FIRST ENCOUNTERS OF A THIRD KIND

Written 29 April 2014

With yet another year all but vanished into memory, it got me thinking: If aliens ever came to Earth, who would we choose to meet them? Who would be the best representative of humanity – and of all life on Earth?

If there is intelligent life out there, what would we want them to think of us?

It seems almost a foregone conclusion that the first choice would be the President of the United States, or possibly a bevy of superpower Heads of State, or possibly even representatives of the church, or the United Nations.

But would any of these be the right choice? Are they best equipped to speak on behalf of the human race? If intelligent life did come to Earth, and politicians made the call, they would probably first quarantine our visitors, then kill them, and finally dissect them and put them in bottles in a museum somewhere...

Obviously science should have its say, expounding on our innovation and technological prowess. …Maybe some historians painting a picture of our evolution and the evolution of life on our planet.

But surely just as importantly, there should be the philosophers, the poets, the artistes, musicians. Those expounding on attributes which truly distinguish us from the rest of creation - reason, emotion, friendship, tolerance, love.

I would not like aliens to pass judgment on humanity based on the global chaos and carnage which we as a species have and continue to rage unabated on our planet.

There is no doubt, we are violent and destructive. But are we the citizens, to blame?

Indirectly yes because it is us who elect the power players. We are the ones who imbue politicians with unquestioned authority, to act in our name and interests. We give them the power, literally over life and death. And they thrive under the empty title of ‘public servant’, playing their roles centre stage… seducing attention, good or bad …but they do not write the script. They do not direct the show. They are merely the actors. The show they perform and the roles they play are dictated by the ones’ that finance the production.

Power lies with money, and the control of money lies in the hands of business. And at the top of the food chain, the true custodians of power, are probably the bankers.

The whole world is in debt. Everyone owes money to a bank somewhere, and all will spend the rest of his or her life working, always to pay the bank.

So the reality is that the leaders of business and finance are at the top of the food chain. And all, from superpower to pauper, dance to their tune. Just look at what is going on at present…

The Arab world is fighting both to enter the modern world and literally to survive. The big guns jump in with both feet ostensibly to spread democracy and sanctify human rights – against arch-rival/friend-archrival – in a country where it now turns out support for the old is easily as strong as the voices of the new.

And then, where their support would be justified, they lose their appetite and turn a disinterested eye. Did I mention oil? Sorry. Oil… Oil - and the ones proclaiming to be the good guys leveraging their odds at the expense of what is right.

Think of the not too distant Osama Bin Laden saga. The Earth’s greatest terrorist shot dead. Just like that, bang! It was on the news for days and weeks, and justifiably so - for his crimes, he should surely pay - but in the midst of all the back patting, why didn’t anyone ever explain to the world exactly what it was he was fighting for. … Quite honestly, I have never heard.

Sure, I could possibly find out on the web. But that’s not the point. On the major news channels responsible for telling us what’s going on in the world, the reasons for his hatred of the Western world and US in particular, were never covered.

Surely he didn’t one day just decide to go out and bomb buildings? Something pissed him off. Pissed him off enough to give up a life of obvious splendour, and literally head for the hills, to go carry the flag of the Arab underdog.

Would anyone have cared if it wasn’t in the Arab world - the land of black gold? Would they have worried if he was from Rwanda or Senegal or anywhere obscure or poor.

From his actions, he seemed more like a Rambo version of Robin Hood, fighting for his poor around Sherwood Forest. The champion of the meek, mild, persecuted, victimized and forgotten.

Obviously his course of action could never be justified. He brought about destruction and death. But I have often asked myself what I would do if I was oppressed, starving and hopeless. If my wife and my kids were starving and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it… I know that I would do whatever it took to survive and to keep those who depend on me, …those I love - safe, fed, secure, and happy.

And how were his actions any different from those spreading carnage and ‘collateral’ death through ‘the war on terror’? It’s horrifying when people are killed by terrorist attacks in the western world (and incidentally, compared to most major causes of death like road accidents, cancer etc, terrorism ranks way down near the bottom); it’s just as horrifying for the victims of Western aggression when the West destroys their world - and they have no way of escape. Their crimes? Being born in a land, that nine times out of ten, has something the power-players want.

These people are not all psychopathic terrorists. They just think different, behave different, and worship different. They are people like you and I. Just wanting to get on with their lives and do their best. But they just happen to live in the wrong place at the wrong time.

How did it all begin? Culture, ideology – and the numero-uno culprit: religion. For centuries, wars have been waged in the name of God, all sides claiming to be gatekeepers of peace, love, morality. And in the name of the pure and holy, we have ended up hating each other.

When will we learn that brute force achieves nothing more than pain, anger and hatred. Sure you can make people act like you want them to. You can even make them say what you want them to. But you can never make them think what you want them to, by intimidation and force.

How then, you ask? …Love, tolerance, compassion and understanding.

I am not proposing sowing the seeds of love like in the hippy era. LSD and forget tomorrow – you won’t remember it anyway…

I’m talking about love, where the individual thinks more about the good of the community than the good of himself, and where the community thinks more about the good of the individual, than it does of itself. The time has come for humanity as a collective to sit up, take note, and demand that life once again be perceived as more precious than money.

Take the green dream. We all know we are killing the Earth. 10 years, 20, 50, 100. Who cares. A hundred years from now, my grandkids could still be alive – and please God the Earth is still going.!

Stupid: The Earth will still be turning, it will only be life that’s gone, if we keep going the way we are.

The fact is, man is stuffing up the planet and we all know it. We all carry the flag and shake our heads at the big bad corporates and the Chinese, the infamous eco bad guys, while enjoying the benefits of these mega bad-guys’ innovation. We buy the brands, we drive the cars, we have the gizmos and the gadgets that flood the world and it is their producers that feed our frenzy.

If we are to save our environment, we – the big collective we, in our private and personal capacity - need to take ownership of the issues and answer the call. And the inevitable harsh reality is that we need to start looking to un-gizmify rather than continue to gizmify. Set our sites lower, simpler. Start contemplating the alternatives – before the choice is taken out of our hands.

Our need to simplify our lives is not simply a ‘nice to do’ for ecology. In the very near future, it will become an inevitable reality. If serious action is not taken, as the depletion of resources really starts to bite, there will be less security, shortages, strikes, discontent, desperation, and fear on a scale never before encountered, because never before was the entire planet as interdependent as it is now.

...And let’s not go into the fact that the global population is getting very big.

How big? Who cares. All over the world people are arguing and fighting – some to thrive and millions to survive. It’s become painfully obvious there are more people than there is stuff to go around. Either we need more stuff or we need less people – or a change in the game plan.

Meet most people alone, and they have at least some level of decency, integrity, honour, but put them in a group, and they will say and do crazy things - and the bigger the group, the crazier the stuff. By the time there are enough individuals to make a gang or fill a football stadium, beware, danger is lurking.

By the time there’s enough to make up a nation, anything goes. Countries will kill and rob and defraud and discredit, all in the name of its people. …People who would never dream of doing the same things personally. In ‘civilized’ capitalistic society, progress is defined in terms of technology and profit, and not in terms of the one attribute which defines our very existence, the value of human life. … Every single human life.

As long as profit is seen as more important than life, humanity is thundering along a path which is unsustainable and if not addressed, will end in tragedy.

It is unthinkable to simply accept the fact that more and more people are becoming destitute, more and more people are starving, dying because they cannot even afford to live - or at least live in a world where 40% of the wealth is owned by 1% of the population - and every day, the stinking rich are getting stinking richer, while the desperately poor are getting desperately poorer - and hopeless. Men with nothing to live for. Dangerous men, driven not by greed or malice, but by fear and desperation. Men who come to believe when a man has nothing to live for, it’s easy to die for something….

It’s obvious there has to be a shift in the way people think. But it’s not in the thinking of the terrorists, or the bottom of the food chain; they can scream and shout until they’re blue. By virtue of how it is, they wield no power. The kings of kings in the chambers of commerce wield the power. When they say jump, the politicians dance. Their wishes entrench laws and banks buy opinion. They operate below, through and above the law, teetering at times, but seldom offering serious casualties.

It is beyond me that these intelligent heads shrouded in ivory towers cannot see the inevitable. Are oblivious to the scale and depth of desperation, and deaf to the exponentially swelling cry of the destitute? Without their intervention and wise action, one day, the dice will shift and the outcome will not benefit anyone. Whether it be a week, a month or a year, the end is inevitable – even in the face of the obvious spectre of relentless oppression, the top will fall.

And when it does, those that emerge victorious will be the strongest at insurrection, not the wisest in the rule of man. Warlords will once again hold custody over existence, and their countries will regress back into the dark ages.

The power players need to realize that the riches of the planet are for all of humanity and life. The wealth, knowledge and lifestyle we enjoy are still gifts from the Earth, whether natural or fabricated. Whether we like it or not, we are the custodians of our planet, our species and life in general. One cannot question the fact that the way we act influences our future.

So getting back to the point, who should meet Aliens on our behalf if they exist and when they come? Who cares… If we carry on the way we are going at present, no one will be around long enough to worry. As long as humans keep acting like we do, things we so consider as our basic human rights will inevitably end up as empty husks of human pipe dreams. Just saying…