When Humanity Failed—and Individuals Did Not

Disasters happen. But it seems to me that we can all learn from our own mistakes. A little honest reflection can allow even a catastrophe in our lives to become a pivotal moment: a point at which we change our behaviour or take a different direction. Yet when we confront mass killings, the horror can be so overwhelming that we do not want to look, listen or read about it. We turn away. Some even deny that it happened.

On 14 December 2012, a gunman murdered twenty children, all aged six or seven, and six members of staff at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Afterwards, the American broadcaster Alex Jones promoted the false claim that the massacre was staged and that grieving relatives were actors. Families already suffering an unimaginable loss were subjected to harassment and threats by people who believed these lies.

Relatives brought civil proceedings against Jones and were awarded substantial damages. Yet, according to reporting in August 2026, they had still collected no money from him, while he continued broadcasting on other platforms. Nearly fourteen years after the shooting, their grief had been compounded by years of abuse and legal battles. It hurts the heart to think of them. What can one say—and what on earth has been learned?

Justice matters. When the scale of suffering beggars belief, we must resist the temptation to avert our eyes. Examining what happened gives us a chance to recognise warning signs, confront failures and prevent further harm. Otherwise, history becomes a dreadful repeating record, and we seem continually surprised to hear it playing again.

On 11 January 1994, General Roméo Dallaire, commander of the United Nations peacekeeping force in Rwanda, sent an urgent cable to his superiors. Drawing on information from an insider in the Interahamwe militia, he warned of preparations for attacks on Tutsis, political assassinations and the killing of Belgian peacekeepers to provoke Belgium’s withdrawal. The informant reported being ordered to register Tutsis and suspected that this was preparation for their extermination. This was almost three months before the genocide began.

The warning did not produce an effective preventive response. Worse still, after the killing had begun, the UN Security Council voted on 21 April to reduce the peacekeeping force drastically. At the very moment civilians most desperately needed protection, international support was being withdrawn.

The genocide unfolded on the night of 6 April and into 7 April 1994, following the shooting down of President Juvénal Habyarimana’s aircraft. Habyarimana was Hutu and had signed a peace agreement providing for power-sharing with the predominantly Tutsi rebel movement and opposition parties. Hutu extremists opposed that settlement. Within half an hour of the aircraft’s destruction, roadblocks were being established to identify Tutsis. The assassination became the trigger for organised mass killing.

An estimated 800,000 people were killed over roughly one hundred days. The principal targets were Tutsis, but moderate Hutus and others who opposed the extremists were also murdered. Extremist radio broadcasts spread hatred, encouraged killing and helped direct the violence.

Yet alongside this terrible history are accounts of extraordinary courage. Those stories deserve to be remembered too.

General Dallaire remained in Rwanda with a greatly reduced peacekeeping contingent, trying to protect civilians amid the slaughter. Their efforts are credited with saving approximately 32,000 people. That was no small achievement. Nevertheless, he returned to Canada deeply traumatised and developed severe post-traumatic stress disorder. He has spoken openly about surviving four suicide attempts. With treatment and support, he went on to serve as a Canadian senator, write about his experiences and campaign for veterans’ mental health and the prevention of the recruitment of child soldiers.

Another courageous figure was Damas Gisimba, a Rwandan orphanage director who turned his family’s orphanage in Kigali into a refuge for more than four hundred people, mostly children. Despite shortages and repeated threats, he worked to protect those sheltering there. His commitment to vulnerable children continued long after the genocide.

Then there was Zura Karuhimbi, a Hutu woman who sheltered more than one hundred people, mainly Tutsis, in and around her home. About sixty-nine at the time, she exploited the attackers’ fear of witchcraft, pretending that supernatural forces would punish anyone who harmed those in her protection. It was an ingenious way for an unarmed woman to confront armed killers. In 2006, she received Rwanda’s Campaign Against Genocide Medal, although she continued to live in poverty. She died in 2018, aged approximately ninety-three. 

We cannot undo these atrocities. But we can listen to warnings, challenge lies and refuse to look away. These stories reveal how cruel human beings can become—and how astonishingly courageous others can be. Remembering both matters. Perhaps the most useful lesson is that, even in terrible circumstances, the choices individuals make can save lives.

Be as a lamp unto them that walk in darkness, a joy to the sorrowful, a sea for the thirsty, a haven for the distressed, an upholder and defender of the victim of oppression. Let integrity and uprightness distinguish all thine acts.

 Bahá’u’lláh

Not All Flowers Bloom in View

Not everything that a man knoweth can be disclosed, nor can everything that he can disclose be regarded as timely, nor can every timely utterance be considered as suited to the capacity of those who hear it.

Bahá’u’lláh

It’s thought-provoking to be reminded that not everything we have to say should necessarily be shared. To complicate matters further, even when something is worth sharing, it may not be the right time to do so. And finally, even if we find the right words and choose the right moment, those who hear them may not be ready to benefit from them.

I love the way this passage reminds us of the fragility of true communication. Sometimes we’re so convinced of our eloquence, so proud of our rigorous thinking, that we forget to consider whether the other person is ready, willing or able to hear what we are saying.

I was talking with some friends about the challenges of communication when one admitted that it had been several months since they could remember expressing a particular point clearly and well to someone. Then, rather ruefully, they added that it had been much longer—decades—since they themselves had felt truly heard. Perhaps, in this world of sound bites, broadcasting and social media, we have forgotten the gentle art of listening.

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.

Ecclesiastes 3:1, King James Bible

This quotation, one of my favourites, reminds us that our lives, like the natural world, have their seasons. To me, it also speaks of the patience, determination and perseverance needed to bring something worthwhile to fruition. Wanting something to happen does not necessarily mean that its time has come.

All great things are slow of growth; nay, this is true even of a grape or of a fig.

Epictetus

When we look at nature and follow the slow journey from seed to plant, blossom to fruit, we are reminded that some processes cannot be rushed. It’s interesting that Epictetus mentions grapes and figs: grapevines bear their flowers openly, while the fig’s tiny flowers are hidden within the structure that becomes the fig we eat. Perhaps there is a reminder here that growth is not always visible. Each of us develops in our own way, and much may be happening inwardly long before there is anything to show the world.

Seize thy chance, for it will come to thee no more.

Bahá’u’lláh

Yet patience is only part of the story. There is also a time to act.

Since different plants bear fruit in different ways and at different times, there seems little point in measuring our progress entirely against that of those around us. Each of us has our own capacities, circumstances and purpose. We can learn from others without expecting our lives to follow the same pattern.

But a harvest still depends on planting and tending. We cannot neglect the sowing, leave our plants unwatered through a dry spell, and then expect an abundant crop. So, alongside patience, we need attentiveness: a willingness to recognise an opportunity and the courage to take it before it passes.

Perhaps the challenge is to recognise when to speak and when to listen, when to wait and when to act.

Finding My Missing Courage

I have not put pen to paper for some time. Giving reasons feels like making excuses, so no explanations here. Writing is when I reflect and debrief. More than that, it is a kind of catharsis. It can take years for me to reach the point where, having reflected inwardly, brooded and rethought things, I can finally put an event on paper. Relief follows. But these days my mental and physical gymnastics have caused an injury, and I must sit in silence for a while.

I must gather my strength and find my missing courage. Sometimes the world, too, seems frozen in its tracks. The only voices heard are those with little or no conscience. Their siren calls offend the senses and seem to sink to ever lower levels of discourse. One retreats from debate or discussion as the foulness of tone diminishes all who participate. Not sure where this is going, but in the words of Forrest Gump, “That’s all I have to say about that!”

Wrinkles, Invisibility and Other Superpowers

There is an ageing population here in Malta. I include myself in that category! However, there is also a proportion with massive disposable incomes, and many of them invest in cosmetic surgery, facial treatments and laughably expensive creams in order to roll back the remorseless ageing process. It is certainly the deterioration in the facial region that jumps out at me when looking in a magnifying mirror or wearing really strong reading glasses.

I know it can be distressing to see the reality of one’s aged face. Have you, like me, looked up in a lift and been appalled by the harassed, cross old woman glaring back from the mirrored interior?

There are coping strategies that do not include cosmetic surgery or expensive creams. Mine is not to wear glasses, which creates a sort of soft haze of uncertainty about what actually exists. It’s almost an aspect of special relativity, where the glasses create a different frame of reference that includes length contraction (finer wrinkles) and time dilation (a more youthful appearance). Mind you, only in my frame of reference does that reality exist. It does not affect or impact what others may see. But one has to factor in that other important superpower acquired with age: our cloak of invisibility.

I remember, as an adolescent, getting into my swimsuit on the beach beneath a huge beach towel with much difficulty. My mother asked the wounding question, “Who is looking at you?” She was undoubtedly right, but the younger me smarted under this perceived insult. Now, I recognise it as a fundamental truth. 

No one is looking at me, provided I don’t wear my pants on my head, put my clothes on inside out or leave the house in my slippers. I must, in all honesty, also confess to committing two out of the aforementioned three mistakes in the last year. One needn’t dwell on such things. My memory, like the elasticated waist of my trousers, can shrink and expand at will.

Gone are those adolescent years when embarrassing mistakes caused flashbacks, trauma and many tears, even when remembered months later. I have grown kinder to this older, flawed self. I can giggle over small mistakes, try to cover up the larger ones and generally beam at the world with good-natured intention.

Strangers have become universally kinder to me. I am offered seats on buses, and people even offer me their arm when I gingerly step off. Drivers lower the bus to aid my entry and exit without being asked. It sometimes feels as if the bus is kneeling and paying homage to all my infirmities and weaknesses.

At such times, I am reminded of those parts of the world where the elderly face poverty, hunger, disease and neglect. Famines and wars add to the misery and agony of their old age. Forced displacement and refugee camps cause much suffering, and perhaps we should all, like the buses, lower ourselves in recognition of their pain.

"Be ye a refuge to the fearful; bring ye rest and peace to the disturbed; make ye a provision for the destitute; be a treasury of riches for the poor; be a healing medicine for those who suffer pain ..."

ʻAbduʼl-Bahá

If looks could kill!

Sometimes it’s only decades after a person has passed away that you begin to gain perspective on them and their life. One member of our writers’ group, in Northern Ireland, was an 87-year-old English lady called Winnie. She was from Yorkshire and spoke of wearing clogs with metal soles as a child, making sparks fly as she and the other children ran down the road.

Her poetry was about simple things like fish suppers, fuel poverty or just living on her estate. It was one of the rougher estates, and whenever I visited her in Coleraine, I remembered my own time living in such challenging places.

We had so much laughter in that particular writing group, and I remember the warmth of their voices and their openness. I suspect it was the desperation in all our lives that made honesty necessary. Those who live in relative affluence probably have just as many problems, but seem to cloak themselves from others and hide their indiscretions better. Winnie has since passed away, and I miss her smile and her jokey sense of humour.

There was a retired local policeman who was also in the group. He was like a breath of fresh air, causing everyone to erupt in laughter over the simplest things. I remember he once ended up spending a night in custody through no fault of his own.

He’d been awakened in the early hours of the morning in his block of flats by the sound of a woman screaming for help. When he came out of his apartment, he could see two figures, a woman and a man, having an altercation on the walkway outside the third-floor flats.

Climbing the stairs, he joined them on the walkway and discovered that the man was beating the woman severely. He intervened and brought the man down in a rugby tackle. When the police were called, it turned out to be a domestic violence incident, but both the man and the woman blamed him for instigating all the violence, and he ended up spending the night in custody.

Poor guy! He swore he wouldn’t help anyone ever again: the risk was too great. But he made us all laugh with his tale of the evening and the confusion—thinking he was doing his good deed for the day, only to end up in a jail cell.

Winnie had her own issues. She and her husband had been unable to have children, so they had adopted two brothers, aged seven and nine. Unfortunately, the boys caused no end of trouble during childhood and went on to commit worse offences as they grew older. As adults, they seemed to gravitate towards trouble, and trouble seemed to gravitate towards them.

When her husband died, things seemed to get worse, and the two men seemed to take ridiculous pleasure in upsetting Winnie. I remember her telling us about one occasion when she was walking with her younger son Paul walking on the pavement in front of the shops in Coleraine. As they walked, he was saying the most offensive and hurtful things to her. He was cursing and shouting so loudly, and gesticulating with his fists so aggressively, that two middle-aged women walking behind them challenged him about his behaviour and intervened.

Pulling him aside, away from Winnie, they called the police and gave him a good scolding as they stood on the pavement waiting for the police to arrive. Middle-aged ladies working in tandem can give a powerful ticking-off, and these two were well built and very well intentioned. I think her son was more afraid of these two well-built and thoroughly outraged middle-aged women than of the small policeman who eventually appeared to take down the details.

Winnie said her son was completely shocked by how they spoke to him and by their fearlessness. The small policeman gave him a warning not to behave in such a manner, but apparently the two middle-aged women needed to be restrained by the policeman from giving a more physical response to his misbehaviour.

The police had been called on many occasions to deal with her son, and he had no fear of them. But Winnie said that, over the policeman’s shoulder, one of the women pointed two fingers at her own eyes and then at her son—a warning that had him scared indeed. Who knew when he would encounter them again? And without police intervention, would he be safe?

I remember calling Winnie once and hearing her son shouting furiously at her in the background. I was so angry at his tone that I told Winnie to give him the phone so I could give him a piece of my mind. She told him I wanted to talk to him and offered him the phone. There was silence, and then she told me he’d run out of the door and onto the street rather than talk to me.

I visited Winnie several times and was so upset to see her in her big armchair, wrapped in blankets. She told me that was where she slept now. Apparently, the upper floor, where her bedroom was, was far too cold. It upset me to think of her life being restricted to this one tiny room and the armchair. I wish the world were more aware of what age and poverty do to so many people.

During one of my visits, her son was there. I was pretty annoyed with him but tried not to show it. I didn’t want to make things worse for Winnie, but I couldn’t stop myself glaring at him. He was in a placating mood, all smiles and very subservient in the way he greeted me. That made me want to slap him really hard.

Then my son suddenly appeared, helping to carry in some things from my car for Winnie. He is six foot two, and Paul, thought I’d come to get some justice and had brought a heavy along for that purpose. He practically fell to his knees before us. However, my son greeted him warmly and shook his hand, and I could see that Paul was beyond relieved.

I had to stop myself copying the middle-aged lady’s two-finger warning, pointing to my eyes and then at Paul over my son’s shoulder, just to freak him out.

Paul continued to plague Winnie’s life with his violence, his moods and his anger. It seemed so unfair. One of Winnie’s stories was about Paul’s neighbour down the street, who had attacked and frightened him. I enjoyed her story, but I’m afraid I knew exactly how that neighbour felt, as I’d really wanted to give him a good thrashing myself. Winnie was a lovely lady and didn’t deserve any of this.

Sometimes you have to ask what lessons are learned in life. I think Winnie had a wonderful married life with her husband, and when they decided to adopt two children, they did it for all the right reasons. It’s just a shame that some children are so scarred by what they’ve been through that they seem never to find their feet or make a better life, despite all the help and love they receive.

Addiction played a big role in much of the harm I saw in those lives. Alcoholism blights many Irish lives and causes so much distress and heartache. I wonder whether those who make so much money out of this dirty business ever think about the anguish and violence so often associated with their product.

Lessons learned by granny this month

 

I told my grandson that he was so cute.  "How did you get so cute?" I asked. Then I asked a harder question, "Do you think I could be as cute as you?" He did not hesitate, he said "No, you are too old!" Out of the mouth of babes!!!

He lost his first tooth and excitedly hid it under his pillow expecting the tooth Fairy to do her business.  No money appeared and he was telling his younger cousin that he's waited days and the tooth was still there but no money.  Although, only five his cousin broke the brutal news, "there's no such thing as a tooth fairy it is just parents who put the money under the pillow".  My grandson digested this news with stoic resignation.  The real world is a tough show.

This youngest grandchild is not really interested in computers but I found he had carefully constructed a cardboard version for himself and was happily playing on it!

Baxter is the family dog and his good nature is tangible.  He approaches everything and everyone like gigantic puppy happy and really for fun.  When he is greeted with a growl, snap or shout he quickly runs away to safety.  He is not the sharpest pencil in the pack and is totally terrified by feathers, even the little tiny ones that come out of pillows.  But all of it makes up a very loveable character to have around. I hope now like me you are happy to hear about all these cheery chappies and valuable lessons learned from them.

Magical Maltese Taxi Driver

Our Maltese taxi driver was a large, middle-aged woman with a warm smile. While our cases were being loaded in her boot, another driver hooted impatiently. Her car was blocking his way through the narrow street. She responded with an open-handed gesture that seemed to say, “What do you expect me to do?” His irritation did nothing to disturb her good humour.

As we drove off, she explained that many taxi drivers were paid per ride and therefore rushed to get their customers to their destinations. With eCabs, she told us, she was paid by the hour.

“No need to race,” she said, smiling. “We can go at a reasonable pace.”

On the way to the airport, she told us about her life as a taxi driver, a mother of five and a grandmother of many more. Then she announced her household rule.

“No mobile phones in my house. They all have to put them in a box at the front door. That way, I get proper conversations with them all, instead of their heads in a screen all the time!”

I was impressed and asked how she kept her grandchildren amused without screens.

“We play the old games. I draw a line in the yard and we all throw coins to see who can get closest to it.”

I pictured them gathered in the yard, absorbed in this simple competition, with their grandmother joining in. What memories those children would carry with them: the games, the laughter and the conversations, all presided over by this good-natured matriarch. I wondered how those hours together would shape the people they became.

There was something worldly-wise about her, a weariness perhaps, but also a resolute good nature. She was not blind to the faults around her. She simply seemed determined to remain loving and cheerful despite them. Another driver could hoot, the world could hurry, and her grandchildren could arrive with phones in their hands. She would still set her own pace and insist on time together.

By the time we reached the airport, we felt heartened. An ordinary taxi journey had become a reminder of how much one person can bring to the lives of those around them.

We all have choices about the kind of world we create in our own homes. Hers began with a box by the front door.

“Every child is potentially the light of the world…”

‘Abdu’l-Bahá

When Continuing Becomes Dangerous: Lessons from Everest’s Death Zone

Mount Everest rises 8,849 metres above sea level. Its uppermost slopes lie in a region mountaineers rightly call the death zone. At approximately 8,000 metres and above, atmospheric pressure is so low that the human body can no longer acclimatise sufficiently to survive for long.

Air pressure at this height is little more than one-third of that at sea level. Although oxygen still makes up approximately 21% of the atmosphere, each breath contains far fewer oxygen molecules, so much less oxygen passes from the lungs into the bloodstream. A climber may remain conscious, continue upwards and even reach the summit, but the body is steadily deteriorating. The longer someone remains there, the greater the danger.

There are times when emotional, physical or psychological stress can push us into a personal danger zone. The basic supports that maintain our well-being may begin to fail, and our condition can deteriorate surprisingly quickly. It is important to recognise the warning signals and respond promptly. The longer we remain in such a place, the more difficult recovery may become.

What the Death Zone Does to the Body

The shortage of oxygen places the body under extraordinary strain. Researchers who took arterial blood samples from four climbers breathing ambient air at 8,400 metres found an average arterial oxygen pressure of only 24.6 mmHg—an extraordinarily low value, close to the limits of human tolerance. To compensate, climbers breathe faster and more deeply, their heart rate rises and the circulation works harder to deliver the available oxygen to vital organs.

Even the ordinary tasks of life can sometimes demand almost superhuman effort. When we must operate at full capacity merely to stand still, strain accumulates. That is itself a warning sign worth recognising.

The Brain Becomes Slow and Unreliable

The brain is particularly sensitive to a lack of oxygen. Although it makes up only about 2% of body weight, it consumes approximately 20% of the body’s oxygen while we are resting. Weight for weight, brain tissue uses roughly ten times more oxygen than the average body tissue.

At extreme altitude, oxygen deprivation causes thinking to slow, memory and coordination to deteriorate and judgement to become dangerously poor. A climber may feel oddly confident while making irrational decisions. He or she may forget to attach to a safety line, misread the route, ignore a turnaround time or insist on continuing when descent is essential.

This is one of the cruellest features of the death zone: the very organ needed to recognise danger is itself being impaired. Exhaustion, sleep deprivation, cold and dehydration make the problem worse. In our own danger zones, our ability to assess the situation clearly may be among the first things affected. We can react impulsively or, while trying to improve matters, make them worse. That is why it is important to recognise our limits before judgement becomes clouded—and to listen to people we trust.

High-Altitude Cerebral Oedema: Swelling of the Brain

Altitude illness can progress to high-altitude cerebral oedema (HACE), a dangerous swelling of the brain. Early signs include confusion, unusual behaviour and loss of balance. A person who cannot walk heel-to-toe in a straight line may already be gravely ill. Without immediate descent and treatment, HACE can progress rapidly to coma and death.

Escaping a crisis requires thought and sensible decisions. If our ability to think clearly is itself impaired, however, we may no longer be able to find the way out without help.

The Lungs Begin to Fill with Fluid

When oxygen is already desperately scarce, low oxygen levels can cause the small arteries in the lungs to constrict. This narrowing is often uneven, forcing too much blood through the vessels that remain relatively open. The resulting pressure can damage their delicate walls, allowing fluid to leak from the capillaries into the surrounding tissue and eventually into the air sacs.

The fluid occupies space that should contain air and makes the lungs stiffer, so still less oxygen can cross into the blood. Falling oxygen levels produce further constriction and leakage, creating a dangerous vicious circle. This is high-altitude pulmonary oedema (HAPE).

A climber may become breathless even while resting, develop a cough, experience overwhelming weakness or become unable to keep pace. Breathing may become noisy, and crackling sounds can develop in the lungs. In advanced cases, the person may cough up pink or blood-tinged frothy sputum. The lungs that are desperately needed to collect oxygen are becoming progressively less able to do so. HAPE can worsen with frightening speed.

In severe HAPE, a person is effectively suffocating as fluid fills spaces that should contain air. In life, too, we can become so focused on external pressures that we fail to notice the internal damage they are causing. Trusted people around us may recognise the warning signs before we can and help us obtain the support we need.

The Body Consumes Itself

Appetite commonly fades at great altitude, while digestion becomes more difficult and the energy cost of climbing remains enormous. Climbers lose weight, fat and—particularly above approximately 5,000 metres—muscle. The body begins breaking down its own tissues at precisely the time when the climber needs exceptional strength to descend.

Dehydration is another constant danger. Cold, dry air increases water loss through rapid breathing, while exertion causes further losses. Yet melting snow and drinking require time and fuel. Dehydration reduces plasma volume, concentrates the blood and compounds fatigue and circulatory strain.

We can become so devoted to a goal or task that we remain blind to its consequences. Losing our appetite, motivation, sleep or ability to attend to basic needs can signal a serious imbalance. We need the essentials that sustain us: nourishment and rest, good friends, close family, a safe home and a path forward.

Cold Becomes Harder to Resist

The death zone combines oxygen starvation with extreme cold and fierce winds. As exhaustion and dehydration grow, the body becomes less capable of producing and preserving heat.

Blood vessels in the hands and feet constrict as the body tries to protect the heart and brain, greatly increasing the risk of frostbite. Low oxygen also impairs judgement, so a climber may fail to notice a freezing hand, a loose glove or the first signs of hypothermia.

We sometimes endure hardship while overlooking the damage it is doing. What is lost may not be a finger or toe, but our peace of mind, sense of self or ability to manage everyday life. We should regularly ask whether our body, mind and spirit are being sustained. Neglect is neither fair to ourselves nor to those around us.

Acclimatisation: Teaching the Body to Survive on Less

Acclimatisation is the gradual process by which the body adjusts to falling oxygen pressure. Within minutes of reaching altitude, breathing and heart rate increase. Over the following days, the kidneys excrete bicarbonate, allowing the body to sustain the rapid breathing needed to obtain more oxygen. The fluid portion of the blood also decreases, concentrating its haemoglobin. Over a longer period, increased erythropoietin stimulates the production of additional red blood cells, improving the blood’s oxygen-carrying capacity.

These changes help, but they do not restore sea-level performance. Physical fitness is essential for climbing, yet even an exceptionally fit athlete can develop altitude illness. Fitness and acclimatisation are not the same thing. The purpose of acclimatisation is not to make the death zone safe. It is to reach it in the strongest and best-acclimatised condition possible, spend as little time there as practicable and descend promptly.

Recovery from periods of intense stress also requires genuine breaks from the pressure—the equivalent of returning to base camp to recover. This may mean seeking the right company, de-escalating a situation, speaking to a professional or creating some distance from whatever is causing the strain. We may eventually have to re-enter the fray, but a period of recovery can rebuild surprising reserves of strength. On Everest, courage does not always mean continuing upwards. Sometimes it means possessing the wisdom to descend before conditions take away the ability to choose. The same can be true in life.

The Women Who Quietly Built the Peace

The Voices We Rarely Heard

Years ago, in Northern Ireland, a friend and I asked about 25 women to write about their lives. We were conscious that it was usually the voices of male, well-known, influential or wealthy individuals that were being heard. So, tapping into these quiet women from all around the province, whose voices were seldom heard, seemed a no-brainer. This was 30 years ago and right in the midst of the Troubles.

Lives Tested to the Limit

As we collated their accounts, my friend and I noticed that all faced huge, huge personal challenges. In fact, these tests seemed almost personally designed to be particularly devastating for the individual involved, whether that was a parent with dementia, a partner with a severe illness, a marriage break-up, the death of a child, blindness or other mental and physical health problems. The list of problems was startling, and my colleague commented that it seemed the worst poison was being served up to those individuals with the deliberate intent to do maximum damage!

Shoulders to the Wheel of Peace

But despite that, their accounts also radiated hope and perseverance. Not only that, but they all had their shoulders to the wheel of peace in Northern Ireland, doing what they could in their own way to make that possible in homes and communities, both rural and urban.

The Unrecorded Foundations of Peace

So, in these times when the men of violence on both sides are loudly celebrated for having laid aside their weapons, I would just like to point out that the true foundations of peace were laid by women who reached out the hand of friendship across communities throughout the length and breadth of the province.

Keeping the Beacon Alight

Their heartfelt contributions should never be forgotten because, deep down, I am convinced they, and others like them, kept the beacon of light going in incredibly difficult days. They walked that path with a nobility and dignity that contrasted with the darkness and viciousness that surrounded them. They and those like them will never be given their due. Those who kill, those who have power and those who control the media will not speak of their goodness or celebrate their small, important victories.

Quietly Turning the Tide

But I’m convinced that, under all the noise and bluster we see around us these days too, there are so many women around the world who, in their own quiet, persistent ways, are turning the tide on hate and prejudice and building more united and peaceful communities.

We shouldn’t be surprised. Women have long played a decisive part, often under the radar, organising public pressure, crossing communal divisions, mediating between armed groups or negotiating the final settlement in conflicts around the world. It’s good to be reminded of their contributions.

Eight Times Women Helped Build Peace

 1. Northern Ireland – Women Who Kept the Door Open

In 1996, Catholic and Protestant women, including Monica McWilliams, Pearl Sagar and May Blood, formed the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition. It helped ensure that the 1998 Good Friday Agreement addressed victims, reconciliation, integrated education, mixed housing and the creation of a Civic Forum. The Coalition maintained dialogue when other parties even refused to speak to one another.

 2. Liberia – Christian and Muslim Women United

During Liberia’s civil war, Leymah Gbowee brought Christian and Muslim women together in the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace. Wearing white, thousands prayed, demonstrated and demanded that President Charles Taylor and the rebel leaders negotiate. In 2003, women maintained their pressure on the peace talks in Ghana until an agreement was reached. Their campaign helped bring the country’s exceptionally brutal civil war to an end. Gbowee later received the Nobel Peace Prize.

 3. Wajir, Kenya – When Women Stopped a Clan War

In 1993, women from opposing Somali clans in Wajir began meeting because violence had made the local market unsafe. Led by women including Dekha Ibrahim Abdi, they persuaded elders, religious leaders, businesspeople and government officials to participate. Their initiative developed into a wider peace process and contributed directly to the Al-Fatah Peace Declaration, which established a ceasefire and ended the fighting. The resulting peace committees became a model for other parts of Kenya.

 4. The Philippines – A Woman at the Negotiating Table

Miriam Coronel-Ferrer headed the Philippine government’s negotiating team in talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. In 2014, she became the first woman in the world, as chief negotiator, to sign a comprehensive peace agreement with a major rebel organisation. The agreement provided the foundations for the Bangsamoro autonomous region and helped end decades of large-scale conflict in Mindanao, although sporadic violence has continued.

5. Colombia – Changing the Terms of Peace

Colombian women’s organisations campaigned persistently to be heard during negotiations between the government and the FARC guerrillas. Women eventually participated on both negotiating teams. Their influence helped place victims, displaced women, land ownership, sexual violence and women’s political participation within the final 2016 agreement. The accord ended the main conflict with FARC after more than five decades, although implementation remains incomplete.

6. Bougainville – Crossing the Battle Lines

During Bougainville’s civil war, women used family, church and traditional networks to communicate across divisions that male fighters often could not cross. They carried messages, persuaded combatants to disarm, organised local reconciliation ceremonies and pressed the opposing sides to negotiate. Women, as usual, were not given as much authority in the formal talks as their work deserved, but their grassroots mediation helped create the conditions for the ceasefire and the 2001 Bougainville Peace Agreement.

7. Burundi – Refusing to Be Excluded

Women were not just ignored but initially largely excluded from negotiations to end Burundi’s civil war. Women from the country’s different ethnic and political communities nevertheless organised an All-Party Women’s Peace Conference and presented a joint programme to the negotiators. Their recommendations, which included protection for returning refugees, punishment of sexual violence, women’s inheritance rights and women’s participation in reconstruction, were incorporated to varying degrees into the 2000 Arusha Peace and Reconciliation Agreement.

8. Somalia – The Sixth Clan for Peace

At Somalia’s 2000 Arta peace conference, political representation was divided between five principal clan groupings. Women led by Asha Hagi Elmi organised across clan boundaries and declared themselves the “Sixth Clan”—representing peace rather than one lineage. They successfully secured women’s representation in the transitional parliament and inserted a cross-clan voice into the process. The settlement did not end Somalia’s conflict permanently, but it was a major peace-building achievement.

The Quiet Power Behind Peace

What is especially striking is that these women often succeeded because they could cross the very boundaries—religion, clan, ethnicity or political allegiance—that sustained the conflict. They usually did not possess armies or official power. Their influence came from persistence, moral authority, community connections and an ability to keep people talking.

“Strive that the ideal of international peace may become realized through the efforts of womankind.”

‘Abdu’l-Bahá

The Hand That Baptised Christ? The Mystery of Malta’s Missing Relic

Before setting out to fight, the Knights Hospitaller in Malta are said to have knelt before a most unusual object: a fragment of human anatomy enclosed within a magnificent reliquary. This act of veneration they felt would give them both spiritual and physical strength as they prepared to face the dangers ahead.

The relic was a preserved right hand and forearm reputed to have belonged to St John the Baptist, the patron saint of their Order. John was remembered as an austere, courageous and uncompromising man. He lived largely in the wilderness of Judaea, wore clothing made from camel hair with a leather belt, and preached truths to power that eventually cost him his head.

According to Christian tradition, this was the very hand with which John baptised Jesus Christ in the River Jordan. Its presence must have given the Knights a powerful sense of divine protection as they embarked upon their hazardous missions.

Today, the magnificent gilded reliquary remains in St John’s Co-Cathedral in Valletta, displayed behind glass. The relic itself, however, is no longer there. The story of its extraordinary journey takes some telling.

Before Malta: Rhodes

Before coming to Malta, the Knights had been based on Rhodes. An inventory compiled there in 1483 records a relic described as the right arm of St John the Baptist.

When the Ottomans forced the Knights to surrender Rhodes in 1522, the relic they venerated as St John’s arm travelled with them during their years of wandering through the Mediterranean. When the Order finally settled in Malta in 1530, the relic was initially kept in the Church of St Lawrence in Birgu.

Thirty-five years later, Malta faced the Great Siege of 1565. The Knights, assisted by Maltese soldiers and civilians, successfully defended the island against a much larger Ottoman invasion force. The siege prompted them to construct the heavily fortified city of Valletta as their new capital.

Between 1573 and 1577, they built the Conventual Church of St John as the principal church of their Order. The relic was installed there and became one of their most sacred possessions.  Today, the church is called St John’s Co-Cathedral because Malta has two churches sharing cathedral rank: St Paul’s Cathedral in Mdina, the ancient and principal cathedral, and St John’s Co-Cathedral in Valletta.

A magnificent reliquary

In 1689, Grand Master Gregorio Carafa commissioned an ornate ceremonial reliquary for St John’s hand. Designed and cast in Rome by the Baroque artist Ciro Ferri, it was made from bronze with gilded-silver ornamentation.

It originally occupied a prominent position upon the altar in the Oratory of St John—the same oratory that contains Caravaggio’s extraordinarily powerful painting, The Beheading of St John the Baptist.

When Napoleon captured Malta and expelled the Knights in 1798, Grand Master Ferdinand von Hompesch was permitted to take the sacred hand and several other important relics with him. Ferri’s large ceremonial reliquary, however, remained in Malta.

From Malta to Montenegro

In 1799, the hand was presented to Tsar Paul I of Russia, who had been elected Grand Master of the Order. It was placed in the imperial chapel at Gatchina and subsequently became part of the religious ceremonial life of the Russian court.

Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, the relic was removed from Russia. It passed through the care of the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna in Denmark and later through Berlin before being entrusted to King Alexander I of Yugoslavia. In 1932 it was taken to Belgrade and kept in the royal chapel at Dedinje.

During the Second World War, the relic was hidden at Ostrog Monastery in Montenegro. It was later recovered and eventually placed in Cetinje Monastery, where the claimed hand of St John the Baptist remains today.

From St John the Baptist's burial to Rhodes

But how did the relic supposedly travel from the grave of St John the Baptist to Rhodes in the first place?

After John was executed, his disciples reportedly buried his body at Sebaste in Samaria (now called Sebastia, near Nablus in the West Bank.

Christian tradition relates that St Luke the Evangelist later attempted to remove the body but was able to obtain only John’s right hand or arm—the limb believed to have baptised Jesus. Luke is said to have carried it to his native city of Antioch.

Antioch had been under Muslim rule for centuries when, in 956, the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII reportedly arranged for the relic to be removed secretly. A cleric named Job is said to have carried it first to Chalcedon and then to Constantinople, where it was preserved among the sacred treasures of the Byzantine imperial palace.

After Constantinople fell to the Ottomans in 1453, many of its Christian relics passed into the sultan’s treasury. In 1484, Sultan Bayezid II sent an arm identified as that of St John the Baptist to Grand Master Pierre d’Aubusson on Rhodes. An Ottoman ambassador formally presented it to the Knights.

A mystery remains – one arm or two?

There is, however, a problem with this apparently straightforward history. The Knights’ inventory of 1483 records an arm of St John on Rhodes one year before Bayezid presented them with another one. The Knights therefore appear to have possessed two claimed arms after 1484. This arm below, is reported to be from St John the Baptist is in Topkapi Palace treasury, Istanbul, Turkey.

Numerous other churches and monasteries have claimed to possess an arm, hand or finger of St John the Baptist. It is consequently impossible to establish with certainty whether the relic that travelled from Rhodes to Malta—and ultimately to Montenegro—was Bayezid’s gift or the arm already held by the Knights.

Some stages are supported by historical records; others belong principally to religious tradition. Together, however, they form the remarkable story of a sacred object carried across continents, empires, wars and revolutions for almost two thousand years.

When Bloodlines Become a Trap

When the Gene Pool Shrinks: What DNA Reveals About Inbreeding

It is well known that prolonged inbreeding can have serious consequences for a population. The reason is relatively simple. All of us carry some harmful recessive genetic variants without knowing it. Usually this causes no problem because we possess another, functioning copy of the gene.

If two unrelated people have children, they are relatively unlikely to carry exactly the same rare harmful variant. Close relatives, however, have inherited much of their DNA from the same ancestors. They are therefore more likely to carry the same recessive variant and more likely to pass two copies of it to a child.

Perhaps the easiest way to understand this is through the inbreeding coefficient, usually written as F. This expresses the probability that the two copies of a genetic region inherited by a child are identical by descent from the same ancestor.

The Habsburg experiment

Perhaps the consequences of this process are seen most dramatically in some of the royal families of Europe, where marriage between close relatives was repeatedly used to preserve territory, wealth and dynastic power.

The Spanish Habsburgs provide an extraordinary example. Genealogical research has calculated an inbreeding coefficient of 21.8% for Philip III of Spain and 25.4% for Charles II of Spain. Charles II therefore reached approximately the theoretical inbreeding level expected in the child of a brother and sister, even though his own parents were actually uncle and niece. The explanation is that both of his parents were themselves descended from generations of interrelated Habsburg ancestors.

This distinction is important. Charles did not acquire his extraordinary inbreeding level from one close marriage alone. It was the accumulated effect of repeated marriages between relatives over many generations.

One outward characteristic associated with the dynasty was the famous “Habsburg jaw”, or mandibular prognathism, in which the lower jaw projects prominently forward. A modern study comparing Habsburg portraits with their pedigrees found a significant relationship between the degree of mandibular prognathism and the calculated level of inbreeding.

Charles II also suffered from an extraordinary collection of health problems. It is impossible centuries later to prove that every one of them was caused by inbreeding, but his extreme level of consanguinity almost certainly increased his genetic vulnerability.

Modern medical reviews of Charles II describe developmental delay, dysarthria, skeletal deformities, recurrent infections, epilepsy and infertility among his many problems.

Tutankhamun: another royal example

A similar story may be seen in ancient Egypt.

DNA analysis published in 2010 concluded that the two mummies identified as Tutankhamun's parents were brother and sister. If so, his theoretical pedigree inbreeding coefficient would have been approximately 25% — strikingly close to the calculated 25.4% of Charles II.

Tutankhamun certainly suffered from physical problems. CT and genetic investigations identified abnormalities including problems with his feet and avascular bone necrosis, and malaria DNA was also detected. However, we should be careful about saying that these disorders were caused by inbreeding. His sibling parentage would have increased the probability of harmful recessive variants becoming homozygous, but it is not possible to attribute each of his conditions directly to consanguinity.

There is also an important difference between Tutankhamun and the ancient individuals whose complete genomes can now be examined. The famous Egyptian mummy study used genetic markers to establish relationships; it did not provide the sort of modern high-coverage whole-genome measurement of runs of homozygosity that can now be obtained from some ancient remains.

Ancient DNA allows us to see the process directly

Modern ancient-DNA techniques have transformed this subject. Instead of relying only upon a known family tree and calculating what the level of inbreeding should have been, scientists can examine an individual's genome for runs of homozygosity, usually abbreviated to ROH.

These are long stretches of DNA where the copies inherited from the mother and father are unusually similar because both ultimately came from shared ancestors.

The length and number of these stretches are particularly informative. Very long runs tend to indicate recent close-relative mating, while large numbers of shorter runs can reveal something rather different: a population that remained small and isolated for many generations.

That distinction becomes particularly interesting here in Malta.

The extraordinary genomes from Xagħra Circle

On Gozo, Malta's neighbouring island, the Xagħra Circle contained the remains of hundreds of people who lived during Malta's remarkable Neolithic Temple Period.

Researchers attempted to recover ancient DNA from several individuals. Three — Xaghra5, Xaghra6 and Xaghra9 — produced sufficiently good genome-wide DNA for detailed analysis. The researchers found that all three genomes contained unusually high levels of runs of homozygosity, indicating substantial inbreeding in their ancestry.

Xaghra9 was exceptional.

The researchers estimated that 19.12% of Xaghra9's genome was contained within runs of homozygosity. At the time the study was published, his was the second most extreme level of long ROH reported from prehistoric human remains, exceeded by the extraordinary individual buried at Newgrange in Ireland.

But Xaghra9 presents an interesting puzzle.

He was not a Spanish Habsburg with a documented family tradition of marriages between uncles, nieces and cousins. Nor does his genome look exactly like that of the straightforward child of one brother–sister union.

Instead, researchers found a mixture of long and shorter ROH. Their interpretation was that his extraordinary genome probably resulted from a combination of recent marriages between relatives and a population that had already been very small and genetically isolated for generations. They specifically cautioned against assigning Xaghra9 one precise parental relationship.

The other two Xagħra genomes reinforce that interpretation because, although less extreme than Xaghra9, they also contain unusually elevated homozygosity. One predates him by roughly four centuries. This suggests that the problem was not confined to one unfortunate family.

Just how small was the population?

The genetics offer an extraordinary glimpse of the size of this prehistoric breeding community.

Using one method, researchers estimated an effective population size of approximately 515 individuals, with a 95% confidence interval of 397–633. Another analysis gave a 30-generation average effective population size of only 382.

“Effective population size” does not mean that precisely 382 or 515 people were living on Gozo. It is a genetic concept referring approximately to the number of individuals contributing genes to subsequent generations. The actual population could have been larger.

Nevertheless, the result is striking. The researchers concluded that mating networks appear largely to have remained within the island, producing a genomic signature of an unusually small and restricted population over at least 400 years.

This makes Xaghra9 particularly interesting when compared with Charles II.

Charles II's 25.4% is a pedigree prediction based upon his known ancestry. Xaghra9's 19.12% is a measurement derived from his actual ancient genome. The numbers are therefore not precisely equivalent measurements, but both point towards an extraordinary degree of shared ancestry.

A society approaching its end

The story becomes even more intriguing because Xaghra9 and Xaghra5 lived close to a turning point in Maltese prehistory.

For more than a thousand years the inhabitants of Malta and Gozo had created one of prehistoric Europe's most extraordinary cultures. They built the enormous megalithic complexes at Ġgantija, Ħaġar Qim, Mnajdra and Tarxien, along with elaborate underground burial places.

Yet during the later third millennium BC this distinctive Temple culture disappeared.

There is unlikely to have been one simple cause. Archaeological and environmental evidence points towards a combination of pressures:

The ancient-DNA researchers themselves noted that Xaghra5 and Xaghra9 date from a period associated with a declining density of radiocarbon dates, worsening diet and nutritional status, increasing aridity and thinning soils.

Inbreeding therefore need not have caused the collapse of Malta's Temple culture. It may instead reveal something equally important: a population becoming dangerously small and isolated at precisely the time when environmental and nutritional pressures were increasing.

And then there is Newgrange

Perhaps the most extraordinary comparison comes from Ireland.

DNA was recovered from an adult man whose remains had been placed in the most elaborate recess of the great Newgrange passage tomb, constructed around 3200 BC. His genome revealed something remarkable.

His parents were first-degree relatives. Genetically, that means the relationship was consistent with either: brother and sister, or parent and child. Both relationships would normally produce an expected inbreeding coefficient of approximately 25% in their offspring.

Unlike Xaghra9, whose unusual combination of ROH probably reflects both recent relatedness and generations of life within a small isolated population, the Newgrange man's genome showed the unmistakable signature of an extremely close, first-degree incestuous union. The researchers described him as the adult son of such a union.

His burial place makes the discovery even more intriguing. He was not deposited in an insignificant grave but in the most prestigious part of one of prehistoric Europe's greatest monuments. Researchers have therefore suggested that he belonged to a powerful politico-religious elite in which such otherwise strongly prohibited relationships may have been deliberately permitted to preserve a sacred or dynastic bloodline. That interpretation is fascinating, although it cannot be proved from one individual alone.

So across thousands of years we can see very different routes leading towards the same genetic danger.

With Charles II, repeated dynastic marriage gradually accumulated relatedness generation after generation.

With Tutankhamun, the evidence points towards sibling parents within an Egyptian royal dynasty.

With Xaghra9, the genome tells of life within a tiny, isolated island breeding population, probably combined with relatively close marriages.

And at Newgrange, DNA reveals something more immediate and extreme: a man whose mother and father were themselves first-degree relatives.

It is extraordinary that thousands of years after these people died, their DNA can reveal not merely where their ancestors came from, but something as intimate as how closely related their parents were and how isolated the communities in which they lived had become.

COVID: When the Dust Settled

Having lived through the weirdness of Covid I kept thinking it was difficult to see the light clearly in the middle of a storm. However, I had hoped that when the dust settled there would be so many important lessons learned from this devastating outbreak. Some countries like Sweden avoided many of the compulsory restrictions imposed elsewhere, kept compulsory schools for younger pupils generally open and relied much more heavily on voluntary public-health recommendations. I wondered what was their experience in terms of excess deaths.

It is also clear that in 2021 wealthy countries had ordered billions more doses than they required for their own populations. Subsequently one wealthy country, the United States, ended up dumping more than 80 million doses. Although to be fair many of these wealthy countries were major donors of vaccines to other countries. 

It’s difficult to have a fair scoring card after all it was not a level playing field. Italy had a first-class health system in its North when the outbreak hit them, but it was one of the first to face the dire consequences of epidemic attacking the health system. No wonder they were quickly overrun with a shortage of ventilators and no available treatments. Others had time to observe their suffering learn from it and take preventative action that helped them cope better.

Perhaps one of the best scores was attained by New Zealand to emerge remarkably unscathed. It did help it was an island, not densely populated and had a leader who acted quickly to defend the population. But despite her evident success, she later became increasingly unpopular and was strongly criticised by sections of a population who perhaps did not know what they had been spared.

But even populations that should have known better had large numbers dying of Covid, not only stubbornly resistant to taking available vaccines but also to using masks or obeying basic isolation instructions. Even when my friend phoned her relatives in the US and learned of more deaths in their ranks all around them, their views remained unchanged. Perhaps the biggest lesson is how misinformation, always disturbing at the best of times, became deadly in the middle of the worst of times. How ignorance became a rock to cling to not a stepping stone to learning more.

You can see I have my own misconceptions and slant on the whole business but surely in six years someone intelligent with insight has gathered together all the experience and facts and made some progress and understanding what worked and what didn’t. So, this was my goal. Step back from my own particular view and consult others whose field of expertise is exactly this!

The Score Card

Probably the best single measure in comparing countries is generally age-adjusted excess mortality, rather than the officially recorded number of COVID deaths. This excess mortality successfully captures deaths missed by testing/reporting and some indirect effects of the pandemic. The age adjustment is required because it was the older population who were hit hardest and if you have a country with a huge population of older people then you would inevitably have higher numbers of deaths whatever your response. By using age-adjusted excess mortality you greatly reduce that variable when comparing countries, although many other differences between countries remain. WHO estimated about 14.9 million excess deaths worldwide in 2020–21, far above the officially recorded COVID death count.

But how did individual countries fare?

1. New Zealand was one of the clearest successes. Its elimination strategy—tight border controls, quarantine, testing, tracing and rapid lockdowns—kept COVID at bay until vaccines were available. Their vaccine uptake was high and it experienced exceptionally low cumulative excess mortality over the pandemic, with mortality actually below expected levels in 2020–21. Mind you islands generally coped better. There is an advantage in having a sea border to protect you. In fact, one international study found that islands fared about 3 times better in terms of age-standardised excess deaths than non-island countries.

2. Norway and Denmark also performed very well. Among the European countries these two had very low pandemic mortality. They reacted while hospitalisation numbers were still comparatively low. This is evidence that one of the strongest lessons to learn in a pandemic is that speed matters. Even a modest intervention at an early stage is much better than a severe intervention when hospitals are rapidly filling.

3. Sweden avoided many of the compulsory restrictions imposed elsewhere and initially suffered considerably higher mortality than neighbouring Norway and Finland, particularly in vulnerable elderly populations in care homes. However, in the longer term its overall excess mortality compared surprisingly favourably with many European countries. One interesting lesson from Sweden is that voluntary behavioural change can accomplish more than was thought.

4. Britain performed badly during the crucial first wave. It entered the pandemic with good scientific expertise but delayed important early interventions due to slow political decision-making and so transmission grew rapidly. It experienced high early mortality however, Britain did considerably better in vaccine development and deployment.

Early in the vaccination programme vaccines showed very high protection against symptomatic disease and also reduced infection and transmission, but this protection against infection became much less reliable as immunity waned and new variants appeared. Public-health messaging did not always make this changing distinction sufficiently clear. A useful message as the evidence evolved would have been:

“The vaccine may not prevent you catching COVID, but it greatly reduces your probability of becoming seriously ill or dying from it.”

That distinction might have preserved more public trust.

In particular, school closures carried enormous costs. Children had a relatively low risk of severe COVID and the long school disruption had detrimental educational and social consequences. Future pandemic policies may require a much higher threshold for closing schools. COVID mortality was extraordinarily concentrated among older and medically vulnerable people and responses should therefore be more carefully targeted according to risk.

In many other countries, those in nursing and residential homes were extraordinarily vulnerable to this pandemic. Protecting them should have been among the highest priorities. Lessons learned were the necessity of rapid testing of staff, good ventilation, adequate PPE, sick-pay arrangements preventing infected staff from working and the residents having early vaccination. More careful hospital-to-care-home discharge policies could have reduced the disease being channelled from hospital wards to the most vulnerable in society. Perversely, some countries concentrated enormous resources on restrictions affecting millions of comparatively low-risk people while the virus was allowed into institutions containing the people most likely to die.

Mind you many of these are easy in hindsight and perhaps much harder when you dealing with something of the unexpected scale of the Covid pandemic.

Another lesson learned was that SARS-CoV-2 is predominantly transmitted through respiratory particles, especially indoors. As a result, improved ventilation, filtration and air-quality monitoring should therefore become routine. Much less was achieved by washing surfaces. I had elderly relatives who spent hours using acholic wipes to clean each piece of grocery delivered by van from the supermarket.

The pandemic revealed that resilience really matters. Countries need spare hospital capacity, trained staff, surveillance systems, testing capability, vaccine manufacturing, strategic supplies and public-health organisations before a crisis begins.

And governments need something much less tangible: trust. People will put up with extraordinary restrictions for a limited period if authorities explain what they know, what they don't know, why a decision is being taken and what evidence would cause that decision to change. A recent academic paper concluded that Countries where people had greater trust in their government tended to have lower infection rates. Even more importantly, countries where people had greater trust in one another also tended to have lower infection rates. Lower government corruption was associated with better outcomes too. High-trust countries also tended to achieve higher vaccination rates once vaccines became widely available.

My asthmatic mother was hospitalised with Covid in her late eighties in Northern Ireland but thankfully survived. One of the genuine surprises of COVID-19 was that ordinary asthma did not substantially increase COVID mortality. In fact, some research suggests that asthmatic airways may have presented the virus with fewer convenient doorways into the cells and that some inhaled corticosteroids, used by asthma patients, may have reduced aspects of SARS-CoV-2 replication or the inflammatory response to infection. These remain possible explanations rather than established reasons for the unexpectedly low mortality risk. But there are conditions that really made catching Covid deadlier. Age is definitely the biggest contributor in risk of Covid death but diabetes and obesity also played major roles, as did a number of other underlying medical conditions.

Perhaps the Lancet summed it up best: the countries that did best weren't necessarily those imposing the most restrictions. They tended to be those that acted early, protected vulnerable people, maintained public trust, had competent health systems and adapted policy as the evidence changed.

That are probably lessons we should all remember.

While Disasters Scream, Progress Whispers

There is a saying that progress is silent while disasters scream. Every day we are bombarded with stories of wars, disasters, crime and political turmoil. The constant noise can make it seem as though the world is steadily unravelling. Yet news is designed to report what is unusual and alarming, not the quiet improvements that unfold over decades. To understand what is really happening, we need to step back from the daily fireworks filling our newsfeeds and look at the long view.

The evidence tells a remarkable story.

In 1830, around 80–90% of the world's population lived in extreme poverty. Today, despite recent setbacks caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and rising inflation, the figure is estimated to be under 10%—one of the greatest transformations in human history.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, safe piped drinking water was largely confined to the wealthiest cities. Today, more than 90% of the world's population has access to at least basic drinking water services, and the great majority also have basic sanitation. Hundreds of millions more people than ever before enjoy reliable food, shelter, electricity and essential services, although significant inequalities still remain.

In 1900, global life expectancy was about 32 years. Today it is around 73 years. We are living longer than any previous generation. Since 1990, the mortality rate for children under five has fallen by more than 60%, saving millions of young lives every year.

Two centuries ago, fewer than one adult in five could read or write. Today, around 87% of adults worldwide are literate. Education for girls, once a rare privilege, is now the norm across much of the world, although important gaps still exist in some regions.

Slavery is now illegal in every country, even though modern slavery and human trafficking continue to blight millions of lives. Women have gained the right to vote in virtually every sovereign state, while legal protections against racial discrimination and greater recognition of disability rights exist on a scale unknown to previous generations.

Violence, too, has declined over the long term. Research suggests that in many prehistoric and early agricultural societies, 10–20% of people—and sometimes even more—died through violence. Today, the global homicide rate has fallen to about 5.1 deaths per 100,000 people, one of the lowest levels ever recorded. Although violence remains tragically high in some parts of the world, humanity is far less likely to die by murder than our distant ancestors. Torture, public executions and cruel punishments, once accepted almost everywhere, are now widely condemned and prohibited under international law.

The Second World War claimed an estimated 70–85 million lives, around 3% of the world's population at the time. Since 1945, no conflict has approached that scale of destruction, and wars between states have become much less common, even though civil wars and regional conflicts continue to inflict terrible suffering.

Medicine has also transformed human life. Smallpox, a disease that killed hundreds of millions of people, was eradicated in 1980—the first human disease ever eliminated. Polio has been reduced by more than 99% since 1988. HIV, once almost invariably fatal, has become a manageable condition for many with access to modern treatment. Vaccination programmes now prevent an estimated four to five million deaths every year, and deaths from measles have fallen dramatically since 2000, despite recent outbreaks in places where vaccination rates have declined.

None of this means that the world is perfect. Poverty persists. Wars continue. Injustice, disease and suffering remain part of the human story. But neither should we overlook how far humanity has come. It is encouraging to know that the long-term direction has been one of progress. 

Progress is rarely dramatic. It arrives quietly—in healthier children, longer lives, cleaner water, fuller classrooms, greater freedom and expanding opportunities. These victories will never make the headlines, yet they have transformed the lives of billions of people.

Recognising that progress does not breed complacency; it breeds hope. And hope, grounded in evidence rather than wishful thinking, gives us every reason to continue the work of making the world better than we found it.

A rare and precious manuscript

A large bag sits at my feet, full of purchases. One is a plastic container for The Lady's Newspaper from the 1850s, bought to protect it from Malta's humidity. The journal itself was an unexpected gift from my great-grandmother to my father—her granddaughter's new husband. She had often clashed with neighbours and even members of her own family, but for some reason, when she met my parents on their first visit as a married couple, she disappeared into another room, returned carrying this priceless collection, and presented it to my father.

It is full of exquisite detailed plates, instructions on lacemaking, fashion advice of the day, serialised fiction, reports from abroad, accounts of accidents across Britain and—even more surprisingly—move-by-move analyses of chess games! Modern women's magazines, by comparison, seem more likely to be filled with cosmetic procedures, celebrity news, relationship advice, fitness, fashion and gossip. Indeed, many modern tabloids are written in language considered accessible to a ten- or twelve-year-old.

I sometimes wonder what future historians will conclude if they judge our aspirations by the reading material we consume, whether in print or, more often, online. What will our magazines, newspapers, websites and social media feeds tell them about us? Would they see a broadening of horizons, or a narrowing of them? Have we become more curious, or merely more distracted? 

Mind you, The Lady's Newspaper can be mind-numbing in its own way. Its meticulous reports of life at the Royal Court include not only every event but lists of those who attended and even detailed descriptions of what they wore! Some things, it seems, never lose their fascination.

I also inherited my grandmother's letters to this same great-grandmother, written while she was studying at Stranmillis College after winning a King's Scholarship to train as a teacher. They are penned in magnificent copperplate handwriting rarely seen today. Through those letters her excitement shines: life in Belfast, the lectures, new friendships and the bustle of college life. Coming from an isolated rural community, the city must have seemed an exhilarating new world.

Perhaps that is what all this is really about. We become, to some extent, what we expose ourselves to and, more importantly, how we respond to it. Is that exposure a deliberate choice?

In my great-grandmother's day, people selected a periodical that suited their interests and often devoured it from cover to cover. The magazine was then passed around the family, becoming a shared experience and a starting point for conversations. Today we tend to drift alone through endless streams of information—Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Netflix, Disney and countless websites—wandering wherever the next algorithm leads us, sometimes into surprisingly dark tunnels. We have access to more knowledge than any generation in history, yet it has become much harder to distinguish nourishment from noise. I am not entirely sure which age is better, but I do wonder whether our digital diet can sometimes be more toxic to our mental well-being than we realise.

Fortunately, we are often drawn back into the light by people of genuine worth.

Can I confess that I already miss David Attenborough? In a world where so many seem intent on deception, greed or division, his life and work feel like a golden thread of goodness. I know it is premature to miss someone who, at one hundred years of age, is still with us, but I already dread the day the world loses such a remarkable man. People like him are indeed precious like a rare manuscript.