Aleppo

I wasn’t going to say anything today, to add to all the various direct and indirect comments I have put up previously. It is too sad, and too wrong, and still stirs so much anger.

But what I can’t do is put it to one side. Because, along with Yemen, this is front and centre to the world right now.

That sections – religious, ethnic, tribal – within countries feel their only resort to achieve equality, peace, influence, is to turn to the gun and the bomb is e recurring theme over the centuries.

Some conflicts seem incapable of disappearing completely, just fading and reappearing over time.

And that is sad enough in itself. Because we are all human beings, on one planet. There is nowhere else to go.

But when outside interests decide that, to enhance their position on the world stage, or in front of their own people, or to tangentially maintain a disagreement with another outside interest, when they decide to weigh in with arms and death, then the sadness is multiplied.

It is an irritant that the only sensible thing Boris Johnson has said referred to Syria and Yemen as wars by proxy, but he was right. Never mind who invited who, proxy wars they are.

And people suffer. And people die. And people flee, to countries where the welcome is varied. And they become the target of blame for that country’s ills. And the suffering continues.

I count my blessings every day. For a son of infinite joy, for the friends I hold dear, for a cornucopia of little pleasures and activities that add to the total of my life.

But mostly, the fact that I am not in Syria, or Yemen, or on the road from there to a completely unknown future. That I have not lost loved ones to the proxy wars. That I do not have to see the horror, even when I close my eyes.

And yet it is there, the horror and the terror and the sadness and the shame of the world is there, for all of us, eyes open or closed.

We can argue philosophies and practicalities, we can criticise and complain, but we are all of one planet, of one life form, of ultimate responsibility.

I give what I can. I sign petitions, agree to campaigns, write endless words, shout into the night that it must stop.

But the compassion needs to be from all. The reality needs to dawn that we must stop.

There is no reason, no rationale behind the suffering of innocents. Only the world’s guilty admission we can’t stop it. Or maybe that we don’t care enough to want to.