"So what if a few dozen people

were killed? It happens all the time in places like Syria."
 The speaker was a young Muslim student of my acquaintance. He comes from Indonesia. He did not appear to be in the least bit concerned by the events in Paris. Indeed, to the contrary, I have a very nasty suspicion he thoroughly approved of them. 
He lives locally in a house with other Indonesian students. I think he has another year to go on his degree before he returns to his father's business in Indonesia. 
In Indonesia his family is wealthy. His father is a very important man. They employ servants. At home he can have pretty much whatever he wants just by demanding it.
When he first came here he expected the girls who live in the same house to wait on him hand and foot. He expected them to do his washing and ironing, get his meals, and do the washing up. He expected them to do all the cleaning.
The other boys who live in the house quickly disabused him of that idea but he still does the bare minimum and with poor grace. Women are there to serve him. 
I don't think anything will change him. He has been here long enough now to see that things are done very differently here. The other boys acknowledge that. The mother of one of them told me, rather shyly, that being here has been good for her son as he now "much kinder to ladies". Yes, her son observed and took note but  this boy is not going to do that.
He thinks it doesn't matter. He isn't a radical. He's too lazy for that to ever happen. He likes comfort too much for that.
He is doing the bare minimum to get through his degree - and woe betide the lecturer who dares to give him less than a credit even though he, at most, deserves a pass. 
The other students in the house don't like him. I don't blame them. They are stuck with him for a variety of complex reasons. Most of the time they don't argue with him. 
Yesterday one of them did. One of the girls said quietly, "Everyone matters."
And then one of the boys quoted Donne: 

No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

And he quoted the entire verse accurately. The boy who had been arguing with them walked out. The boy who had quoted it looked at me for some help in explaining it to the others. I did. I did not ask where he had come across it although I would like to know.
I left thinking perhaps there is still a little bit of hope left - because the boy who quoted it is a devout Muslim.

The events in Paris yesterday

were appalling. Words cannot describe the deliberate carnage. Everyone I know is distressed by it.
I now want to say something that may upset some of you. It may mean that you will stop reading my blog, block me from your Twitter feed, Facebook, and your lives. It still needs to be said.
My working life, most of my daily life, for many years been about providing communication assistance for the people who deal with disasters. Some of them come across this sort of thing from time to time - a bomb in Beirut, a suicide bomber in Kabul etc. They risk their lives going in to help in the sort of circumstances any normal person flees from. I admire them. It is one of the reasons I go on helping.
They have varying views about "God" and "Gods". Some of them believe firmly in "God". It is their reason for being there. They are not the sort of people who proselytise. I leave providing assistance to missionary types to other people. But yes, there are people I help who have a belief in God. Others "don't know" and still others are confirmed atheists. They all have one thing in common. They believe in helping other people. They believe people have a right to be safe, secure, fed, housed and - I think - as happy as the circumstances allow.
There is a very strict religious sect here - and elsewhere in the world - which preaches something rather different. Not long after the Boxing Day Tsunami one of them stood in the supermarket and told me, "God does not mean us to be happy."
I was - and still am - appalled by that statement. I think it is wrong on many levels. The idea that "God" is some sort of vengeful, evil being who wants to constantly punish all living things is vile. What sort of humane, compassionate person believes in that sort of "God"? 
The members of that particular sect call themselves "Christian". I think they genuinely believe they are Christians. 
I know atheists who are more Christian than some people who call themselves Christian. There are atheists who have spent their entire lives helping others for little or no reward. 
I think the same is probably true of other faiths. I don't believe that Islam is a "religion of peace" but I do believe that the vast majority of Muslims prefer to live in peace. They just want to get on with their lives.
Whether great numbers of them can do that side by side with the values and beliefs of the Judeo-Christian tradition is something rather different. We talk about "multi-cultural" societies, equal opportunities, human rights, religious freedom and more. I have no doubt many people genuinely believe in those things. They would like to believe we really can live in a world where each individual has the freedom to believe in and experience such things.
I think the reality is rather different. There are vast differences between living in a democracy and living in a theocracy. There are vast differences between the laws built on Roman Law and, later, the Magna Carta and Sharia Law. These impact on the way we view other people, how we treat gender differences, care for those in need, provide education, employment and more.
We can't, as the German Vice-Chancellor Angela Merkel is going to discover, take in great numbers of people who view things differently and not expect society to have to change. It will change. 
I have Muslim friends. They say they want things to change but, probe a little further, they want things to change to their way of thinking. They want Sharia Law and they view the role of women in society rather differently - even when they "agree" with other thinking. It is what they have been taught to believe. My friends are ordinary, decent people but they still "know" I am "wrong". I am not going to be able to change that.
Our former Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, made waves when he told a gathering in London that the West cannot take in huge numbers of refugees and not see society change. It is not a popular view but he may be proved right.
Yesterday's attacks in Paris were not solely about "revenge" or "vengeance". They were not solely about "evil". They were also a warning - a warning that things like music, a friendly football match, eating out with friends, and other simple acts are viewed as wrong. It's that "God" who doesn't mean us to be happy which tells them this. 
I suppose I am an agnostic. I think I believe in something other than myself - but I don't know what that something else. I just think that the world is too vast, too complex, too interesting, too full of things I know nothing about to be lacking in something other than me. I want to believe that most people care but I am not sure about that any more. 
And I don't want to believe in a "God" who is vengeful or doesn't mean us to be happy. We have to fight that. The human race cannot survive that sort of thinking. 

"No, he doesn't need an ambulance..."

I was leaving the library and pedalling through the Memorial Park in which it sits when a teen crossing the grass  from the other side of the footbridge fell over. He didn't get up.
I changed direction pretty smartly. I recognised him. He has epilepsy. I had never seen him have a seizure before but he had once mentioned it in the course of telling me why he doesn't ride a bike. 
It was very obvious to me what was happening. I have seen many, many epileptic seizures in my time. I once had five children with epilepsy in one of my classes. I have seen more than one of them rushed off in an ambulance.
I reached him and, with great difficulty, managed to push him over so his face was not in the grass. 
At that point someone else rushed up and said, "I'll call the ambulance!"
"He doesn't need an ambulance," I told her, " He's having a seizure. He'll be okay in a minute or so."
"He might need CPR!"
"He won't. He's fine. He's coming round now."
Her hand hovered over her phone. I was hoping she wouldn't call the ambulance. If he wanted help he was going to be able to tell me in a moment.
He went on lying there for a moment giving those odd little jerks which are the second stage of a seizure and then blinked. He looked at me and then saw the phone in the other woman's hand.
"No ambulance," he told her rather abruptly if still a little groggily.
She put it away reluctantly and then, with a disgusted look at both of us, strode off muttering things about people who "don't want help when it is offered".
He looked at me. My words must have registered with him even though he had not answered at the time.
"Thanks."
"You're welcome. Want any more help?"
"Just let me get to that seat. I'll call my mum."
I waited while he did it and, when she had answered, I left him sitting there quietly waiting for her. 
He didn't need me hanging around. He's a teenager. He needs his independence.
There are times when an ambulance is needed. He didn't need an ambulance. He wasn't being deliberately rude. He didn't want a fuss. He really, really didn't need an ambulance.
I hope the would be good Samaritan understood that. 

If one more thing had happened

yesterday I might have screamed.
I had to go out yesterday morning. There were "roadworks" where I wanted to go. (The men on the job were actually sitting around eating a late breakfast or a very early morning tea.) I had to go the long way around. 
The person I went to see had not finished what she had undertaken to do. I had to wait.
I called in at the supermarket on the way back. They had run out of what I needed. That meant going to the other supermarket - a place I dislike intensely.
I had just settled in at home and there was a loud banging on the front door. I wondered what was wrong.
I went to the door and there was an untidy young man wearing a shirt labelled "Roof" and a liberal sprinkling of tattoos. He started to tell me about his "free" offer. I interrupted and told him, "You can't read can you?"
I pointed to the sign which clearly says "No canvassers please". He protested. I asked him to leave. He stood there and said, "But I'm not selling anything..." "Get off the property," I told him. He protested still more telling me it was a "FREE" offer - as if I didn't understand. I said "Out now, before I call the police."  He wanted to know what they would do and I said, "I'd tell them you are trespassing with criminal intent." He left. (I saw him again later. There were several of them all with a "Roof" shirt. All of them had tattoos. I should not be prejudiced but tattoos make me feel uncomfortable.
The Senior Cat was trying to work out what he can afford to "get rid of". He doesn't want to get rid of anything but the carport has to be cleared so that the new carport door can be installed. He is not a particularly happy cat about that. He "might need it". Perhaps. We will see.
Yesterday afternoon I had to go to the untidy shop. I did manage to find what I needed but it took a while. The checkout girl overcharged me - but it was not her fault. We both looked startled when something costing $3.99 came up as $89.40. That had to be sorted.
Pedalling back there was a man coming towards me. He is pushing himself slowly and with some difficulty in a wheelchair. A plumbing van appears and pulls into a driveway just in front of him. The van is blocking the footpath. The man in the wheelchair cannot get past. I tell the van man, politely, what has happened. He abuses me and doesn't want to move. I say nothing. I take out my mobile phone and pretend to take a picture. Van man swears and moves. Wheelchair man moves on and thanks me. I pedal on. 
No, nothing else went wrong. Perhaps the large mug of tea I consumed on reaching home helped?
 

I should have known better of course

I should not bother to comment. 
There was that very nasty incident in the New Zealand parliament yesterday with the comments about rapists and murderers and who supports them and... I won't bother to try and sort out the horribly tangled mess. I suspect that, in the heat of the moment, all sides said things that they were sorry they said and that some things were misunderstood.
But, if you are living in another country as a guest and you have not bothered to take out citizenship when you could, then shouldn't that country have the right to deport you if you commit a serious offence? If you were a guest in someone's home and you started to deliberately damage the house or hit their partner don't they have the right to tell you to leave?
Yes, there are people who have lived here for years. They have grown up here. Their family are here. They have no ties to the country of their birth. Deporting them does seem very harsh. It is a punishment over and above the one handed out by the courts. It is treating some people differently from others. 
The question still remains, why haven't they taken out citizenship - particularly when most countries allow dual citizenship. They wouldn't be losing anything. They would be gaining something.  If they don't do this then it would seem to suggest that they have, at very least, no respect for the place in which they are a guest.
I don't know what the answer is. I suspect it varies from case to case. 
But, I was foolish enough to suggest that perhaps the best place for rapists, murderers and the like was on an uninhabited island somewhere. Now that was clearly not a suggestion to be taken seriously for any number of reasons. It was meant to show that there are people Downunder no longer wants as guests and that, in this instance, there are Kiwis who would not be particularly welcome back in their own country. The idea of putting them somewhere else, somewhere nobody else lives, might well be attractive to some people. 
If some people find that offensive I am sorry but even I can think of a handful of people I would like to place on an island as remote as Pitcairn - without internet or other broadcast access. The world might be a better place.

Remembrance Day, Poppy Day, Armistice Day

I don't care what you call it - just remember it. 
We had a visitor yesterday. He is a former member of the Royal Australian Air Force. He flew planes in another lifetime. He has a different role now - a helping role.
I like him and respect him. Yesterday I respected him a little more. He took his wife and young daughter to Europe this year. They went and looked at a lot of the usual tourist things. And they went and did something else, something he had wanted to do for a long time. 
They went to France and, very early one morning, before anyone else was around they went off to one of the many war cemeteries. As the sun came up, they stood quietly and paid respect to those who are buried there.
He told us about the experience yesterday - and his voice cracked as he spoke about it. It was obviously an intensely moving experience for him. Imagine it. Imagine a quiet, still morning in a foreign country surrounded by the many graves of people who died fighting a war you didn't experience but one which has affected your entire life. It is hard to comprehend.
It is something I would like to do one day. I don't want to go on one of those guided tours. I want to go alone - because, in a way, all those buried there were alone too.
I'll likely be in our local library at eleven o'clock this morning. The staff will stop. They will remind those in the library to stop. There will be a reminder in other places. One year I was in a shop. The assistant was about to serve me and a bell sounded. We stopped. She started to apologise for keeping me waiting afterwards and I said "No. Please never apologise for remembering."
Some people will just go on with their lives as if there is nothing to remember. That is up to them - but I believe their lives are a little less rich because of it. 
I'll remember. I'll imagine myself standing in the quiet of a cemetery in a far distant country and I'll try to remember how very different it was for those who are buried there. 
 

Doing "nothing criminally wrong"

and doing nothing morally wrong would seem to be two different things.
The current Leader of the Opposition at federal level Downunder has been cleared of any criminal wrong doing with respect to certain affairs being investigated by the Trade Union Royal Commission.  He is now jumping up and down and demanding, yet again, that the TURC be closed down. He has also rejected the apology the TURC offered for releasing the  information at about 8pm at night - after the main news services were finished for the day. 
I think he should be thanking them for timing it then - and for their finding. He's a lucky man.
He may not have committed a criminal act with respect to the affairs under investigation but he apparently felt the need to appear in front of the commission with a team of high profile legal advisers. His actions were not the actions of a man who is completely confident about what he had done. And yes, his election campaign was funded by morally dubious means. And no, he didn't always do the right thing by the workers he was supposed to represent when he was a trade union official. 
Those things may not be criminal acts but they are morally suspect. 
Having said that I don't doubt that there are plenty of morally suspect acts in the cupboards of politicians of all persuasions. I do not doubt that many of them would like to ensure that some of their activities never see the light of day. 
But this is a little different. This man wants to be Prime Minister. He wants the country to vote him and his party in at the next election. He is claiming he has the interests of workers at heart and that only he and his party will see that the most needy in society will be cared for. 
A great many people are likely to believe him. They will vote for him - although, at present, there are indications there won't be enough for him to form government. Whether he gains power or not is however not the issue here. It is that he is claiming to be something he isn't. He is claiming to be an honest, upright, caring man who has always acted in the best interests of other people. Is any politician like that?
He's a lucky man because the morality of his acts has not been closely scrutinised. He might be better advised to now keep quiet - and hope people forget.