‘Do you think that the faith has conquered the world, and that lions no longer need keepers?’ – TS Eliot
It’s Halloween again, and we go further and further down the rabbit hole of trick-or-treating, costumes, decorating the front garden, and boozy halloween parties attended by women in sexy witch costumes (or at least I hope so – I have never been to a halloween party yet).
Normally, I would be writing about how I have been worn out by the steady hype into accepting that Halloween is now an established part of Australian culture, a graft of Americanism that we have now adopted for our own. I will of course be leaving a bowl of lollies at the front gate.
But the world seems a little more serious this year than it has for a while, particularly during the cocoon of the pandemic where we could all just slumber in complacence.
Many will be dressing up as make believe monsters – ghosts, ghouls, vampires, public transport ticket inspectors…. It probably is time for us to reflect on who the real monsters are.
As I once read in a meme published on the long since defunct Google+, the Scooby Doo Show has taught us that the only real monsters are human, and so it is this year.
The Ukraine war is mostly off the front pages as it is last year’s news and no longer interesting, even though it is still ongoing. The only reason not to celebrate if Putin were to die is that he is, compared to many of his entourage and potential successors, quite moderate in his language and his measures. He is highly unlikely to go nuclear.
The latest Israel related conflict is the most serious since 1973, when I was far too young to notice what was going on beyond the songs we sang in my kindergarten class (I still do not quite get the significance of ‘Pop Goes The Weasel’ – does it explode?).
Whilst I am cautiously pro-Israel in my position, I cannot but feel that bombing targets rich in civilians is only going to play into the hands of the monsters in Hamas. After all, people who have lost their entire families will have lost everything to live for except revenge, and will prove a fertile recruitment ground for Hamas.
Hence we will now have at least one more generation before there can be any hope for peace in what our ancestors once called Outremer.
As Nietzsche warned us:
‘Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.’
And all the while, Xi continues to discreetly take Communist China forward with its aggressive expansionist agenda, currently aimed at the Phillipines.
To say nothing of the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Yemen, the untold (by the mainstream media) conflicts in sub-Sahara Africa, and the perpetual tragedies that are places like Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Halloween is cute, sure, and dressing up like pretend monsters is fun (more sexy witches please), but we have some real monsters who look much like ourselves to worry about.
Lost For Words! 