AN END TO VIOLENCE?

After the horrific events in Boston, strangely enough my mind wandered to last night's news: another car bombing in Kirkuk, Northern Iraq. The Marxist historian, Eric Hobsbawm who recently passed away described the last century as the most violent in human history. Conceptually, can we put an end to violence as a weapon of propaganda and vengeance?

Many celebrated authors from a diversity of professions have tackled the intellectual problem. Lawyer, Geoffrey Robertson QC examined Crimes against Humanity, Niall Ferguson, an economic historian the rise of 'ethnocide' and Professor Noam Chomsky, of course, has for years demanufactured consent to government violence as a whole, in the Eastern and Western world.

On our television, twitter, radio and tablet screens presently, we hear about North Korea, Falun Gong persecution in China, separatists in Syria (including Australian nationals), insurgency and counter-insurgency in Mali and North Africa and the flow of refugees and internally displaced persons from Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Afghanistan. Together with Margaret Thatcher's legacy, we confront ever-present tension surrounding the Falklands conflict and the 'threat' of independence. And my father himself hails from Derry or County Londonderry, having marched in the Civil Rights march on infamous Bloody Sunday.

How can we face this effluxion of devastated humanity?

I think it starts with recognition: of the fact that the previous centuries' countless humiliations, struggles and failed and unplanned demarcations are still with us. each and every one of us. In a globalised world, 'Al Qaeda' - according to Jason Burke, a nonsensical and convenient reification proper noun meaning in Arabic the 'Base' - has invaded our collective imagination. What the concept of terrorism has done, however, is to replace the real political desiderata of peace and war with an amorphous threat. Syria, for example, is as much a product of decolonisation, the Lebanese Civil and Iran-Iraq Wars as much as any Salafist fifth column.

Yesterday, the Soviets, the Velvet Revolution - today, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. If one looks at the history of Mali, Somalia and Mauretania, we see governments papering over age-long conflicts which accelerated during the twentieth century.

IN CONTEXT, VIOLENCE DOES NOT REMAIN IN THE PAST. IT IS NOT 'OUT THERE'. IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN HERE. WE ARE VIOLENCE, AND YET WE ARE THE SOLUTION.

Let's start facing that problem..