In many ways this Christmas sticks in your mind when
disasters are spoken off. The Mayan
calendar ending spanned a huge range of doomsday scenarios and it was quite
disturbing the number of elderly relatives who confessed to being quite content
if the world ended. They obviously felt
life had gone on long enough and going out with a bang and lots of company held
a certain appeal. Unfortunately, these turbulent times
are nothing new.
Imagine living through the World wars or even the Spanish
flu, which alone wiped out 40 million.
My great grandmother lost two sons in one week from that Flu. I cannot begin to imagine what that was like
to endure. With World War I fresh in
the mind there must have been a feeling that the horror would never cease. The young and the strongest, the flowers of
each family mowed down with breath taking speed. The Spanish flu took out those with strong immune systems and so
it must have seemed as if the blood let, in those trenches was not enough. If
ever you walk, as I did with a cousin, through the war graves in France the
scale of such losses hits you.
As far as the eye can see there are graves and as you crest
one hill more stretch out in yet another vista of never ending crosses to mark
lost lives. The real consequences of
war, its horror hit home and we were silenced by the horrendous loss before
us.
Years later, I had a similar feeling in Auschwitz when
visiting the camp with a friend, Pari.
We entered a huge barn like room with shoes of those killed in the
camp.
It felt as if one’s heart was being squeezed in a vice,
tightening with the absolute horror of it.
As the train pulled out of that place, Pari and I sat opposite each other
in a carriage, in silence. I found
myself rubbing at my chest as if trying to ease the physical pain that knotted
there.
Who can forget the more recent disasters such as the Tsunami
on Boxing Day 2004 that wiped out 227,898 lives in terrifying unexpected
swiftness. If someone had predicted
these disasters we would not have grasped even the possibility that such things
could occur. Our brains would have
rightly denied the forthcoming horrors as impossible, intolerable and
unendurable. But our disbelief does not
prevent such tragedies happening.
If nations can endure such horror when we rise up to war, we must wage peace instead. When humanity is facing such natural calamities and disasters, the need to be a world united in the race to save lives becomes achingly apparent. These are lessons none of us can afford to forget.
Very good
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