Hypocrisy or Truth

Like so many people, I've been closely following events on the world news on the unfolding situations in the Middle East and North Africa.Every news program I've watched has had people being interviewed who are talking about the double standards and hypocrisy of the world governments. I watched one very learned chap this morning who with all seriousness said that one of the ways to deal with the double standards was to ignore them! We have all become used to this double dealing and hypocrisy as normal...yet it is not so long ago where people ( rightly or wrongly!) actually believed politicians ..thought what they heard on the news was actually the facts. It seems today, everyone knows they have to read between the lines to try and work out for themselves just what the truth of the matter might be!

In rather stark contrast, I've been reading some of the writings of Laurens Van der Post where he draws evocative pictures of some of the ways of life and thinking in Old Africa. I found it so fresh and inspiring ..especially after the current news programs. Although an echo from the past, perhaps it could also be a call to the future? I certainly hope so! Here are some thoughts on 'truth' from 'A Story Like the Wind'

" No imagination has yet been great enough to invent improvements to the truth. Truth, however terrible, carries within itself its own strange comfort for the misery it is so often compelled to inflict on behalf of life. Sooner or later, it is not pretence but the truth which gives back with both hands what it has taken away with one"