the end of times

This picture, courtesy of Tom, made me wonder: which world does the poet live in, which world do any of us live/lie in? The stark unreality of our own lives is shown up by the people who are struggling just to breathe.

"The human in the world, beginning with Syria, has no value."

People want to hang the poet on the cross because he has to speak, today, for a beleaguered humanity; has to shoulder the responsibility that we ourselves have no strength to take up; has to bear witness to the inhumanity of man against man. There is something extreme in that "has to".

We expect too much. In an ideological age the person who speaks too directly will not be listened to, will become just another shrill voice, speaker of words that are washed away by morning.

A few years ago, when the bombs were going off here on a regular basis and the barriers were just going up, you found it hard to continue teaching. Focusing on some arcane dispute about the meaning of the world 'utility' when children's bodies were lying in the street, ripped into shreds. The honest thing to do would have been to stop and walk away, cut out all the bullshit pretence of participating in the 'life of the mind'. 

All the fake proclamations from up on high, from the men in pointed hats, that we must continue or it was a victory for extremism sounded as hollow and flat as our impassive faces. It was already a victory for extremism. When wasn't it?

Now, five years down the road, at least 40,000 killed, many thousands missing or held in "legal" detention (indefinitely), the great surge to victory, the wonderful clearing that is taking place so that the Chinese can open some corridor, makes you think: we're sunk, well & truly.  

Some think climate change will be the end. But the end has already begun. At the end of time there is no place for anyone. Each goes their own way. The pictures Tom shows make you think of some kind of Biblical scene unfolding before our very eyes, or images from Goya's dark period.