politicians mutter about how foolish and “unrealistic” the German policy was. Meanwhile, in Britain we are distracted by the colossal act of self-harm that is Brexit, while the retreat of government services and benefits reeks profound social damage, which most people prefer to ignore. People respond to disturbing changes in the world around them by narrowing their horizons and saying it is all somebody else’s problem.

Still, there is hope. When I visit my local, 90% minority primary school, I don’t see the picture of hopeless and profound division that the conservatives say is inevitable. I see people working across ethnic and social barriers towards a common purpose: living together and promoting the values of tolerance and inclusion. I see the challenges of restricted resources being met imagination and resolve. There is a better way if only we had the courage to take it.

I am an optimist. But right now I need to work out how to channel that optimism more effectively. I plead the need for a little more space to do that.

2 thoughts on “Time for another pause for reflection”

  1. No way, do you need to plead. You are the leading man in your own story . The way you describe and share it , those of us who are either readers of it or characters in it can but help the plot along. If you need any help reach out . It is the good who feel the most.

  2. There’s always been bad things happening in the world as long as I can remember. The (in)famous image of the little girl in Vietnam with burning napalm on her back haunted me for along time when I first saw it. Then there was the starvation and war in Biafra. Before the period I do remember there was Aden , the Congo, Korea, WW2, WW1 etc. It’s always been bad. But, at least we don’t burn religious martyrs at the stake any longer so we have made some progress!

    It’s just not possible for any one individual to take the weight of the world on their shoulders. Just do what you can when you can. A lot of the problems in Europe are self inflicted by a poor grasp of economics. It’s just led to Brexit. Before that I’d argue that it led to WW2. It probably would never had happened if economic conditions hadn’t been so dire in Germany in the early 30s.

    You seem to be getting the hang of it with your recent posting on the importance of private debt. That’s something the EU, for all its fondness for rules, doesn’t have rules on. Only public debt. It doesn’t make any sense. Keep banging away about that!

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