Rwanda

Tutsi men dancing and clapping , Ak's on their hips, jiggling like jewellery. Rivers of people flowing down dirt roads. Scorched camps, livestock and flora. A song on their lips and revenge in their hearts. My broken heart, my dark days are suddenly put into perspective.

In 1992 Radio Rwanda together with Television Libre des mille Collines were used as platforms to broadcast the message to the everyday. Imagine it, you switch on the radio and it's urging the whole country to kill you and your family. Imagine it, imagine the fear, the sickness in your belly. 15 years on those messages, those hacked at bodies are fossilised memories in the minds of those Tutsi men. Brothers, Sisters, Wives, Children, Girlfriends, Mothers, Fathers, Sons and Daughters, limbs scattered on the streets. Their day has come as their revenge claims to finish the last of the Hutu militias off. So why the refugee camps? Why destroy the towns and villages? Hate, revenge is a ferocious adversary. It sees no boundaries, no borders, no sanctum.

Georgia (01/09/08)

So, 

the deer dance has begun.

The armed forces of Russia have separated Georgia from its former provinces. In the last three weeks we have watched the various propaganda machines vie for dominance. Even the British media seems distracted and confused. Did Georgia start killing its own citizens? Did Russia leap to the rescue? Was, as one Very Big voice claimed, the whole thing orchestrated by the American Republican party? Who can say? All that is certain is that at this very moment huge amounts of men, equipment and machinery are being repositioned. Iraq and Afghanistan look set to become secondary theatres as all of the involved countries move their respective withdrawal deadlines forward. Why muck about with the largely scattered Al-Quieda when THE bear has just woken up with a sore head? After all, whatever you or I think about the causes of the various conflicts in the Middle East, this one is truly about access to oil and above all, gas...

And strategic missile platforms... 

And national pride...

And the lines drawn following the major exchanges of the twentieth century...

You get the picture.

So its Nuclear plus renewables all the way then?

Well, err, don't know.

According to a friend of the family plutonium is in even shorter supply than any other consumable we can think of. We have only ten years of the highest grade left. Enter the businessman I spoke to the other day who described complicated new forms of plutonium recycling. Who's telling the truth? Did the friend simply not know about the recycling? Did the businessman not want to reveal the truth? A complete overview, a complete truth is, as ever, hard to come by. Take the London based PR consultancy company who have been working for the Russian government in the war of words over who's right in Georgia. In a global market nationhood is irrelevant, who's right or wrong is irrelevant, who pays the bills is irrelevant. That they are paying the bills, that they are providing for a new Bentley or Aston or even company 320d which runs on oil taken from / produced by a handful of unstable countries who would happily see us burn for our governments slow and sometimes aggressive meddling in their history is the important part. Why worry about who's backs we're walking on when the Bentley has such lovely seats? Why worry about the innocent dead when the Aston makes such a wonderful noise? Who cares about the truth when I can sit here in Starfucks consuming caffeine writing about the various hypocrisies in my life?

Shit.

Anybody got any ideas?

Capital Punishment

"We should bring back capital punishment"

A sentiment by a class member. One echoed by people all over the country.

It's the sort of thing that floods my brain with so much cortisol that it can take years off my life. It's the sort of thing that makes me want to throw a chair across the room, smash things up, drop whoever said it into a truly unjust society. Somewhere where there is no real justice system, no 2000 years of trial and error. I ask this, how can a society that accepts murder as one of the highest crimes possible then go on to murder as punishment? An eye for an eye?

When a society adopts this kind of an attitude it becomes a norm. A value that is normal to those who grow up around it. The population becomes hardened to everyday murder. Is that what we want? Where does this lead? 

Remember violence begets violence. 

We know this. 

Its an old lesson.....