Oh My God, What Have We Become

"Call up the craftsmen

Bring me the draughtsmen

Build me a path from cradle to grave

And I'll give my consent

To any government

That does not deny a man a living wage

Go find the young men never to fight again

Bring up the banners from the days gone by

Sweet moderation

Heart of this nation

Desert us not, we are

Between the wars" 

From "Between The Wars" by Billy Bragg
 http://youtu.be/xjUA3RU4B8E

A while ago Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head because she wanted an education. For the perpetrators the concept of articulate and questioning young people who challenge the cherished principles of bigotry, power and loathing of difference is so frightening it is better to carry out summary execution and face the temporary wrath of a world that will move on to the next media hit than it is to accept the inevitable outcome of a developed and inter-connected generation with a strong and growing sense of justice, access and liberty. Malala was shot in the head. Well known in her native Pakistan for her Blogs that spoke about the importance of access to education for women and indeed the right to access to education for women. And because of this, she and two of her friends were shot.

Having been given life saving surgery in Pakistan Malala was flown to the UK where at Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth hospital, her shattered brain was repaired by experts and her body and spirit were restored by a dedicated team of the passionate, compassionate and dedicated. It was with some considerable emotion that I heard the restored Malala speak at the opening of the New Birmingham Library speak to her "fellow Brummies." I was proud to be considered part of a process that was an iconic testament to what good people can achieve. And that this had happened in our hospital, in our city gave further energy to the hope I felt that day. A hope that we are bigger than we seem, better than we are judged, technically skilled beyond the ordinary and compassionate above what is needed.

I remember too the chill experienced as I heard a strident caller to Radio WM declare that Malala shouldn't have been given this role-opening the Library because, she shouted "She's foreign!" And then there's Facebook and its fellow travellers.

I fear that any re-positioning of access to and use social media is a bit like getting toothpaste back in to the tube: yet what I have read about Malala being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize has saddened me. The energy vampires post their ill informed venom and puss on thread after thread wherein one abscess after another erupts and bursts like this:

• We should look after our own first 
• She;s already had an operation and opened the Library, now they're giving her a prize!
• What about an award for hard working people who have to wait for operations?
• She soon forgot about her friends in Pakistan
• What about pensioners who fought in the war?

And the liturgy of spite goes on: a bile-bitter cocktail of ill-informed nastiness, the flirts with comedy with its devastating capacity to jolt assumptions about reality. But it's not funny: it's awful.

We have repaired a broken icon: an icon who has spoken to the United Nations on behalf of the poor and the dispossessed everywhere making  it clear that a better world will emerge as a result of the changes brought about not by armies and hatred but by education and the capacity to draw judgement between right and wrong as we consider what connects us rather than immerse ourselves in that which divides us. We, in the Great City of Birmingham have done this and we should embrace our new citizen, celebrating her bravery, her ambition and her capacity to reach out and include others in her simple, powerful words.

It feels we are in danger of sleep walking into a new reality as: a tiny outpost of Northern Europe, changed and worsened not by change but by the way we have dealt with change, As we have sought to find the monster in others we have it would appear, discovered the monster in ourselves.
                                                     Sweet moderation

Heart of this nation

Desert us not, we are

Between the wars"