The unhappy passenger

Iran and its nuke dreams. The fever is back on the world map. Anger. Frustration. Defiance. War games. Stand offs. Pieces on a chessboard. Tensions are rising.

It all came spinning to higher levels over recent days. The US announced that Tehran had a secret, operational nuke plant that could soon produce enough material for a bomb. That bomb. And Iran right away confirmed the existence of that plant. The can of worms was opened and the maggots came crawling out.

Warning and statements by Obama, Brown and Sarkozy. United against Iran. Renewed talk of sanctions. Israel for sure gathering its military strategists and looking at maps and options. Brown got enraged and talked about Iran’s deceit of the UN Security Council. He is dead right on the matter. But why didn’t he use the same language when some years ago George Bush’s Secretary of State Colin Powell presented the UN Security Council with a whole bunch of lies regarding Iraq’s nuclear capability and its ties with Al-Quada. It was the US call for war. The hawks were out and the troops ready. The sandpit would soon turn red. But it is now crystal clear that the whole of Powell’s presentation was a pack of lies. All the CIA reports mentioned. All the statistics showed. All the photos presented. Lies, lies, lies. That was deceit of the same gravity as Iran’s hiding games with the UN now. So as Brown hits the nail on the head this time, his silence back then makes it sour.

But Iran is then so arrogant to raise the stakes higher. And all that on a sacred day in Israel. Iran decided to hold war games and launches a series of missiles to test their capability and range. It’s more than just barking, it’s poking. But teasing on a dangerous, deadly level. Teasing on a catastrophic level. It’s madness. The world is back on the edge of its seat.

The gung-ho Republicans must be laughing. They are anxious for a fight with Tehran. No clue nor consideration for the possible consequences. Just narrow minded hate and a blind ideology of superiority. God and bombs once again. Deaf, dumb and blind. The past is the future. Learning requests an open mind. But for those Republicans repetition of the senseless path is the only guidance they turn to. They are so narrow minded they must be on claustrophobia medication. Strong stuff.

Human behaviour in its ugly repetitiveness.

Ugly indeed. A man in South Africa has shot dead a taxi driver because the driver didn’t exactly go where the passenger wanted. It was in one of South Africa’s common mini-taxis. These passenger vans do certain routes with people getting on and off along that route.

But here that unhappy passenger pulled a gun and shot the driver twice in the head. Just like that. A killing feeling passed boiling point. Anger channelled through violence and bloodshed. Then the killer ran away and is still missing. A killer on the loose. A madman with a gun. Armed and dangerous. And the taxi driver another cross on a graveyard. Another statistic in South Africa’s overloaded crime data.

Bloodshed. Sudan knows its share of it. Bloodstained deserts.

Next year April this vast country will hold elections. Historic elections most likely. Sudan’s President Al-Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes in Darfur. And the south of the country, which is semi-autonomous, hopes the 2010 elections will pave the way for independence a year later. Indeed, amidst the turmoil of Darfur and the ICC, Southern Sudan will hold a referendum on secession from the north in 2011. Tearing itself away from the mother-nation. Without any doubt Khartoum’s nerves are stretched. That’s all a very volatile and highly inflammable cocktail. It got red lights flashing all over it.

Currently Khartoum and Juba, the capital of the south, live side by side following a peace agreement signed some years ago. I think it was 2005. And a few southern ministers are part of Al-Bashir’s government. External signs of attempts towards unity. More a lick of paint than handshakes and expressions of friendship. The situation is very edgy and deep mistrust exists between both sides. It’s a co-existence based on preparedness for the worse. Already in recent months Juba accused Khartoum of stirring up ethnic tensions in the south.

And thus in such a situation it would very easy for the dominos to fall back into a situation of all out war. War amidst current efforts to rebuild the heavily destroyed south. Renewed fighting would take the impoverished south several decades back. Despite its empty coffers Juba has been building up its army. The tense atmosphere between north and south fuelled the need for more and bigger weapons. Despite the arms embargo as part of their co-existence treaty. But Juba bought jets, tanks and sent its pilots for training to South Africa. Sudan’s bloody past might just not be history yet. Unfortunately.

Human behaviour is often a bloody affair. Distrust and hate.

Throw out. US band Strike Anywhere is about to release its new album “Iron Front” on the alternative music label Bridge 9. Punkrock with socio-political lyrics. “We move from fear to fear. I don't believe in consolation, no matter what falls out of the bloated mouthpiece of the nation.” Part of the song “Omega Footprint”.

p.s. We also bow our heads in memory of Brian Redman who passed away recently. Brian was the bass player of Seattle’s influential hardcore band Trial.

C-Ya

collateral – hello October 2009