Expiry date

My dear Billy, “History fades into fable; fact becomes clouded with doubt and controversy; the inscription moulders from the tablet; the statue falls from the pedestal. Columns, arches, pyramids, what are they but heaps of sand, and their epitaphs but characters written in the dust?”-Washington Irving. What follows may not please the hypersensitive, the sentimentalists, the preservationists; also genuine ecologists as well as fake and self-styled ones. But I have never claimed that God (or the other fellow) has sent me down here with the mission to please everybody. Even God has abdicated. The concept of the survival of the fittest is no doubt closely connected to the practice of the law of the jungle, where the stronger animals prey upon the weaker ones. In this world of change nothing which comes stays, and nothing which goes is lost. Nature is an integrated whole, made up of a system of predators in which the survival of one depends on the death of the other. An insect which lives on plants is devoured by another creature which in turn becomes the victim of a larger predator, whose waste products and ultimately his own body are consumed by microbes which feed the soil where the plants grow. The survival of life depends on the natural cycle being followed through so that every creature gives back to nature what he has taken out of it. The law of the jungle, which is the one universal law, the whole world having been turned into a vast jungle, has also brought about the extinction of several species. This has been greatly aided by nature itself through its disasters, calamities like diseases, extended droughts, long rainy periods, extended, volcanic erupt ions, earthquakes, tsunamis and other cataclysms like global warming. Divine wrath – some call it God’s justice – also comes into play when God is supposedly irked by man whom He has created in His own image. It is thus that He sent the Great Flood to annihilate mankind. But in His mercy, on second thought probably, He took care to preserve the species by ordering Noah to build the famous ark and save his family together with a pair of each animal species. The Bible also reports the case of the towns of Sodom and Gomorrhea which God, in His wisdom, destroyed by a catastrophe in order to punish the people who had taken to bad ways. Many species became extinct before human life existed. During the millions of years that life was evolving on earth, such species could not adapt to the changing conditions. Dinosaurs, mammoths, and much later and closer to us, the dodo, are all examples of animals and birds that have become extinct. Nobody mourns their disappearance. No flowers are laid on their tombs on All Souls’ Day. Many civilizations in many parts of the world have become extinct. There have been attempts to exterminate the Aztecs and other tribes of America. They used to shoot the Australian Aborigines at sight in a bid to eradicate them from the surface of the earth. But they later found that the process was too cruel, so they used anaesthetics – they provided the Aborigines with three important things: they gave them roads to come to town; they gave them the church; they gave them alcohol to intoxicate them so that they might fight among themselves and kill each other. An estimated 50,000 Aborigines still exist in the reserves. Others are either dead or recycled. Today sharks and tigers are said to be endangered species and a lot of money is being spent to save these predators from extinction. It is just possible that this is being done to ease the collective human conscience. So be it. But come to think about it, my dear Billy. What’s so great about saving either the tiger or the shark? Other species before them have come and gone. Nor will these two be the last of the Mohicans. Will they also set up committees and hold international conferences for the protection of the flea and the louse? God, in His infinite wisdom, also made the housefly, but forgot to tell us why. By the way, why are they spending so much on the eradication of the mosquito? What will happen if the mosquito becomes extinct? What will happen if the shark and the tiger become extinct? Many people are nostalgic about things that have outlived their use. But is it really necessary to preserve what is not worth preserving? Let’s face it, my dear Billy; all that is old is not necessarily gold.” The old order changeth, yielding place to the new.” There should be no tears wasted. Change is a constant feature. Today is not yesterday. We ourselves change. How then can our works and thoughts, all things around us, continue always in the same? Certain changes indeed may be painful, yet ever needful