Friday 30 December 2022

Not a Prophecy.

 The current ad on my email home page is from UNICEF, and carries the tag line:

Help save a child’s life today

To most of us there are few, if any, greater achievements in this mortal realm than saving a child’s life. But when the issue is reduced to a tag line on an advert it slips into the mind briefly and then slips straight out again because it’s just a slogan on an advert, and adverts are so annoyingly ubiquitous as to be supremely ignorable.

There’s something wrong here, so what is it?

Well, I’m coming to the view that all the charity in the world – for all that it’s worthy and well meant and still worth contributing to – is not ultimately going to make the world a better place. It will help in certain situations, while others crop up elsewhere to perpetuate the endless pressure.

It seems to me that what’s needed is a radical change in the way the world functions. The people in charge who are driven by greed, power mania and inflated ego need to be swept away and a fresh start made based on humanitarian and inclusive values. And the only way I can see that happening is the arrival of some sort of cataclysmic event.

I’ve heard it said often that every culture in the world, from the simplest to the most sophisticated, has its myth of a huge, destructive flood somewhere back in distant history. Maybe it’s time for another one. But wouldn’t it be nice if a less devastating way could be found?

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