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Dear Friends,
Two major natural disasters - first the cyclone in Burma, then the earthquake in China - have
reminded us of the destructive forces of our planet, things over which we have no control.
They have also served to demonstrate the widely varying human reactions (at least by governments)
to such events.
Three weeks after the cyclone, the government in Burma has still to come to terms with the full
significance of what happened, leaving many of its own people desperate for help - help from
the rest of the world that is ready and waiting. The Chinese, on the other hand (who are
notorious for keeping such things to themselves) have reacted swiftly and with uncharacteristic
open-ness to the massive problems that they face.
In each case, I suspect, the ordinary people affected by the disasters will have reacted
first with fear, then disbelief. But then they have begun to work together, often in quite
remarkable ways. I am just beginning to wonder, though, how the people of this country
would cope in some analogous situation... and it is a feeling that extends to both government
(at all levels) and to ordinary people.
Something that unites the inactive government of Burma and the decidedly active government of
China is that neither is ultimately bound by `red tape` in the way that all tiers of
government in this country would be. Neither are they likely to be greatly affected by
the `compensation culture` that so often seems to haunt our every move in this country.
They see what must be done (or, in the case of Burma, stopped) and they just do it.
Almost more worrying is that I suspect that the reactions of ordinary people in this country
would simply add to the problem. Gone are the days of the `spirit of the Blitz`.
No longer do we respond well to the `voice of authority`; what we are good at is putting
ourselves first - a recipe for real chaos. Anyone who saw the two-part television adaptation
of the disaster novel "Flood" will have seen a seriously `watered down` (sorry
about the pun) version of the original, in which the whole centre of London is destroyed - not
only by a North Sea tidal surge, but also (in the book) by fire and other hazards that were
caused by the extreme weather conditions. Either the film's budget ran out, or they
didn't want to worry us unduly !
Basically, we no longer respond to `joined-up thinking` when it comes to the `bigger
picture` - what we used to call `morality` until we confined that notion to one
or two sub-divisions of `sex` and `violence`. We prefer to rely on the
artificial notions of `equality/fairness` in all things and in `health & safety`
before common sense and reasonable cost - in a world in which the forces of nature recognise
none of these things. We argue about cloning and stem cell research when our real
problem is that we are not producing enough children ! A common morality is what should
bind us together, not least in times of crisis - and lack of one will prove our undoing.
We had one, but we chose to discard it, bit by bit... It may yet come back to bite us,
aided by nature !
William Lang.
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