www.owohrod.com.

RM.- But I do what have am doing, and what I have done because I love my country, and I want to protect it. I really believe that I am the best person to protect my country. It is like my child. TD.- I thought you would know that to protect your country, as you put it, RM, is not to suffocate it to death. That you would also know that to love your country is not to treat it like your own personal possession, but to allow it to prosper and develop to its full potential; to let it go.  And that is your problem, RM.  Thinking of and treating Zimbabwe as if it was your personal possession, your wife, even, till death do do part, even if it means you killing the country to achieve this? For my sake, RM, I gathered that you would like to rule the country from your grave. Do you think you are some kind of Pharoah? RM._ I, Robert Mugabe have made this country, Zimbabwe, into my own image. Like god is said to have made humans in his own image, and it is my duty to protect it,

The opportunity which confronted NATO and its guardians, was that of building on the opportunity which the dissolution of the Soviet Union presented it with. That of  transforming itself into an organisation better equipped to help promote the stabilisation of eastern Europe, and its peaceful co-existence with the rest of Europe and beyond. It us arguable that NATO, which has now become a bastion of the western guardians of the 'Old World Order', chose to ensure its own survival, at the cost of promoting peace in Europe and the world.  The expansion of NATO, like that of the European Union, is a costly business. Both in terms of the actual cost of maintaining it and in terms of the alternative cost; the cost to the peaceful and productive enterprises which could have benefited from the money being spent on NATO.  So, of course it is right that Donald Trump and the Trumptists should be arguing that the European countries which are sheltering under the NATO- umbrel

Yet, what would happen if we were to imagine this young man lying seriously wounded on a bleak street in Germany, during the Second World War, having been shot by an SS Officer, after having carried out an attack on Hitler's apparatus?  Which of them, would the more compassionate amongst us support; the the young man who has just been shot, or the German soldier who shot him? It does not really take much for the oppressed to become the oppressor, given the right conditions. We have seen this in many societies which have gained their independence from their colonial masters.  Getting from the one to the other is not a long road to travel, and the rationale tends to be the same; namely that of 'protecting the State.'  This is why it is so important for us humans to hold our humility dearly, and not allow the business of oppressing, for whatever reasons, other humans, to become something we take for granted. So much that we value our lives greatly, while deval

This smiling, beaming young soldier is about to be given 18 months imprisonment, by Israel's Military Court, for murdering a wounded Palestinian knife attacker. Why, you might ask, is he so happy, when he is the perpetrator of a cold-blooded murder? The arrogant looking woman caressing the young soldier is his mother. Why, you might ask, is she looking so proud of her son, a young man who has needlessly committed a cold-blooded murder? Why is she so proud of her son, whom the Israel's Military prosecutor said had, prior to his murderous act, an 'unblemished record'? Why the absence of any remorse, any humility, any sense of seriousness as they await the probably pitiful sentence? And then you realise you realise it; the young man and his mother, like those who support the young man and his actions, see it as all a big joke.  A joke that a 'patriotic' member of the Israel Defence Force should be charged for killing a Palestinian, and one who ha

Of course, there is also another side to history; that of the perceived of self-perceived 'victors' in history, being used by some of us in the present, as our role models, and wanting to recreate what we imagined to have be the societies of these 'victors', in future. And so it seems to me, that, while history has a role to play in the present and future of humans, of vital concern, is the matter of how and what we use it to teach us?  History can teach us how to preserve the conditions of the past and persists in our attempts to drag them, sometimes screamingly and incongruously, into the present and projecting them into the future.  How to blight the potential of present and the future with the preservation of our poisonous past. How we can and should, rationalise, preserve past hatreds, injustices, conflict and oppression, by perpetuating them into our present and channelling them into our future. Yes, by now, those who are reading this post will proba

Since the ending of the 'first cold war' and dissolution of the Soviet Union in early 1990s, NATO has found itself in danger of not having an 'enemy or enemies' which would justify its continuance. It has had to find new roles, roles which probably were outside of its original brief, such as intervening in the Iraq War, in Libya and Syria. Now, it really is the case that President Donald Trump merits the description of being probably the most erratic  leader the United States of America has elected to govern them and the proverbial 'free world.' What I have heard his Secretary of Defence referring to as "the democracies."  A term which you might or might not have expected of a career soldier who has, for whatever reason/s, probably none of which are referring to his enhanced humanity, has been given the nickname of James "Mad dog" Mattis. But, for the purpose of this post, let us leave the possible virtues and vices of James Mattis

And it is as if their gods do not hear them; ignore them, constantly. Because, notwithstanding this abundance of pleading, of beseeching and praying, the world does not get any better.  The wars continue, the floods and famines continue to take their toll, and the hearts of the people's rulers and their governments remain set in their way.  Either the gods are not listening, do not really exist, or the elites who have the real power to reduce the number of wars, to invest more in peaceful pursuits and make our lives better.   To reduce the number of people whose lives are being blighted by wars, economic and migration problems, are not listening to either the religionists or to their purported gods. So, nothing changes, positively, and, still, the Christians and the people of the other theistic and non-theistic religions still continue to attend their places of worship and make their pleas.  Probably hoping, even against hope, that, one day, just one day, th