iPhone Photo Chronicles
~ Twinklings Of Tolerence ~
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Back in those days, and you may feel things haven't changed that much, an uprising, or even a simple affront, was good enough reason to enact similar, or why not worse atrocities in the name of righteousness, revenge or simple delirium.
We occasionally squint through parted fingers and wonder if the ends are really justifying the means, however injust the perceived ancien régime was thought to be. Especially by those that lived under it.
Luckily, for those who believe in a higher power or intelligence, especially a particularly (if suspiciously) silent one, this power is always on their side; the right side, the just side, that is.
Unfortunately, for the rest of us, the Taciturn One hasn't felt the need to enlighten us definitively as to which right side actually is the right side, or if it has, I must have been out of the office.
Thus we are confronted with the spectacle of possessed lunatics carrying out insane acts of true faith, inebriated by a fairytale of a ludicrous better life to escape the emptiness of the present one, their backward societies shackled by the very faith they profess to adhere to; the ultimate Catch 22 situation. Followed immediately by the victims' pitiful praying to the very same God for... what? An answer? And a rapid and very human desire for veangeance, or at least some sort of 'closure'.
This is where my patience with believers wears seriously thin. Seriously. OK, I know they've been brainwashed and had their future adult beliefs rammed down their throats and into the deepest recesses of their innocent childish sub-consciences by equally unwitting and powerless parents. Not to mention the insidious, pernicious peer pressure and societal norms we all conform to to a greater or lesser extent. But still. It's laughable really. Terribly, tragically laughable.
If I had my way I'd throw all religions and other irrational beliefs out the window with the holy water and just get on with trying to do right by myself and others. Can the Enlightenment really have come and gone, snuffed out like just one more revolutionary flare dragged to the ground and trampled underfoot by the heavy boots of ignorance, intolerance and fear of losing illicitly acquired privileges?
If I had my way I'd invite the whole world to Paris and take them on a whistle-stop tour of the city's soul to see what it might teach us of heady human heights and desperately shameful lows.
If I had my way I'd cut out that paper plane bottom right and send it soaring back with crayon hearts drawn on the wings and a powerful dose of common sense in the fuselage, along with a bag full of start-your-own-business books with a few micro-loans tucked inside the sand-cover and some summer frocks for the gals (and the guys) and copies of Gary Larson cartoons all wrapped up in painestakingly placed pages from Rights of Man...
If I had my way.
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© 2011 Sab Will / Paris Set Me Free - Contact me directly for photo tours, interviews, exhibitions, etc.
© 2011 Sab Will / Paris Set Me Free - Contact me directly for photo tours, interviews, exhibitions, etc.
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