Lured by the siren voices of human aggrandizement,
The hedonistic, headlong pursuit of material satisfaction.
By the few who seek wealth and power
On a scale undreamed of
By the Caesars and Pharaohs
Or even by the lofty, pampered Imperialists
Of the heady nineteenth century.
Ignored, are the vast stinking, majority,
The teeming poor who sink deeper
Into the morass of hunger and wretchedness.
In circumstances of inescapable horror
Which breed hopelessness
And the smouldering hatred
Of lasting resentment and fear
A world of vast inequality.
Marshaled by the incorrigibly rich
In order to sate their selfish and aggressive
Lust for more.
An ideological evil
Which grips the lost and deprived
With the extinction of hope
And the rage to exact…a retribution.
Then there is the deterioration
Of international leadership,
The willingness or inability
Of world powers to control
Excess or anarchy within or without
Their borders…
Even whilst circling each other
With monstrous weaponry
And an engulfing, growing,
Antagonism of distrust.
America is in retreat to it’s fortress shores.
Europe is leaderless, timid and uncontactable.
Russia, near bankrupt, snarling aggression
And clawing back a buffer of unwilling former satellites.
Eurasia and the Middle East seething
With religious and racial warfare.
Africa in the throes of losing control
Of a world threatening Ebola pandemic.
China clawing it’s way forward
To global economic and military dominance.
A world without referees or rules
Where antagonistic giants force
The un-powerful to adopt
An ultimatum of “either them or us”.
Where the threat of terrorism transcends borders every day,
Where genocidal practices and weapons of mass destruction,
Computer global anarchy and environmental depredation
Illustrate the growing volatility
Of a deteriorating world order.
There is a Paralysis of Will in mankind.
Anthropology, psychology and physiology
Recognise only one single human species.
But that species is impossibly fractionated….
By an entrenched pattern of conflict,
An inability to compromise,
A refusal to disperse wealth for the common good,
Global racial and religious disharmony and animosity
And a fundamental refusal to communicate
Proactively …at all.
The consequences of tolerating
And furthering this Paralysis of Will,
Shall lead mankind to an apocalypse.
The consequences of which,
Are just too terrible to contemplate.
Somehow we should, as one,
Engender… a common aspiration,
With a level of universal commitment,
To induce an attitude, a consciousness
Of great and abiding…
World Citizenship.
Realistic? …No!
Likely? …No!
Do you give it a snowballs chance in Hell? …Not this week!
Why?... The frailty of Human Nature!
M.
From just about as far away from everything as you can, thankfully, possibly get….
NEW ZEALAND.
20 September 2014
With thanks for base material from The Baha'i Universal House of Justice and Henry Kissinger's new book on"Threatening Chaos"
M.