The past week has just whizzed by, each sensational day marked off in the countdown to Saturday when I moved into the Galway campus, Dunβras, and today I am starting lectures. Suddenly, life has resumed to its serious old self again, books, bags and botheration, but for how long?
This week has really put a lot of life's trivialities into perspective. Tuesday's atrocities in New York and Washington shocked the world and scared us all, because we are unsure of where it will lead and the consequences that will follow. What if this triggers a war that could blast hopes of stable relations in our "civilised society", perforating the economies that support us? How hard is it going to be to study for a degree if the multinationals employing hundreds of people start pulling out?Will we go to bed every night watching news reports on devastation and destruction as thousands more innocent victims die in wars between the bureaucrats? Will the 1980s be repeated, with dole queues stretching outside the doors? What if the Government stops paying our college fees? The ifs and buts and whats are relentless as they encircle my mind. This time of uncertainty is overshadowed by global turmoil.
With such debate surrounding events in the US, it should be easy to identify the ideological, hard-line extremists, sympathetic people and pacifists in the group. (I'll be the radical pacifist calling for no retaliation - peace doesn't ruin the environment and, as a potential engineer, I feel there are plentiful amounts of infrastructure in the other war-ravaged countries of this planet to be repaired before they start wrecking whatever is left.)
Someone give me an optimism injection, please, before my typical downfall of imagining the worst-case scenario engulfs me. A few days ago my whole family sat in various states of shock and disbelief, trying to find out if my cousin, a stockbroker living and working in Manhattan, was still alive, the list of needs for college fell out of my hands. I realised again the privileges that our youth has bestowed upon them so readily. As I sit here writing I am surrounded by the privileges of an affluent society founded on an economic boom brought on by hard work and determination.
What would we do if we were living in Palestine or Latvia or Africa or anywhere outside "civilised society". Outside the "Developed World", struggling to survive against poverty, displacement and without government subsidies due to crippling World Bank debts?
That is why it is so important to strive for equality in the world and use the benefits of our education to stay open-minded and generous. We can recall when Gandhi was asked what he thought about Western civilisation: he said it would be a good idea.
Wouldn't it be great if everybody received an education regardless of nationality or their father's bank balance?
