There is a lot of rage out there over Jesus W. Bush's second coup. There is also a lot of despair. I've got a feeling the despair is going to win out. But maybe I'm projecting. It seems like only yesterday when we were living in the "modern world". The world that, while upholding the modern corporate/Christian values of conformity and intolerance of minorities, at least allowed the rest of us to shop at the Safeway without being blown to smithereens by a suicide bomber.
But that ended with the closing of the 20th century. From the end of the year 2000, Dubya's first coup, the world has been gradually thrust back to medieval times for an update of the crusades.
It took nearly 200 years for the Muslims to avenge the insane hubris of Christianity's crusades. In the avenging they nearly took all of Europe.
Now we are again plunged into a war between fundamentalisms. How long will it take this time? And will the time taken be called World War III?
The mindless devotion evangelicals have to Dubya as the White House spokesman for God is not that far removed from the blind faith of the 39 Heaven's Gate suicides in 1997. They thought that by leaving their bodies (containers) their spirits would be able to hitch a ride on the spaceship travelling behind the Hale-Bopp comet.
Dubya's followers evidently believe that by encouraging him to hasten Armageddon they're going to hitch a ride to the Kingdom of Christ. Just as Osama bin Laden's mujahideen believe that by becoming suicide bombers they will be ushered into paradise.
This battle between madmen describes the world we are now living in.
Sometimes I wonder if the most civilised people on the planet are not we, the technologically advanced, with our constitutions, democracies and home theatre systems, but the so-called primitive cultures living in remote harmony with their environment.
What does it mean to be civilised? Perhaps the poor souls whose lives are forever being snuffed out by those who profit from our inattention have a better idea: the 70,000 dead of Darfur, the people of Fallujah, now corpses lining the streets from "awe-dude" air strikes, the millions killed by Pol Pot, the victims of genocide everywhere.
We of the "advanced cultures" have given ourselves so many temporal distractions that the Biblical exhortations to "love thy neighbour" and "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" fly in one ear as indecipherable linguistic bundles and out the other as white noise.
But the real meaning of life, if there is one, would surely be understood by people facing imminent slaughter for no apparently sane reason; families divested of all earthly requirements but their love for one another. Instead of worrying about interest rates, they are dealing with the ultimate reality in all its blazing cruelty. Perhaps these humans have a much clearer understanding of what being born on this planet of woes really means.
It's possible that we putative pinnacles of human evolution are in truth still learning the basic lessons of what being human is all about. While the so-called primitive cultures, still in touch with the mysteries, and even those who face genocide, have already been there, done that.
It may well be that the capture of humanity by Dubya and Osama is a requirement of evolution. A reminder that apathy and passivity opens the gates to evil. The human race may need to be brought to its knees in order to learn the lessons that will save it from this dark and terrifying time.
Then again, we may simply be living through the beginning of the end for our adventure that began with recorded history. Atlantis and Mu may have been more than legends. They may have been real places with real civilisations. But they were destroyed, for one reason or another. And the survivors had to start all over again.
Harold Hark
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