The sight of yet another cold and messy early Spring day makes a person wish that they could just have a hand and be done with it. The music of melting ice cracking on the lake cannot come too soon to my ears. Despite my eagerness (or impatience) for warmer weather, I must place my trust in higher powers - namely God, groundhogs, and the current Farmer's Almanac. Patience and serenity are hard to hold onto in early March, and yet...
There is a particular novena that is popular with many people, and I believe that members of Alcoholics Anonymous often cite it. It is the Serenity Prayer, attributed to theologian Reinhold Niebuhr in the early 20th century. Without getting into technical transcriptions, I offer the main gist of the text:
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.”
In a discussion of the current turmoil in the Middle East, I am reminded of this phrase. In particular, a conversation with my ten-year old brought out the near-futility of the current situation.
He asks me why we don’t intercede. I tell him that most of the people being turfed were people who, while we did not always support, were not necessarily in a big hurry to get rid of – stability and all that.
But whose side would we take? The people in power? History seems to bear out, whether it be Batista’s Cuba or South Vietnam, or a bunch of other regimes, you end up on the losing end anyway and have inherited a thoroughly hostile new government with ciitzens who take great joy in burning your flag in front of the news cameras.
The West did away with Mossadegh in Iran in the 1950’s, only to reap the bitter harvest in 1979 when Ayatollah Khomeini stepped off the plane from Paris. Long memories – and fairly bitter ones too.
Okay, so help the other side, then. After all, they are fighting against oppression, right? Okay, so let’s look at an example of when we did just that, when we gave the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan tons of weapons and technical support in order to turf out the Soviets. Fast forward two decades and many of our ‘friends’ turned their attention to fighting their former benefactors, now under the monikers of ‘Taliban’ and ‘al-Qaeda.’
Libya presents an interesting example. As I write this, Dutch Marines are being held captive by the Qaddafi regime, while British paratroopers were captured by the forces trying to topple said regime. Both forces were in the country trying to help their nationals get out, but in such a part of the world, even one boot mark in the sand seems to be an act of provocation.
Human instinct, or human passions, urge us on to do something – anything – to either hasten, or prevent, revolutions. It seems, though, that these types of adventures never fail in blowing up in one’s face. Witness the example of the Bourbon monarchy in France. In its eagerness to give a bloody nose to its cross-channel rivals, it invested a great deal of blood and treasure helping the Americans shrug off British rule. Their reward? Virtual bankruptcy, leading to draconian taxation, and people like Jefferson and Paine who repaid the largesse of the Royal court with republican urgings to the French people. In many respects, French noblemen made their date with Monsieur Guillotine years before in their heady desire to challenge the British on the issue of America.
Even today, many commentators would have to admit that our dealings with the People’s Republic of China are somewhat influenced by attitudes about the West formed during the Opium Wars and the Boxer Rebellion of the early 1900’s.
Our reliance on petroleum makes us highly sensitive to political events in the Middle East. Barring some technological breakthrough that allows us to fuel our cars with old tin cans and paper wrappings – like Doc. Brown’s DeLorean in the ‘Back to the Future” movies – we will continue to be interested parties to these types of situations.
Given the enormous supply of crude in the Alberta oil sands and the Bakken fields, as well as the significant amount of natural gas present in North America, our current vulnerabilities are a result more with our own attitudes and predilections than anything else.
When all is said and done, our gut reaction may be to do something, but possibly – maybe – we should take a lesson from Niebuhr and “change the things we can change, and learn to live with the rest – as unpleasant as that may be.
There is a particular novena that is popular with many people, and I believe that members of Alcoholics Anonymous often cite it. It is the Serenity Prayer, attributed to theologian Reinhold Niebuhr in the early 20th century. Without getting into technical transcriptions, I offer the main gist of the text:
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.”
In a discussion of the current turmoil in the Middle East, I am reminded of this phrase. In particular, a conversation with my ten-year old brought out the near-futility of the current situation.
He asks me why we don’t intercede. I tell him that most of the people being turfed were people who, while we did not always support, were not necessarily in a big hurry to get rid of – stability and all that.
But whose side would we take? The people in power? History seems to bear out, whether it be Batista’s Cuba or South Vietnam, or a bunch of other regimes, you end up on the losing end anyway and have inherited a thoroughly hostile new government with ciitzens who take great joy in burning your flag in front of the news cameras.
The West did away with Mossadegh in Iran in the 1950’s, only to reap the bitter harvest in 1979 when Ayatollah Khomeini stepped off the plane from Paris. Long memories – and fairly bitter ones too.
Okay, so help the other side, then. After all, they are fighting against oppression, right? Okay, so let’s look at an example of when we did just that, when we gave the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan tons of weapons and technical support in order to turf out the Soviets. Fast forward two decades and many of our ‘friends’ turned their attention to fighting their former benefactors, now under the monikers of ‘Taliban’ and ‘al-Qaeda.’
Libya presents an interesting example. As I write this, Dutch Marines are being held captive by the Qaddafi regime, while British paratroopers were captured by the forces trying to topple said regime. Both forces were in the country trying to help their nationals get out, but in such a part of the world, even one boot mark in the sand seems to be an act of provocation.
Human instinct, or human passions, urge us on to do something – anything – to either hasten, or prevent, revolutions. It seems, though, that these types of adventures never fail in blowing up in one’s face. Witness the example of the Bourbon monarchy in France. In its eagerness to give a bloody nose to its cross-channel rivals, it invested a great deal of blood and treasure helping the Americans shrug off British rule. Their reward? Virtual bankruptcy, leading to draconian taxation, and people like Jefferson and Paine who repaid the largesse of the Royal court with republican urgings to the French people. In many respects, French noblemen made their date with Monsieur Guillotine years before in their heady desire to challenge the British on the issue of America.
Even today, many commentators would have to admit that our dealings with the People’s Republic of China are somewhat influenced by attitudes about the West formed during the Opium Wars and the Boxer Rebellion of the early 1900’s.
Our reliance on petroleum makes us highly sensitive to political events in the Middle East. Barring some technological breakthrough that allows us to fuel our cars with old tin cans and paper wrappings – like Doc. Brown’s DeLorean in the ‘Back to the Future” movies – we will continue to be interested parties to these types of situations.
Given the enormous supply of crude in the Alberta oil sands and the Bakken fields, as well as the significant amount of natural gas present in North America, our current vulnerabilities are a result more with our own attitudes and predilections than anything else.
When all is said and done, our gut reaction may be to do something, but possibly – maybe – we should take a lesson from Niebuhr and “change the things we can change, and learn to live with the rest – as unpleasant as that may be.
