Sunday 27 July 2014

Dr. Kissinger, a Badger and Nelson Mandela.

The last week has seen the sun bake this part of The Cotswolds.  Long, hot sunny days.  The type of days that remind me of my own childhood. Summer holidays filled with fun, excitement and adventure accompanied with sunshine and the truest of blue skies.  It is funny  how you remember the hot, balmy sunny days and all the lovely adventures, but I feel sure, if one is honest there were wet miserable days and some totally lack lustre days just as much then as there are today.
Disappointing news for me this week, the British Veterinary Association (BVA) will support a second year of pilot Badger culls in England.  You would think the amount of evidence around now on the true transmittance of Bovine TB to even contemplate another years’ Badger cull would be totally out of the question.  Like so many things in life the right course of action always seems to be the most difficult for our Politicians to follow.  They seem to have a total unwillingness to comprehend the futility of a lot of their actions. 
News yesterday that a 1,000 lives have now been lost on the Gaza Strip.  The Israeli land offensive has caused mayhem beyond belief.  Hospitals bombed, schools bombed and while these atrocities were being played out for the whole world to judge for themselves, our own Middle East Peace Envoy, Tony Blair was back for a party in London. 
This particular Middle East problem has been going on for 47 years.  I remember as a child listening to the great American Nobel Peace Prize winner, the 56th Secretary of State sworn in on September 22nd 1973, the great Dr.Henry Kissinger, when greatness was marked by achievement and intelligence and an ability to grasp both sides of an argument and do your damndest to get an equilibrium respected by all parties across the Middle East. 
The problems he faced then have manifested themselves many times since but his initial ideas of trying to forge a peace across the Middle East is probably on hind sight the best chance the people of the region have had in the last 47 years.  Until the Palestinians are treated as equals, peace and harmony will never reside there. 
Hamas has been democratically elected and should be sat down with and talked to in a matter of state fashion.  To continually brand them as ‘Terrorists’ and the ‘Bad Guys’ in all of this, I fear, will no longer wash. 
With a 1,000 Palestinians dead, the propaganda war is being won on an hour by hour basis. 
The Israeli existence has obviously got to be recognized and respected by all Arabs but this sledge hammer to crack a nut approach is quite simply wrong. 
Nelson Mandela was a terrorist to some and a freedom fighter to others, but apartheid was just plainly wrong. 
The comparisons from this I bring back to my own small natural world.  The nature I see on a day on day basis, people not wanting to look at the facts to go that extra mile to get it right.  The easy option is so very often the wrong option.  Complex issues need the best diplomatic, political minds.  Minds that look outside of petty argument, minds of candour, progress, integrity and above all fairness.  And my advice to the Middle East Peace Envoy, Tony Blair and the rest of his shower looking over this apocalypse known as the Middle East should take a few leaves out of the book of the great Dr.Henry Kissinger and one of the icons of the 20th Century, the great Nelson Mandela.  And let us just hope our Secretary of the Environment, Liz Truss has got just a few of these qualities and will see the light before rolling out another futile, mindless, barbaric, savage onslaught on our own British icon, the Badger.
My Badgers in this part of The Cotswolds have had a very hot week and have had to go further afield for their diet of slugs and snails.  The hotter and drier the ground gets, the more ground they have to cover to fill their stomachs.  The way they have chosen to keep cool is to dig in fresh setts along old windy 300 year old Cotswold stone walls. The tenacity and ingenious way they set about combatting the things in life that can cause them discomfort is a lesson to us all.  The Badger is a doer, go out and getter who asks nothing a part from its own health and strength to do whatever he has to, to keep his family safe and as comfortable as possible. The Diplomat Statesman Lord Protector of the woodlands. 

Please watch my short film of a Squirrel, a Badger and a Mouse.











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