An Alternative Reason to Weep.

I watched the closing ceremony and medals presentation from the World Netball Championships earlier. Everybody was smiling; everybody looked happy; the mood was one of congratulation for a job well done in showing what an international sporting event should be – a coming together of people of different colours and from different cultures in friendly competition, not a war with rules as some grizzled old football coaches would have us believe.

And then I watched an exhibition of Irish step dancing by a group of young Russian girls on YouTube. They were excellent, not quite up to Riverdance standards technically, but what little they lacked in that area (and it was only a little) they made up for with a bagful of proud attitudes and a mighty helping of Russian flare. And everything they did was in harmony with the music and each other.

So why did they both make me emotional? Could it be that I was seeing something right with the world for a change? Could it be that it further enhanced my understanding that Russia is not my enemy, Iran is not my enemy, North Korea is not my enemy? My enemies are people like Trump and Putin and Bolsonaro – people who would divide in order to rule, people who would wantonly engender hatred, division, misery and destruction in the name of personal and sectarian interest. And there are plenty more where they came from.

Maybe that was it, I don’t know. But something did.