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A Tale Of Two Cities |
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Crimes against humanity are frequently seen at their worst and most glaring when cities are attacked. We are an urban world and to see pictures of the destruction of people in their homes or workplaces is horrendous, not to be borne, we are aghast at the sight of such frightful disregard of the value of human life. We feel the shock and the pain in ourselves, simply from seeing what has been done to our fellow-citizens, wherever they live and whoever they are. We cannot forgive those who commit such acts and we yearn for justice to be brought down upon them. As the big American airplane approached on that shining morning nothing untoward was expected. The nefarious preparations for sudden destruction had been long, thorough and secret, on a scale unparalleled in the history of terror. No like onslaught had been made before upon any great city. No one in the buildings below could foresee so terrible an attack. And then the blow came - flame and heat and their devastating effects. For many victims there was not even time for fear. Destruction and death came almost instantaneously and were spread all around. First reports spoke of victims with skin hanging off them. The cruelty of death and pain and searing heat was unimaginable before and its effects would endure for years. The world would never be the same again. That attack, one of such incredible cruelty against thousand upon thousand of innocent people, alone would have done its work, signalling the power and hatred felt by the perpetrators against their enemies. It alone would have taught the lesson that they were to be feared above all other bringers of terror, were to be held as so determined, so ferocious and so capable, that the enemy would be compelled to mark and note, would have to understand. So that one blow would have sufficed. But that did not satisfy the authors of this horrendous revenge. There was yet more. So the second attack came swiftly. Christians were not to be spared in another unparalleled blow. This was no less devastating. To the victims it was almost as sudden and unforeseen as the first. And no less cruel. Rescue services were overwhelmed. Nothing could cope with the scale of the death and destruction. Untold numbers of people were lost, their bodies burnt beyond recognition and left totally without trace. The power of evil was demonstrated on the city in a way so spectacular that the world would never forget. It was to learn a lesson of the peremptory need to prevent such a display of malice ever being again permitted to disgrace human history. Offers of help came from outside. Nations across the world, friends and foes, could see the scale of the inhumanity that had led to this horror. Efforts were made to succour the survivors. Religion was called to the aid of a world aghast at the wicked power of human beings who thought themselves guided by the Almighty. Everywhere an aweful reflection led people to thoughts of their common humanity and their common mortality. That changed human thinking for ever - for some. What of the others? Time has yet to tell. But surely, these events did change everyone's ways of thinking? From that morning of 11 September 2001 ... well no, the foregoing paragraphs refer to events of August 1945, events which culminated in the devastation of the city of the Japanese Christians. True, the world was shocked and minds changed; but insufficiently and too often in the wrong direction. Instead of seeing the paramount need to unify humankind and put an end to occasions of such massive brutality and inhumanity our world relapsed into its old ways - and prepared for the next wars. As it still does. An American president's words once again are to defy the gods and gear up his military for more war. So if his lead is followed, we cannot be sure of what the outcome will be, except that the future of terror will again be as assured as it was after the events of August 1945.
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