Hello again. So, it’s almost Christmas. I am fairly excited. I’ll be honest. I am old school that way. I love all the family around on a cold, dark night with a hot fire to sit by, watching T.V. and chatting about life and the cosmos. It’s quite therapeutic and somewhat spiritual – so thought this week I would talk about the good in humanity that rarely gets talked about (a bit corny I know but screw it, it’s Christmas!)
There has been a lot of madness going on this week with some bad moments from the siege and death of two hostages in Australia by an extremist jihadist to rioting in the USA and North Korea being named as the probable hacker to Sony (looks like I was wrong about my assumption that it was a press stunt a few weeks ago.) Yet still out of all of this mayhem, goodness and humanity standing together has blossomed. How you may ask, well I will start with the siege in Australia where a extremist jihadist armed to the teeth took over a coffee shop full of terrified Australians, then followed the ensuing chaos and eventual escape by most of the hostages and finally the police stormed the shop to find two hostages and the jihadist dead. This was another dark day in the bleakness that is the jihadist movement but, from this moment of horror arose quite a beautiful touching sign of humanity in the form of a simple tweet that exploded into the ‘I’ll ride with you’ campaign where normal people reached out to Australian Muslims and stood by them, telling them not to be afraid of reprisal attacks against them. By saying “I’ll ride with you” on the train, bus or whatever transport they use to go about their business was a beautiful thing – social media used to say, don’t feel scared – we stand together. There will be some out there, in the doldrums of the internet who will say ‘Oh this is wrong, the, I’ll ride with you campaign is now bigger news than the attack itself’. Well, maybe this is true but to see the Australian media outpouring for national unity rather than continual coverage of the attack is, in my view, a positive response to what was a heinous crime that will be with some people for the rest of their lives. My deepest sympathies go to the families of the dead. The constant attention of the media as poor souls are told what happened to their loved ones is not a good thing – these are people that good this are people who have to face Christmas with that empty space – I think it is better if the media attention moves away from them and gives them some privacy. The ‘I’ll ride with you’ response is a big two fingers up to the extremist movement. Their aim is to terrorise and kill; to break apart the fabric of society, through fear but, instead of placing a divide between Muslims and the rest of the inhabitants of Australia, this attack has had the opposite effect and brought them closer together as they link arms and stand shoulder to shoulder.
Unity is what humanity needs to aspire to. If we are to lead and be followed as modern countries then unit, fairness and brotherhood have to be our corner stones, if violence or attacks or as some people have stated just more wariness of Muslims had occurred then the first shovel would of been firmly planted in further segregation. So I applaud all Australians that have taken this stand.
This leads me on to my next story, another example of humanity standing together. The killing of an unarmed black man, Eric Garner, as he was strangled to death by New York cops followed on from after the Fergusson riots. These tragic events revealed clearly to the world the still inherent racist views of many in USA. I have seen this from my travels across it USA. I have seen and felt the tension within day to day America, I have heard the racism from white Americans across the States; from New Orleans to Los Angeles – I noted that it is the same as the inherent racism still prevalent in South Africa, another country I have visited and stayed with different South African families; from rich white people in Cape town to Durban – the racism is still there. The history of both nations includes subjection of one people by another. I am not going to get into dissecting the obvious lack of a moral compass in the USA, or its extreme right wing political leanings that unsettles me more than any tin pot dictatorships – let’s not forget that USA has got more nukes then the rest of us combined, I will save that for another day – but, a shaft of light shone in when a beautiful moment arose and caught me off guard, a young black lad was crying during a peaceful protest about black subjugation was holding simple sign which read ‘Free hug’, a white police officer approached the lad and talked to him, as a fellow human, about how bad it is – and then asked if he could have a hug! You have probably seen the picture as it went viral, which says something in itself. This most miniscule of actions gave me hope. There are the bad, the ugly inside, the racist, the extremist but there is also the good, the sound, the humane and moral core and moments like that reaffirm my belief that there is hope for human kind.
So that it for this week. I have some news for you guys. I been trying to set up some filming stuff and have managed (i think) to get its all sorted so I’m going to be filming some gaming and stuff soon, this week, that I hope you enjoy and pass on so keep a heads up for that on the site. I thought I would mention it so click on my youtube channel soon and they should be sorted before Christmas Eve (fingers crossed) I have also finished my next short story, currently called Rose’s story, as it is basically about Rose but I need a better name. These short stories aim to set you up for the coming Riders of the North books but I don’t think it’s going to be done editing before the end of the year so it’s looking like the full book will be released early January . If you follow me on twitter or facebook I can keep you up to date with all the new things coming soon and, as always, there will be a new ‘The week’ next Sunday. So, the last thing to say is have a good holiday/break whatever religion or nationality you are – From me to you Have a very Merry Christmas!!