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MANGAWHAI'S NO.1 NEWSPAPER
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Worzels World - State of the worldIt is a tradition in Maungaturoto that when a person has achieved any notoriety in any given field, a designated person from one committee or another will request the undertaking of an impossible job, within a minimal time schedule and without hope of any tangible reward.
“Would you to write something for the one-hundred-and-fiftieth celebrations to go in the time capsule?” asked Kenny. “Ah, like what?” “Well we've asked Rae if she could write something about the district, we thought she'd be less biased. Maybe you could write something about the state of the world?” Of course one man's bias is another man's painstakingly researched objective opinion, but I was not insensible to the honour. The challenge of summing up the world in 800 words for future reference also appealed. But I think what made me agree so readily was the beer. And little did he know, I am far more biased regards the state of the world than of the district. Like I said, It is an impossible job, but that's never stopped me in the past, and so I decided to give it a go. We live at a time where we think we know a lot of things. The depths of many mysteries in our physical world have been plumbed – atoms have been split, fission achieved, global communication is instant, or as near to it as the theory of relativity allows. A meal (or what passes for one at a plethora of corporate-owned franchised food outlets) takes less than a minute to produce. A Global Positioning System or GPS can tell us, and pretty much anyone else who really wants to know, where we are in the world, but few have any idea of where we are in history. There are currently 7.1 billion people alive on planet Earth, more than ever before. Humanity has become a vast maelstrom of activity, busyness, and often, confusion. There are miracles and wonders aplenty: space travel, heart surgery, Botox and breast implants, solar power, the personal computer and the World Wide Web. In the 50 years since the sealing of Maungaturoto's last time capsule, the world has become smaller and in so doing seems to have sped up. There is no more undiscovered land, no mountain unclimbed and people too, along with coastlines and mountains, are numbered and mapped. Rapid scientific and technological advances have not, it seems, taught us much about ourselves. The story of Cain, who slew his brother, written thousands of years ago, is still repeated. The slaughter of brothers and sisters of one form or another continues unabated. As I write this, brother is slaying brother in wholesale quantities in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. US drones kill and maim in Yemen and Pakistan. In Libya there is civil war where recently yet another dictator was deposed by death. Science has succeeded in generating life in laboratories but has failed to offer any insight into how that life should be conducted. We have solved many problems but are yet to solve the age-old problem of how to work together for the common good. Today’s world faces huge challenges. There are problems that appear unsolvable and which threaten to destroy the environment we depend upon along with the society we have built. Pollution, global warming, oil, water and food shortages, and the threat of nuclear war or accident also hangs heavy over the world. Yet we are still remarkably free of almost all these dark shadows in Maungaturoto. We live in a time of plenty where the more fortunate consume more than they need and there is much waste. The present Pope Francis was moved to say, ‘Today’s throwaway culture is reflected in frequent waste of food.’ He added ‘food that is thrown away might as well have been stolen from the tables of the poor and hungry’. Indeed the wasteful and grasping globally pervasive corporate structure which presently holds sway is geared to perform this function. Among the nations of the world there are currently two acknowledged ‘super powers’ – China and the United States of America. The current US President Barack Obama said of that nation’s capital and hub of government ‘What Washington needs is adult supervision’. In the last half century much has changed but the corrupting influence of power and wealth has by all appearances remained intact. Politicians and power brokers still lie and cheat to preserve their positions and privilege. Such is the state of our world today. There is every indication that the rate of change will accelerate; it is but the direction which is moot. You, dear reader, will be living in a very different world from mine. A smart fellow called Albert Einstein once said: “I do not know with what weapons world war three will be fought but world war four will be fought with sticks and stones.” Was he right? If you have dug this up after the passage of five decades or more and are reading it, then from beneath the earth myself, where my mortal remains surely lay, I offer my heartiest congratulations. I expect you are either a part of a new world where the problems of the old have been solved or a fortunate survivor of whatever cataclysm these old problems precipitated. Either way, if accolades from the dead are worth anything in your world of tomorrow, good on ya, I reckon you beat the odds. I too have read many words penned by authors long dead and some things never change. Life in all its forms – everywhere, anywhere, and were it possible even more so here in Maungaturoto – is a wonderful and beautiful mystery. At its best, or at its worst (and who is to judge which is which) it can still be a joyous celebration and every breath, Alleluia. |
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