The world again is at the mercy of leaders who are conducting events that may vey well lead to an undesirable outcome and potentially to a third world war!
The escalation of the “runaway” events in Ukraine over the past year leaves no room for winners to emerge at the end of this quagmire. It’s, alas, a lose-lose situation and there will be no victors if and when this nightmare is over!
Like many human beings, leaders often belong to the segment of individuals whom, to put it mildly, we can describe as: “individuals with poor qualities.”
I recently finished reading the book titled: “The Winter of our Discontent” by John Steinbeck and the following paragraph resonated well with my thoughts regarding the “good” and “bad” qualities of individuals:
“There is a strange duality in the human which makes for an ethical paradox. We have definitions of good qualities and of bad; not changing things, but generally considered good and bad throughout the ages and throughout the species. Of the good, we think always of wisdom, tolerance, kindliness, generosity, humility; and the qualities of cruelty, greed, self-interest, graspingness, and rapacity are universally considered undesirable. And yet in our structure of society, the so-called and considered good qualities are invariable concomitants of failure, while the bad ones are the cornerstones of success. . . . Perhaps no other animal is so torn between alternatives. Man might be described fairly adequately, if simply, as a two-legged paradox.”
As time and time again we have witnessed leaders and their minions spreading distorted and often false slogans in the guise of ideals that lead to polarization within their nations and ultimately over the world at large.
I’m sure that many of us believe that history repeats itself and, alas, because we’re powerless we’re all anxious to know: What Next?
Hani Badawi
February 22, 2023
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