Powerless and Disbelieving...

There was a time when we'd have been unaware of the suicide bombers who blew people to smithereens in a busy market in Baghdad a few days ago...perhaps the news would have reached a few eventually, from letters sent by travelling relatives or maybe from a diplomat going home on leave from an Embassy in a quiet suburb.

Maybe we'd not have heard much about the appalling events in Paris...the news would have filtered through slowly and we certainly wouldn't have had the biggest overblown eejit in the history of 'pop' music announcing that 'ISIS are now attacking music' so help me if I should ever come across that man walking down a Dublin street...COPD or not, I'd be inclined to wring his feckin' neck...

But we live in an age where the news is instant...we can watch it unfolding in 'real time'...watch and listen to news reporters clutching their microphones, as they put on suitably mournful expressions while secretly hoping their report will be the one to hit the headlines in tomorrow's newspapers...

If we so wish, we can watch it again and again...see people in floods of tears...wrapped in survival blankets...being loaded into ambulances by desperate paramedics holding bottles of plasma aloft...cameramen shoving cameras into their faces and asking 'how do they feel'...they linger lovingly on patches of what might be blood on the pavements.

We are warned endlessly that the ISIS fanatics' will find their way into other European countries while politicians' say everyone coming to our shores will be carefully vetted...

Facebook has gone quite overboard, from the totally crass remark left by an acquaintance of my son, to people covering their photos with the French flag...

Perhaps the news ought to be avoided altogether...maybe we should bury our heads deep into the sand and pretend it isn't happening...isn't that what happened when the truth about the Nazi concentration camps first came out...grainy newsreels of piles of corpses.

Man's inhumanity towards his fellows leaves me feeling powerless and bewildered.

[starveycat]

Dear Vashti it has always been this way and it will always be this way. Yes I am cynical but as long as the power mad and greedy rule the world that's the way it is. I have lived long enough to know that nothing I do or say will make a jot of difference. I just live my mundane life and help my fellow when I can, it is all I can do ♥

[baseman in reply to starveycat]

Thank you , starveycat. At last I have found a comment that represents what the majority of people, me included, must be thinking. Well done for that. It will be interesting to see what measures are put in place for the England-vs-France football match later this week.

[knitter in reply to baseman]

Hi baseman and starveycat cat, I do think we can make a difference .....at least we have the vote even though the politicians we voted for may not be in power.

[Mandy6513]

Money and power are more important to some

[Mandy6513]

Humanity is lost for some people when power and money are involved

Ive also seen on facebook the french flags over their photos and many people asking why when what happened in Paris is happening to them ever day........the media manipulates us

[Azure_Sky]

I have put the French Flag over my profile on Facebook, so have family and friends. I also posted O2's link. To me it is a mark of respect.

Looking back through history, there have always been dreadful massacres happening. Terrible things that people who were not there, knew nothing about.

In my opinion there should be maximum publicity. People need to be aware. How else can we send out the message that we stand together against evil.

Light must be allowed to shine upon the darkest deepest depths of hatred. The horrors should be exposed. It is the best way to make people aware and observant.

[clematis5932]

Vasti Yes I also feel powerless and totally bewildered. I have a 16 year old grand-daughter who was moved to tears by what she saw on tv, all we could do was to show our respect, that we did by showing the French flag on our facebook profile. If the young are moved by what they saw on tv over the last 2 days then all may be not lost, for they are the ones that can help to shape the future.

[piggi]

These attacks get closer - we can't shut off the news and ignore them. Raqqa, Baghdad, Kenya ......... those poor students.

[Hidden]

I think publicity is the best thing in the world for atrocities such as this. If darkness is brought into the light then it can be faced and overcome. I agree the world would seem a better place without the mass media but ignorance isn't the answer. x

[Lynda1952]

A agree with you Vashti, I think many if us must feel powerless and bewildered with the atrocities that have happened recently. It makes you fear for humanity xx

[Hidden]

I to hate seeing the horrors of war, and that's us what it is, we blow up and kill leaders in a far off land and they retaliate we in england saw what was happening in Ireland but in lots of ways chose to ignore it until it happened here in Britain , I see my self as some one is politically aware, and know we are being manipulated by the media most of it is embedded ,and often speaks for the wealthy but I watch Al Jazeera, it gives as much as possible an unbiased view of the world news and the reporters are often killed or enprisoned doing their job. But yes I feel helpless, there doesn't seem an answer to the currant problems with the world powers that are in charge, empathy and prays and answering an call to help is all the majority can do x

[Minushabens]

I think that Western leaders have to be very careful in their choice of language and behaviour. In a sense ISIS & their ilk want to create a situation where we are "at war" with them, ergo with Islam in their eyes as that is a powerful recruiting tool.

More to the point there is I suspect hardly a country on Earth (& certainly not Britain) that has not bombed civilians at some point in their history to achieve their own military aims, so buying into their language is very dangerous & creates a recruitment narrative that is alluring to many, and not just naive & vulnerable youngsters.

These people are what they are; murderers & betrayers of their religion and of humanity. But we cannot just wash our hands of the long historic legacy that Western powers have played in creating the problems in that region, & the more we adopt a rhetoric of a benevolent democracy fighting evil, the more I believe we feed rather than solve the problem.

What is particularly toxic now is that we are seeing major world powers each jockeying for their own piece of the jigsaw, be it oil, money, territory, allies or whatever. And history teaches us only too well where that ends up.