Corfu Garden – springtime 2008
I tried to focus on just one subject for this posting, but the multitude of topics swirling through my mind make it pretty well impossible to select just one, so I won’t. Instead I’ll try to sort out what I really really think about a host of events and personalities currently screwing up my brain.
The jumble of thoughts, emotions and images, all vying for consideration, include the Zimbabwe election fiasco and the culpability in Mugabe’s continued freedom to devastate his once prosperous country and people, of the weak South African president Thabo Mbeki.
Mbeki has had it in his power to end the misery of the people of Zimbabwe for 8 long years, and yet has done nothing to curb the lunacy that continues just north of his border.
The sins of commission by Mugabe are compounded by those of omission by Mbeki, and they both deserve the contempt they are earning – none of which helps those who are starving and being robbed of their birthright.
And what does this say for the future of South Africa itself?
Apartheid was bad enough, but what may come next could be worse.
And then there’s Tibet.
Just reflecting on this word brings together a jumble of images and thoughts ….. the benighted Olympic torch relay surrounded by blue clad Chinese thugs ……. Buddhist monks being abused in their homeland by the same thugs ….. the pious hypocritical nonsense, spouted by Chinese leaders who say that they will only speak to the Dalai Lama when he gives up his demand for independence of Tibet, and espousal of violence …… when for a decade he has said, and continues to say, that he wants no violence, and only a reasonable degree of autonomy for his nation.
And meanwhile the once noble ideals of international sport become ever more tarnished and degraded by the political posturing of the Chinese government. Anyone who has read the biography of Mao will know the global ambitions of the communist leadership of that massive nation are vast and unrelenting. Heaven help us!
And of course, closer to home we have the unending story of terrorists in our midst as home grown disaffected and angry Muslim youth have their beliefs distorted so that a potentially gentle faith becomes imbued and poisoned with violence.
This is highlighted by the current UK trial of those whose plan was, allegedly, to simultaneously blow up half a dozen or more airliners mid-Atlantic, along with similar plans for the power stations and gas pipelines.
What a crazy state of affairs.
Is there a way back to sanity?
I doubt it.
These (and other similar) jumbled thoughts sometimes conflate in my brain to produce a sense of despair – particularly when the various disparate stories of child abduction continue to hog the headlines, along with the pathetic posturing of Britain’s current crop of pigmy politicians – national and local.
I will refrain from comment on the US Presidential hopefuls, as it would be impossible to say anything without saying too much – apart from the comment that the only light relief I obtain from tv nowadays is the Fox News Channel coverage of the campaign. It would be hard to invent anything funnier or more distorted, apart perhaps from CNN with its bias in the opposite direction to Fox.
I find respite from all this crazy jumble of issues by spending time in our Corfu garden … and so have offered a few images that might hopefully soothe you as much as they do me.
I hope so.