It has been a depressing week in the news. In Florida a 19-year-old took a semi automatic AR-15 rifle and randomly shot other teenagers in a school.
The response of the president of the United States to the killings bordered on lunacy when he told survivors that the time had come to arm teachers. The school, like many others in the US, had an armed deputy on site who appears to have failed to protect the children under his care. Carrying a gun did not save those students nor did it neutralise the gunman. The killing of 17 people at the Florida high school was the sixth gun attack to occur in an American school this year and we are only in February. It’s hard to credit that roughly 40 per cent of Americans own a gun.
The greatest threat to life in America is by Americans on their fellow citizens. Americans are the tooled up leaders in the international market of gun owners. Even war torn Yemen has fewer gun owners. A gun can be bought in the US for as little as $200. Assault rifles for around $1500. According to polls the majority of Americans want tighter gun controls. In a country where you can't buy alcohol until you are 21 you can buy a weapon as a teenager. The simple logic that can be seen by the rest of the world seems lost on Congress and the White House. Gun control legislation is a real time issue.
In South Sudan the UN reported this week that horrific abuses against humanity are being carried out. Men have had their eyes gouged. Others have been castrated. Teenage boys have been forced to rape their mothers and grandmothers. Female teachers in Algeria protesting for better pay and conditions were rounded up by police, put on a bus and dumped 130km away. In Egypt 21 people were sentenced to execution. Boko Haram abducted over 50 schoolgirls for rape and ransom. A young woman from the Congo told ITV news that she was made carry her mother’s decapitated head for 60 kilometres after she watched the murder of her father and the beheadings of her mother and two brothers. The Congo militias with their drug-fuelled boy soldiers of just ten years old have robbed thousands of children of their childhoods and turned them into cold blooded murderers.
Over in India a mob lynched a man accused of theft and then took selfies with the body on display. In another incident a 15-year-old boy was killed by a Hindu mob of 20. Down in Myanmar, the Nobel Peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi continues to tarnish her reputation by turning a blind eye to the dreadful plight Rohingya Muslims at the hands of Buddhists and the Myanmar regime.
Apart from dealing with the very real issue of Brexit which is increasingly looking like a mystery tour without a destination or bus driver, the British government drifts aimlessly from one disaster to another. We heard the unreal accusation that women who first reported the black cab rapist John Worboys were systematically failed by the police. Worboys reportedly went onto to attack another 100 women. Perhaps even more frightening was the announcement that state safeguarding authorities in the North East of England had not recognised the full extent of abuse by organised networks on up to 700 vulnerable young women and girls.
Overall it was a black week for the world in terms of news and these issues in the scheme of things are horrifying as they present real problems for politicians, police, religious leaders and societies in general.
Against this backdrop the differences here in Northern Ireland look artificial and contrived. No hospital waiting list will shorten whether or not we have multi lingual signs. People in Northern Ireland by and large live in relative security; they have access to all basic services and for some this includes Sky TV. The two communities are ostensibly Christian - though finding witness to this could prove difficult. Amid the tribal drums banging out accusations and counter allegations of blame, the general public go to work, wave at their neighbours, drink in pubs and watch sport regardless of the machinations of politics.
Perhaps it would be an idea to block all local political shows and feed us only international news until we learn that our problems are not so great.
