There used to a little toy in the pre-hi-tech age called a monkey on a ladder. The little plastic animal would climb two rungs then fall three rungs. It was very popular with children because children are innocent and hopeful and would keep at it, confident that one day the monkey would reach the top of the ladder. It never struck us that the manufacturer had an unbreakable system factored in ensuring that this would not happen. Finally fed up, the child would discard the toy in frustration.
Sometimes, one feels like that child when peace talks are placed in jeopardy by incursions and bouts of violence that detract from the importance of the mission at hand.
Sunday was a day of negatives. The seven Yemeni soldiers killed in a deliberate bomb blast as loyalists launched an attack on the Zinjibar province to weed out extremists intent on creating havoc with car bombs is a setback.
The Kuwait talks between pro-Hadi representatives and the Houthis struggled to move the agenda against his regrettable backdrop. All the coalition demands is an end to gratuitous violence and some upscaling of the security of the civilian population. It is a totally legitimate goal and enough blood has been spilled trying to reach it.
As if this wasn’t bad enough 14 civilians killed in Aleppo in rebel rocket fire again underscored that the Syrian impasse has not been resolved and there seems to be no road map to even a tentative peace.
This adds to toll of nearly 300,000 Syrians killed since 2011 and the displacement of three million people. That the rest of the world is still blithe about this throbbing scar on the planet is an indicator of how the human mind short circuits when confronted with incredible statistics.
As death seemed to hold sway, Baghdad was the scene of twin blasts that killed 14 civilians and wounded dozens with the Daesh taking the ‘credit’ for it. So much of this has become daily fare that it becomes a blur of a headline, to be glanced at globally and dismissed by a shrug.
In that lies the issue. Those nations who are sending their young men and women into battle and doing their best to stem the tide of violence need support and encouragement. One day their perseverance will break the mechanism and the toy will not fall back three steps but reach the pinnacle of peace.
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