Thursday, 24 March 2016

Playtime...

Would be fascist world leaders preach race hatred in America, fundamentalists blow up innocent people in Belgium, thousands are turned away from safety in Europe and sent back to danger, Russia flexes its world muscles after keeping it local for years.

I don’t know what’s coming, but it doesn’t feel good. It always starts with a mad megalomaniac or two, and let’s face It, we have more than enough of those around at the moment. Trump or Putin, Kim-Jong Un or Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, it makes no difference. Each believes that their way is right and each will stop at nothing it seems to make their beliefs a reality.

In the event of global war where do we stand in all of this? Will we be with America or with Europe? Make no mistake, Europe isn't the easily recognisable place it was fifty years ago and the world isn’t the relatively simple place it was back when Kaiser Bill or Hitler decided that they deserved to have everything. What if Trump were to become US president? If he does as he promises then the world will be thrown into chaos. How will Putin react? Those two are likely to go at it like a Frankie Goes to Hollywood video or worse still form a terrible and deadly alliance for a while. How will Hu Jintao react? And what about all the little guys when they are given their head as the big guys are distracted away. Will Mamnoon Hussain decide it’s time to settle an old score? Will Rajendra Prasad decide to get in first? And what about Israel, those volatile and numerous African countries, Columbia and the rest? Will Argentina take their chance and invade the Falklands again? Will we go to war to keep them?

The world is like a playground. There are big kids and little kids, strong kids and weak kids, nice kids and nasty kids, kids who want to be friends with everybody and kids who want to be friends with nobody. There are kids who want to play and kids who want to fight, there are kids who want to stop other kids fighting and kids who want to watch other kids fight. There are kids who want to give what they can and kids who want to grab what’s available. There are kids that want to help and kids who want to harm. There are all sorts of kids in the playground.

It looks like it could be playtime again, but in the playground there’s also usually a teacher to keep order. Where’s ours?

2 comments:

  1. Every time I hear our politicians braying during PMQs I think "The Politics of the Playground" so it's most definitely a widely-held belief... But it's not just in politics, it sneaks into all walks of life. Who we ultimately are seems to be defined by those awkward few years spent in the school yard. Some of us never grow up... Perhaps it's time the human race did...?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I agree Martin. I just find it hard to define grown up.I know that Trump isn't. i know he's as dangerous as a whole bunch of terrorist, but then populists always are.

    ReplyDelete