How bombarded have we become by the constant, unrelenting battles for survival, supremacy and subjugation in the theatres of war around the world?
Ukraine, Sudan, Yemen, Myanmar, Nigeria, Syria, Mali, Pakistan, Gaza, Afghanistan … these are just the headliners in some 50-odd active conflicts, 110 by some counts, ripping lives apart around the planet each day.
They’re not always front of mind for those among us fortunate enough to be able to luxuriate in First World hobbies like climate change, kindergarten pronouns, cancel culture, global politics and polarisation, Israel/Palestine-bashing.
It’s odd that such concerns seem to far outweigh the multitude of more immediate hunger, disease, poverty, healthcare, mental health and other crises out there. Problems that don’t receive the attention they deserve. Problems that might be fixed more readily than millennia-old hatreds.
Even problems on your doorstep seem to escape vox-pop attention. Like the homeless bloke living in a clapped-out Commodore in the back lane car park.
Disabled sticker on the dash, sleeping bag in the back seat … he’s got his own survival issues. No time for the hatred, hostility, divisiveness and violence of the permanently outraged. But no-one has time for him, it seems.
The back lane also hosts a certain natural warfare that makes you wonder who’s really progressed up the food chain.
I’ve been watching two peewees, mudlarks, as they gather dirt and muck from the bluestone gutters to fashion a family nest high on a perilously thin eucalypt branch. Impressive mudbrick architecture, all the more special for the duress under which it’s been crafted.
Two voracious crows have surveilled the muddies’ every move. Occasionally, the peewees launch an offensive defence but the crows simply wing it up a nearby peppercorn and resume their vigil.
Cut-throat stuff. No doubt there’s mayhem on their mind. They’ll attack the eggs or chicks in due course. The collective noun, a murder of crows, is well chosen.
We’ve also had magpies swooping low to protect a fledgling which somehow exited the nest without learning to fly and spent a week roaming about before finding its wings and disappearing. Unless possums or cats made mincemeat of him first, that is.
As kids, we’d shinny up trees to collect bird eggs, popping them under our tongues as we climbed back down with one hand to hang on, the other to fend off angry mothers. Mudlark and magpie eggs were the hardest to get. We weren’t put off by the occasional egg smashing in your mouth.
We were actually encouraged by a massive collection of eggs the priests showed us at the old Corpus Christi seminary, now Werribee Park. We took shoeboxes of cottonwool and eggs to school to show teachers and other kids before eventually learning of the Gould League and the error of our own murderous ways.
We grew up. Unlike many champions of issues which are more trends, fashions or confected controversies than considered, balanced or productive causes.
Bias confirmation is rife, aided and abetted by unchecked technology. Misinformation, disinformation and outright falsehoods are everywhere. Truth can be your truth and, for too many people, the idea of an open mind is blasphemy, profanity and sabotage.
The West is seen as the enemy, regardless of how far superior its record is on human rights, democracy, law and order, the rule of law, rah, rah …
Talk about lest we forget.
When will they grow up?
This article appeared in the Geelong Advertiser 11 November 2025
