Much of the news making the headlines over C21 so far has been dreadful although of course most of the great 'news' people take for granted rarely makes the headlines except when faults appear. For example the NHS in the UK which gives so much medical treatment to the British population rich or poor, free of charge; the ability of people to travel across the world easily and comparatively cheaply; human rights and the huge range of goods to buy reasonably cheaply in supermarkets to name just an handful of aspects of life which we in the UK largely take for granted in C21. All that good news is usually only deemed worthy of newspaper reporting when imperfections appear.
Examples of the good news of the freedom of choice in supermarkets include yoghurt which is in C21 available in an huge number of flavours, makes and fat dilutions not available earlier in C20, or milk which is no longer just sold by the pint but sold on the basis of being organic, skimmed semi skimmed etc. or from goats or dried and foods which not that long ago used to be luxuries but which are now cheaply available such as chicken or salmon.
Individual news too can be upbeat but largely unreported as for example is illustrated by my previous blog post about the HCPT pilgrimage to Lourdes last week - hugely wonderful but mainly not reported at all.
The most starkly bad news (for me at least) in recent times is the appalling kidnapping of 250 schoolgirls in Nigeria by Islamic terrorists. I appreciate that feelings run high when part of a country considers that the central government is illegal or not representing the views of the minority. Sometimes these feelings over boil and civil war breaks out as is happening in Iraq, Syria or Ukraine and not long ago in Northern Ireland but the disaffected people who engage in such fighting rarely if ever, specifically in C21 at least, target children.
Apart from being cowardly, attacking children in the way that has happened in Nigeria should cause people of all political views and religions or none to unite in condemning such atrocities.
The fighting and killings in Syria Afghanistan and the Ukraine are all terrible but thankfully children are not being specifically targeted although of course they do suffer lost homes, deaths of parents or themselves and famine as a consequence. Such tragedies are sadly usually incidental to the adult wars and not the main weapon used in them.
The Northern Irish situation though being defused in spite of the recent arrest of Gerry Adams, never involved direct deliberate attacks on school children Neither so far as I know does the fighting in the Ukraine or Syria or even in Afghanistan. That some of the men in Afghanistan seek to prevent the female half of the population from being educated or leading their lives to the full, is still dreadful but not quite as bad as deliberately attacking/kidnapping hundreds of children as in Nigeria.
Indeed the last time such events which were so appalling involving children, occurred at least on a large scale, was in Nazi Germany during WWII when Jewish children were along with their parents and Jewish adults, sent by the Nazis to be exterminated. The involvement of many nations in the WWII was therefore clearly justified.
In my view the fact that extremists in Nigeria are targeting innocent school children should cause all right thinking governments and peoples to unite in support of the Nigerian authorities in finding the children and bringing their kidnappers to justice. Such extremists and their alleged cause should be highlighted and outlawed throughout the world.
Perhaps governments the UK included are already giving priority to aiding the Nigerian authorities in finding the cruelly kidnapped girls and in bringing the cowardly terrorists who took them, to book - I hope so.
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