Wednesday 3 March 2010

The first two months of 2010

Some thoughts on the recent quakes in Haiti and Chile and on the just concluded Winter Olympics in Vancouver

It is March already and I thought I had to write down somewhere a few thoughts about the big events of the last two months. For me, there were three things that stand out -- first the Haiti earthquake that shook the whole world and filled us with guilt and shock -- to find out that there could be a country so close to the mighty US of A where conditions are as bad as they are in Africa. (Aside: Stupid, isn't it, how we tend to talk of Africa as if it was just one big bad thing, beyond hope or redemption).


And then, before one had quite learnt to cope with the daily dose of terrible images from Haiti, came the news of the massive earthquake in Chile last week. For us it struck closer and harder as we have friends in Chile, and we were actually supposed to have flown into Santiago, in fact, yesterday! Well, we cancelled. Our friends there are safe. There is still no water and no electricity in Vina, but people are managing. The people of Chile are quite used to earthquakes, they had been expecting a big one for quite a while now. The last big one was more than 20 years ago. So this was long overdue. Still...

Initially it did seem that Chileans had got away with minimal damage, compared to Haiti. Also things looked much better organised there -- there was a functioning government in place, and local rescue teams who had the equipment and the training and who knew what they were supposed to be doing... But then one saw pictures of Concepcion and the real damage and the looting and the vandalism ... it made me realise how thin and brittle our veneer of civilisation really is ... it takes so little for people to fall apart, to behave like predators... give us just two days of being without food and shelter, and we proud humans will revert back to a state where the law of the jungle prevails -- survival of the fittest. In that sense, it does not make much difference whether we live in Haiti, in Chile, in Africa or anywhere else...

Enough of bad news, let's move on to the good. For these last two months also showed me one of the most beautiful faces of humanity, of respect and of peaceful co-existence, that one had come to expect, but had not quite seen enough of to be convinced about, from us 'civilised' humans. Finally there is proof -- I am talking of the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games, and the manner in which it was conducted.

The incredibly beautiful and moving Opening Ceremony was already enough to completely bowl me over. They got it just right -- the way they let each individual remain an individual, the way they managed to make everything look so friendly, soft, graceful and aesthetic, the way they managed to endow even technical perfection with emotion and feeling, the way they subtly but firmly made clear their 'green' intentions. And above all the way they did not forget to honour and give due respect to the six host first nations. Hats off to all Canadians!

Maybe I am over-reacting, because my memory of the Summer Olympics in China is so unhappy -- in their perfection I only saw oppression, in their clone-like vast numbers I could only imagine the death of little flowers, looking at their hi-tech-inaugural-show I could only read the word Frankenstein. Seeing the even more hi-tech inaugural show at Vancouver, I don't know why it was that I could see clear blue skies and singing birds and dancing clouds... And do you know what I liked best in that entire show? It was the last bit when one of the four columns refused to rise! That made my happiness perfect -- I was so happy that the show had not gone off like clockwork as in Beijing. Proved that some humans are still human...

Thinking about the huge problems many nations of the western world are facing over immigration, I had imagined that there were no obvious solutions, that no country had managed to get it right so far. But to see Canada stand united as one, as they did during these games, even though there are as many as six first nations in the Vancouver area alone, even though Canada has two main languages, even though there are people from every possible part of the world who have gone and settled in Canada, was a very good lesson. A lesson that not only gave hope, but which also showed what it can mean to be really civilised -- to be able to recognise what matters and what doesn't, to use this knowledge to set one's priorities and then to have the courage to stick to them even while being graceful, friendly, and having the ability to laugh at one's own little mistakes and cry at someone else's sorrow ...

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