sparks

It’s been floating around over the last weeks and has rocked the United Kingdom. You know, that island that is geographically Europe but its inhabitants seriously reject that notion (grow up!). That nation that was once so powerful that its might stretched across many oceans. But it has oh so tumbled downwards towards just an average, meagre country that dreams of the past to avoid having to face today as it doubts tomorrow.

Anyway, the Queens’ Kingdom was often, and to a degree rightly so, considered the birthplace of parliamentary democracy. And thus its glorious parliament, standing mighty along the river Thames in London, was like a holy grail. Mysterious and powerful. And that House of the People is steeped in tradition and old style respect. But it came crumbling down over the last week. Crumbling down back to earth. Back to reality that its inhabitants, those elected and oh-so-has-to-be-respected Members of Parliament (MPs), were just mere mortals. Mortals with greed and lies and rottenness. Those MPs, following in the footsteps of historic British parliamentarians, were just people like any other people. In fact they turned out to be less than the common man as they cheated and stole from the taxpayer,... meaning from the man in the street. Abusing the system to just get richer. Too often it seems way deep into ridiculousness.

It has been revealed, drip by drip by a British tabloid, that those elected members cheated their expense claims. Across political parties and across gender and age. As the revelations were published I laughed and then got angry. These people should built democracy not undermine it for the sake of personal wealth. So many MPs were exposed claiming money back from the parliamentary registrar for TVs, cameras, house tax on houses they did not own, duck ponds (yes!!), fertilizer (yes!!), rental of porn DVDs (oh yes!!), and all type of house renovations you can name in any Make Over TV Show. Just endless. The grand theft within the mother of all parliaments.

And then some MPs openly on TV claimed that the system allowed it and thus why not? And what about morals, you thieves in suits??!? So nothing about the honour to be elected by people and send to London to serve those people that the MPs then represent. No, hand in the cookie jar first and for all! Human behaviour is just a joke.

Human behaviour is a joke. A sour joke. A deadly joke. An incomprehensive joke that too often leaves no laughter. The brother of my friend’s daughter-in-law got stabbed to death because he owned his killer US$10. Yes, life valued at US$10! How angry does that make you feel? If there was a God he/she should just give up on the human race and start somewhere else afresh. We are much too often a shame to ourselves. We kill each other engulfed by ethnic, religious hatred. We kill each other because passion went wrong. We kill each other because we can’t handle our feelings at a specific time and a specific moment. We kill each other because we think we can get away with it. We kill each other because we think we are better, superior than others. We kill each other because we are stuck in our boring, meaningless lives. We are a bloodthirsty, narrow minded breed. And on top of that we have hardly any respect for our environment – nature and its animals. We are heating up to this planet to oblivion in the name of progress. What progress? And on top of that we think we are oh so smart, despite showing the total opposite every day. Human behaviour is a joke.

Luckily, to a degree, there are sometimes sparks of limited hope. And these sparks just help us through another day, another week. But these sparks set against the darkness make us realize again that they are just sparks against an overwhelming backdrop. On good days we hope these sparks can light a fire. A massive fire. A catalytic fire. Fires that rage darkness away,... at least for longer than just a day or a week. Sparks like President Obama’s kick-start to his presidency. I am too often a cold realist because I have witnessed too much and had hopes dashed too often. I, from before his election victory last November, always put the brakes on delirium when Obama’s message of hope was spread across the airwaves. He is a very welcome moment but amidst a dirty and unrealistic American political system. Obama won and sparks were pushing darkness into a corner. For now he seems on a good path towards bringing some, even as limited as it will be, change and hope and fire. So we gotta give him some leeway as his thoughts and ways, and for some skin colour, go against so much of the establishment that is conservative in nature and mentality. Give him more matches so the fires can burn and burn. Ashes are a fertilizer!

Sparks like the Indian elections. The biggest in human history. And all went reasonably smooth for the scale we are talking about. But then you wake up, put on the radio and hear that the schizophrenic dictatorship of North Korea has done a huge nuclear test – the size of the bomb of Nagasaki at the end of World War 2. And then you’re looking for new sparks...

Ending with a throw out. A spark. Yesterday I discovered a new band called Razors In the Night. From Boston I think. Nice alternative tunes.

C-Ya
the end of May 2009