It says something about humanity, doesn't it, that in the course of the same week, we can launch men into space with a reusable rocket for the very first time, and then also watch a racist cop committing a real murder on live TV.
Gil Scott-Heron called it in the 60s:
"Her face and arms began to swell. And whitey's on the moon."
I felt sick to my stomach. Desperate human need and cruelty stretched out before me on the sidewalk, while one white man knelt on the neck of one black man, painting the entire metaphor for us in that one awful pastiche - the criminal suspect choking against the cold concrete, the casual white hand in the pocket, the flashing sirens, the protesters, the struggle, the power, the clamour, and then the silence.
"He's not moving," shouted someone, "He's not moving."
How dare we do this. How dare we sit back and let it happen. How dare we clap and cheer as our toy rocket launches in a plume of excitement and exploration. How dare we imagine we can explore the stars, when this ancient evil still swirls unseen in our hearts! How dare we imagine we can live together on other planets, when we can't even look after this one or each other on it. How dare we.
I'm a white person, and this is a complex issue. Gold was stolen from the Incas that we Europeans exterminated; Africa is the most mineral-rich continent in the world, yet our Union-Jack-waving Empire ravaged it purely for ourselves, enslaving its stewards for generations, and encasing our monuments with the glittering spoils. The British Museum, one of my favourites, even today, shimmers quietly with looted treasures we won't ever return. Those slaves we created, we exported like cattle. This is my culture. This, my heritage. I am the problem.
I can get livid, and I am, but I know I can't feel the pain and the fear of it; I appreciate I might never really know what it feels like. But I recognise that we've all got to change.
Perhaps it starts with examining ourselves for that swirling evil? Perhaps it's about understanding what goes on in our own hearts - or perhaps it's about education that goes much deeper, burying down to the roots of this pernicious disease. Perhaps it's about challenging the micro-reactions we see all the time... but we know all this - we've been taught this for thirty years and more. There's a tiresome inevitability about it.
All I see now is that we must do something. Because we mustn't explore the stars, or spread this contagion without changing ourselves first.
We may live in a world where these two things can happen in a week, and where we blink for a while in the mirror of our own reflection. But Gil Scott-Heron had a point, I think. The stars are too good for us.
You know, it occurs to me that there is another way to look at this - that maybe exploration is in itself a better part of our nature, and we shouldn't stifle that. In fact, that quest for innovation represents the best of who we can be.
ReplyDeleteI went out to the allotments to try to see the ISS tonight, but my eyes weren't really up to the task. It is incredible though, when you think about it: there was the moon, burning bright. There were the planes that hang like magic, and somewhere unseen, our space craft were docking out there in a marvel of engineering.
I am fascinated and thrilled by all of this, yes, but after this week, I just can't forget the ugliness of what I've seen too - and I think it was that that I was trying to explain above. Perhaps looking to the stars actually does remind us that we can be better, that we can do much better. I have a feeling though, that the more fruitful thing is to look inside first. And I guess, in my wordy old way, that was what I was trying to say.