End days

We are living in the dark days, perhaps the end days of a possibly brighter future although that future too is looking rather dim. Contemporary communications  technologies, such as those enabled by the Internet, as well as biomedical and chemical technologies that seek to extend our lives by any means available, are not evil in themselves, however they do expose humanity’s predilection for evil (evil here meaning immorality, rather than sin – I’m not talking about religion I’ll leave that to the theologians, but those in the various ministries are associated with depravity, dishonesty and corruption) in which, that evil is exposed via transmission of the images of war (how can we not feel for the people of Kiev?), the relay of information about the inhumanity of humans to others. Our local backyard for example exposes our Government’s utter disdain for those who seek shelter in our country – protecting those who  have taken the perilous journey of traveling by sea to our shores by ‘stopping the boats and deterring the people smugglers’ has not resulted in the saving of lives, but has in fact resulted in what can only be described as deaths in custody for surely we can no longer see our offshore processing units as places of refuge for those who have needed to flee their own country to seek asylum in ours? The recent death of slain asylum seeker on Manus Island, Reza Berati shows the level of violence, hatred even of those who we do not wish to have in our country. Our country, the ‘lucky country’ is still only lucky for some, but that providence is progressively eroded by our inability to extend empathy to those many regard as unworthy to seek the privileges that our forebears worked so hard to achieve. If our compassion is overridden always by our concern only for self interest – our jobs, our future, our interests, then the luxury of what we could be as humans becomes poorer as ‘we’ become richer.