THE WORLD WEEPS

Somehow it does not seem appropriate tonight to talk about trivial things like baking and getting things ready for Christmas,in the face of the latest Taliban atrocity such trivial pleasures fade into insignificance.

We were at breakfast when the B.B.C began to report on these dreadful events in Pakistan and suddenly the the laughter and jokes died away as we watched the unfolding tragedy in stunned silence.

By dinner time it was obvious that there had been over a hundred deaths,mostly children. I cannot forget the look on the face of a school boy as he told how he had seen two of his tutors shot in the stomach and a third set alight, while all around his class mates were being raked by gun fire. I watched anxious parents searching for news of their children,as a parent myself their terror was only to easy to imagine.

Politics in Pakistan has always been has always turbulent for it is a nation divided by religious differences, and today’s events are a direct result of the unbridled hatred these factions feel for each other. This is no new thing and it is,unfortunately not confined to Pakistan.

Every day in Israel we see similar atrocities carried out by the Jews against the Palestinians. Of course both sides are responsible for acts of terror but it is the Jewish nation which deliberately targets children, bombing schools and children's play areas, they recently dropped a bomb on a beach on which there were only children present claiming afterwards that there were terrorists present. The Jews are engaged in genocide and I find it unpardonable that they, of all peoples can justify such a course.

Mainland Britain was well used to terrorist actions long before the Islamic extremists bombed London. For over twenty years the I.R.A vented it's frustrated rage upon our major cities,killing and maiming hundreds. The United States too has been targeted in one of the greatest outrages of all.

What all these groups have in common is the unassailable conviction that they are right and the rest of the world is wrong. Many of these freedom fighters are manipulated by political leaders who seek power,control,what you will.

I make no attempt here to make any judgement as to who ,if any,has right on their side, I have only one comment to make in today's madness and it is this.

There can be no cause, no faith, no political partisanship which can justify the wholesale slaughter of innocent children, and I hope with all my heart that this tragic event will cause the scales to fall from the eyes of the Pakistani people so that an end can be made of this nightmare .

To all nations I say, the killing of children is an attack upon all humanity and those who carry out such acts must be made to understand that their extreme actions will do nothing to further their cause, not only in Pakistan but all over the world.

Any faith which teaches it's practitioners that they can find their way to their own particular heaven, Promised Land or paradise, by such means is not the product of any God,or Prophet. It is proof that God only exists in the hearts of men, and weather the God is good or evil depends upon the man.

It is time we took responsibility for our actions instead of attributing our baser actions to the greater glory of some none existent and despotic deity.