Brittle

Everything in life is Brittle nowadays. The peace in Northern Ireland, The peace in the Middle East, the environment, life, feelings, politics, religion. Everything feels like it's so blasted dry, that all the moisture has been sucked from us, from our lives. Now we are all close to snapping. Destroying ourselves in the process.

Who is it who has done this? The spin doctors, the politicians? Educated professionals? Red Tape? Every step we are taking is a wrong step. New Orleans, De Menezes, Eriksson, Woodward, Sudan, Ariel Sharon, Oil for Food, Blair, Bush and Bin Laden.

Mum keeps complaining about the world, how can she bring Katie up in this world.

I remind her that in the nineties, I saw Mandela walk free, The Berlin Wall come down, Desmond Tutu, Mother Teresa, Bill Clinton, Camp David Peace Accords, Britpop. Among other things.

It occurs to me now that our icons, our great men and women are dead, fading fast or tainted. Nothing proved this more than when Brother Roger was stabbed to death recently. The founder of Europe's most famous brotherhood and retreat. Taize. Killed in a random act.

Our leaders today are misguided and tainted. Blair, Chirac, Schroeder, Bush, Bin Laden, Pope Benedict, Kofi Annan, Ariel Sharon, Thabo Mbeke, John Howard, Berlusconi, Putin.

Thieves, Murderers, Neo Conservatives. Harsh on Annan, Mbeke and Benedict perhaps but they are mere shadows of their predecessors.

We no longer have people to lead us into the light, people we wish to follow, people who have caught the zeitgeist of the times and ridden roughshod at the head of the tide. This is why we mourn so for our dead heroes, Robin Cook, John Peel, Princess Di. However small their contribution was, they were held in high regard by the nation.

The simple fact is though, almost all of our heroes are dead. Nelson Mandela is getting older by the day, as is Tony Benn, Jesse Jackson is has been slighted in the ugly world of American politics as a bandwaggon jumper. Pervez Musharraf walks the tightest line of any leader in the world and Castro is barricaded inside his island. Chavez and the other new South American Leaders are ignored in a Europe too preoccupied with America, so America's secret history carries on, annexing Haiti, while allying with the murderers and torturers of Uzbekistan.

The head of MI5 called for civil liberties to be eroded the other day, in order that we might buy ourselves some protection.

This is the world in which we live. Our heroes are dead and dying and no more are appearing. Humankind has finally dealt the death blow to hope. Our future is governed by forces over which we have no control, our liberties curtailed for our own safety, like a man having pen and paper removed in case he stabs himself with the pen and cuts himself on the paper. We may finally have reached the tipping point.

Life seems brittle. A little pressure one way or the other could pull us back from the brink or push us tumbling into the abyss. Too much in any direction and we could snap. Tightened in so many different ways, we can only move so far.

There was rioting in Belfast last night, less than a week after the greatest Northern Irish victory ever seen. The worst rioting in many years. There are forces here beyond people, beyond which people are aware. I do not fear the beginning of the end. For the end cannot be prevented whenever it comes. But I do fear that we will become so cowed that we will accept it. That it will be spoonfed to us and we are told to be grateful. That we become grateful.

The mob is toothless, it has no stomach for a fight. It has been told that it must become civilised or become outlaws. The mob rolled over. It sat and it begged. Some broke away from the mob. They are called Al Qaeda. They may be misguided in their targets but at least they believe in something. It is not the leaders who will defeat them, but the mob must return and find its teeth. It too must believe in something.

Then perhaps we will not be so brittle.