Leaders should have intrinsic capacity to care for all citizens with greater empathy

I REFER to the saddening letter by James Cunningham on the political agendas of governments at war and specifically the devastating effects of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan.

Let’s begin with the bottom line: as long as we humans remain instinctively loyal to the primitive call from our aged DNAto survive at all costs, and to get to a position of power and defend it at all costs, we will keep on – subtly or blatantly – hurting and killing living beings other than ourselves.

All over this world citizens choose their leaders, too often doing so when carried away by the hype of an “easy, feel good” emotion.

Perhaps we all should start to become more cynical towards the process of electing the ones that should lead us forward.

Often, these guys are already preparing their agenda of “subtle” enrichment long before the days of glory arrive. Greed and egoism have many faces.

Others are very serious about their political philosophy and about addressing the wrongs of the past, but they are either not aware of their own biased ideologies or just lack emotional maturity. Or they grow tired of fighting for the common good.

And that is perhaps the pivotal point about creating a national and also international humane political environment. We, the people of this world, aghast at all the pain caused by world “leaders”, should demand that our leaders be tested for their emotional maturity and whether they have an intrinsic capacity to care for people, all the people of the world, with empathy.

Shrewdness is still the “devil’s” wild card. We need more than Dettol to fight that. Then, perhaps, we will not forever be remembering similar psychotic acts to the detriment of those different to ourselves.

Perhaps Hiroshima and Nagasaki will then become paradigms of prehistoric humanity. Wim van der Walt