Democratic Atrocities
Jag måste ju säga att jag städade ut lite gamla skolpapper i helgen också. 5 kg gamla psykologi hand-outs fick gå till braskaminen men här är något jag tänkte spara: 10 10 10 såklart.
Isn?t this a lovely day my friends? Isn?t it a perfect day to spill innocent blood?
I had a dream last night, there were people all around me and they were shot to death. As I woke up and read the newspaper I saw there had been a massacre in Iraq, and one in Lebanon and yet another one in Sri Lanka. I wonder which I dreamt about, since the only people killed had been terrorists, rebels and insurgents whereas the people I saw seemed to be fathers and mothers. On the other hand it doesn?t matter, people are murdered every hour of the day, are they not? In this modern age of democratic atrocities.
Is it not so that our minds are blurred with the constant stream of violence and evil projected upon us by global mass media and our threshold for what can be accepted as part of everyday life is getting higher with every piece of news given to us?
This week, American soldiers raped a fourteen year old girl in Iraq and killed her entire family, justifying themselves with the fact that ?all Taliban are evil?. Do we raise our hands to stop them? As the immense load of human suffering in the world hunches our backs we turn the other way. We conclude it is a compulsory evil beyond our control and concern. But who are in control of this world if not its people? I will tell you what makes this happen before our closed eyes, beneath our clenched fists. It is the never-ending supply of wickedness through daily newspapers, television and radio broadcasts that breaks our hearts and turns righteous human beings into the cold machines we are today.
Detached from reality, we execute our duties at work while thousands are executed in the growing killing fields around the world. We cannot cease to react just because there is too much we would want to change. The picture media gives us of this world is such a dark one that it might seem hopeless to care about it. We have simply become used to see the suffering every day of the week, if not on a news report it is in the movies. It is there we fail to understand. It is there we are incapable of comprehension, incapable of compassion. Life is not an action movie, there will be no happy ending if we sit back and wait for it. People dying are people dying and that is what we fail to understand.
In a last attempt to flee back into your own life, you find a sanctuary in geography and consent. As long as the fighting goes on half a world from your home and the blood flows on remote boulevards you let it happen and watch the news with amused disgust. Then tell me, how far away must the war be raging to let you feel safe; in Afghanistan, in the New York subway, in a dark alley behind your supermarket, in your children?s playground or in your neighbours? bed?
War rages not only in distant deserts but also in the hearts and souls of the people around you. Media has made you believe violence is a natural part of our society impossible to leash. It is not. Violence is the offspring of a disturbed or troubled mind, whether it takes the form of an armed battle of nations, a broken jaw under a husbands hand or a crying teenage girl in the backseat of a car.
You feel ill when you hear about such things, but each time you read about it in your paper you accept it a little more and with each death your hope of a change withers. You have become numb and submissive to the malevolence through the media.
Yes, when media tells us about the inhuman deeds committed around us we are filled with fear, we are struck with hopelessness and besieged by grief so that we have no room for other feelings. What we cannot read in the news paper is that there is hope if we just remember to be affectionate, caring and understanding to each other. I do not ask you to become martyrs or give all of your well-earned money to charity. I do ask you to stay aware of the reality and your human nature.
As long as we do not submit to the sadism that surrounds us in every news report and broadcast; as long as we do not accept what is unacceptable; as long as we preserve a piece of the human soul we once sold to mass media, there will come a day when violence and malice are extinguished and ancient like dinosaurs. There will come a day when children can walk alone to school. There will come a day when a girl can walk through the streets of our cities without fear. One day we can step off an aeroplane at any airport around the face of the earth and be met by no armed guards in uniforms but only the benevolence of the natives. One day the sun will rise and we will not be met by death at our doorstep in the form of a folded broadsheet.
Isn?t that a lovely day my friends?
Word count: 882
Isn?t this a lovely day my friends? Isn?t it a perfect day to spill innocent blood?
I had a dream last night, there were people all around me and they were shot to death. As I woke up and read the newspaper I saw there had been a massacre in Iraq, and one in Lebanon and yet another one in Sri Lanka. I wonder which I dreamt about, since the only people killed had been terrorists, rebels and insurgents whereas the people I saw seemed to be fathers and mothers. On the other hand it doesn?t matter, people are murdered every hour of the day, are they not? In this modern age of democratic atrocities.
Is it not so that our minds are blurred with the constant stream of violence and evil projected upon us by global mass media and our threshold for what can be accepted as part of everyday life is getting higher with every piece of news given to us?
This week, American soldiers raped a fourteen year old girl in Iraq and killed her entire family, justifying themselves with the fact that ?all Taliban are evil?. Do we raise our hands to stop them? As the immense load of human suffering in the world hunches our backs we turn the other way. We conclude it is a compulsory evil beyond our control and concern. But who are in control of this world if not its people? I will tell you what makes this happen before our closed eyes, beneath our clenched fists. It is the never-ending supply of wickedness through daily newspapers, television and radio broadcasts that breaks our hearts and turns righteous human beings into the cold machines we are today.
Detached from reality, we execute our duties at work while thousands are executed in the growing killing fields around the world. We cannot cease to react just because there is too much we would want to change. The picture media gives us of this world is such a dark one that it might seem hopeless to care about it. We have simply become used to see the suffering every day of the week, if not on a news report it is in the movies. It is there we fail to understand. It is there we are incapable of comprehension, incapable of compassion. Life is not an action movie, there will be no happy ending if we sit back and wait for it. People dying are people dying and that is what we fail to understand.
In a last attempt to flee back into your own life, you find a sanctuary in geography and consent. As long as the fighting goes on half a world from your home and the blood flows on remote boulevards you let it happen and watch the news with amused disgust. Then tell me, how far away must the war be raging to let you feel safe; in Afghanistan, in the New York subway, in a dark alley behind your supermarket, in your children?s playground or in your neighbours? bed?
War rages not only in distant deserts but also in the hearts and souls of the people around you. Media has made you believe violence is a natural part of our society impossible to leash. It is not. Violence is the offspring of a disturbed or troubled mind, whether it takes the form of an armed battle of nations, a broken jaw under a husbands hand or a crying teenage girl in the backseat of a car.
You feel ill when you hear about such things, but each time you read about it in your paper you accept it a little more and with each death your hope of a change withers. You have become numb and submissive to the malevolence through the media.
Yes, when media tells us about the inhuman deeds committed around us we are filled with fear, we are struck with hopelessness and besieged by grief so that we have no room for other feelings. What we cannot read in the news paper is that there is hope if we just remember to be affectionate, caring and understanding to each other. I do not ask you to become martyrs or give all of your well-earned money to charity. I do ask you to stay aware of the reality and your human nature.
As long as we do not submit to the sadism that surrounds us in every news report and broadcast; as long as we do not accept what is unacceptable; as long as we preserve a piece of the human soul we once sold to mass media, there will come a day when violence and malice are extinguished and ancient like dinosaurs. There will come a day when children can walk alone to school. There will come a day when a girl can walk through the streets of our cities without fear. One day we can step off an aeroplane at any airport around the face of the earth and be met by no armed guards in uniforms but only the benevolence of the natives. One day the sun will rise and we will not be met by death at our doorstep in the form of a folded broadsheet.
Isn?t that a lovely day my friends?
Word count: 882
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