ANOTHER VOICE murray swart Victors, victims and villians
Much like clouds have silver linings, every tragedy has a conspiracy theory. In the wake of horrific mass experiences, there are always those left behind who have no choice but to carry on with their lives and do their best to bury these unforeseen, unsavoury, undesirable, yet, unavoidable inevitabilities somewhere so safe and secure that they are all but forgotten.
Losing a loved one, or even a treasured possession, that matter, is always going to be a devastating experience but it is naive to think that the best way forward is to carry on as if nothing has changed.
Even when you are given time to say your final good-byes, sometimes one would rather stop reading the book than to turn to the final page, removing all hope and facing a heartbreaking conclusion.
Finding closure is even more challenging when a loss is unexpected, unexplained or worse, unfair and unreasonable.
History’s darkest and most deadly moments have left mankind in an inherent state of shock and mourning, past down from one generation to the next.
We are an army of billions of dysfunctional, disorganised, disgruntled, distrusting descendants of those who died in the name of human development but were solely motivated by a sense of desperation.
We are a society comprising of soldiers and survivors, victors, victims and villains, on such extreme ends of the spectrum that we are practically indistinguishable.
While it is the destiny of the soldier to die in the name of progress and protection, it is up to the survivors to live in order to propagate, promote and preserve. Like their very nature, the role of victors, victims and villains is purely subjective.
However when the soldiers have finished soldering and the survivors are no longer surviving you are left with a new generation who provided with all the answers that have been compiled through the course of human existence but neither the context nor the questions to use to our benefit.
The combination of skepticism, resentment, sorrow and suspicion, complimented by a selective memory and a loose grasp of the distinction between fact and opinion, makes for perfectly conducive conditions for conspiracy theories to thrive and thrive they do.
If you ask the ‘right’ people, you will hear stories of Adolf Hitler and JFK sitting on a clandestine soundstage where Stanley Kubrick shot moon landing, as they listen to Elvis belt out an acapella rendition of “Love me Tender” to appease our alien overlords.
Granted, the chances of finding someone with this level of ‘inside information’ are as remote as winning the lottery but fortunately, consolation prizes are not in short supply.
There is no shortage of those who publicly question how and why evil prevails but do so exclusively in the rhetorical sense in order to avoid acknowledging their contribution to the problem, courtesy of common complacency.
To all those have ever asked themselves, “how does this happen?” the answer is far easier to hear than accept.
The fact that evil prospers when good people do nothing is general knowledge, bordering on cliche yet we still haven’t learned the difference between saying and doing.
Actions really do speak louder than words but when taking action is simply too daunting a challenge, making as much noise as possible is no substitute.
The truth is often too bitter a pill to swallow but manipulating it here and inflating it there somehow makes it more palatable.
We live in a harsh truth where reading between the lines is a painful but essential task.
Somehow, witnessing an unacceptable reality is made simpler by convincing yourself that there is more to our world than meets the eye.