“Madness is the only word
I can think of to describe This World…”

In 2001, I graffitied those words on the Peace Wall that divides the Nationalist and Unionist suburbs in Belfast. The same wall that they have to keep building higher each year because of all the “peace offerings” – paint bombs, bricks and kitchen sinks that get thrown over it and onto the houses below.

When two boys, no older than eight, walked past me and demanded “are you Cat(h)olic or Protestant?”, I knew that the situation was hopeless. Any chance of real peace was still generations away. If there could ever be such a thing.

That’s sort of how I feel now.

When I wrote “This World”, I really meant Their World. A world, where daily life meant living under a shadow of terrorism, with neither party willing to forgive the other for the terrible atrocities each had committed. Even those on the same side couldn’t agree what they wanted anymore.

Of course, that world of madness has since invaded Our World.

After September 11, any plans of travelling further after leaving London and maybe living/working in Ireland, New York or Dubai were pretty much dropped in favour of returning to the relative safety of remote little New Zealand.

But you don’t even feel safe all the way down here. The Bali bombings, one year, one month and one day later (the day after my birthday) proved that.

Apparently, the media warns, we already have our own Radicals living Down Under. I’ve yet to come across them, myself. I get on well with all the Arabs I know. In fact, I’d even go so far as to call them my friends. Even the one called Hussein. (He’s since changed his name to “Huss”. I don’t know why). But, apparently, They are among us.

Either way, the situation is hopeless.

How do you reason with terrorists who target innocent people as pay-back for past political decisions? Oh, and a few recent ones.
When far more innocents have been killed by Western bombs and bullets on Middle Eastern soil?

And how do you retaliate against sanguinary, heartless and anonymous nomadic groups that feed and breed on hate?

Here’s how: by doing what the Irish up north do – accept that this is the way Your World is now, and then carrying on living, albeit somewhat more nervously. But I don't endorse wasting perfectly good kitchen sinks.

These are the days.

Let sleeping giants lie like dogs in graves for fallen men.
I wrote it down, it came from God,
Though I don't know what it meant.
These are the days of fragile friends, the days of our children's shame.
These are the days that always were and never will again.

And if evil comes, from behind the clouds,
To steal my love away,
Then clear a space, I'm joining you,
I don't intend to stay.
The papers claim, in sullen tones,
That all good things must end.
And I'm sad to say, head in hands,
That this is one of them.

These are the days
Where we wake
When our minds were half-asleep.
These are the days
Where we discover that
Nothing's ours to keep.
These are the days of scared men walking
And I am one of these
This is my lock, this is my door,
But they're somebody else's keys.