By Heidi Trautmann

Every day when I open the doors for the young morning to enter, I look to the East where the sun is about to show its head above the rim of the surrounding hills, and I keep asking myself: ‘What lies ahead, what will happen today, who will bind a belt of dynamite around his waist, what young man, stupid, made stupid from top to toe, is to step out of his door and direct his feet toward the site where he is commanded to go and press the trigger to kill masses of people and himself. Is his heart empty or does he cry silently? Has he been forced because otherwise his family would be killed? Or does he believe in his mission he was given?

And this happens every morning at another place around the world with so very young people made slaves by….the mastermind, by someone whose aim is to kill because he has been taught to hate and kill, told by…..the mastermind and so on. But who is the very top of the triangle? An individual? A religious group? A country and its secret service? Speculations. And the Western countries group together and declare the invisible enemy to be ….???. and go and send deadly weapons and bomb villages and with it kill women and children, the most innocent of the innocent people.

I am still looking to the East, the Near East, the countries of the rising sun; there are so many questions unanswered, fact is, that whenever a dictator was forcibly removed, killed, the situation got worse. My thoughts travel southeast along the African coast, same scenario, and the African continent below…?... on the move across the Mediterranean because of wars and people dying of hunger.

My thoughts travel to the North of Cyprus, where the Meltemi comes from in summer, along its coasts we have travelled in our sailing boat for 30 years and where we have made so many friends. A most beautiful country with people who love life, enjoy laughter and helping each other, who would rather remove their shirt to give it to someone who is cold. What has happened to them? They are in deep trouble, with split visions, with a man at the top who wants to dictate every move the people make, who wants to make them dumb and silent and obeying. Terrorist attacks with a high death rate and we all ask ourselves, who is really behind it. Young people gathering for a peace event are torn to pieces; people going to the airport to go on holidays well-earned, workers who have come to see their family, tourists who had enjoyed Turkey for two weeks….their blood being spilled in the street.  A coup-d’état with civilian deaths…..and we all ask ourselves who is behind it. I have seen the knife cutting through the throat of a young soldier who knew nothing. Masses ordered out to kill each other.

And I look still further North, where newspaper people are killed, murdered in cold blood because they obey their conscience and open their mouth wide to shout or write what they think is the truth.

And we ask ourselves who is behind it all.

And I turn my head and look further West where in European countries terror attacks are carried out that take so many hundreds of innocent lives. In European countries they are not really used to such attacks and the outrage and fear is great, the last being in Munich….And we ask ourselves, regarding the two young boys of 17 years of age who committed the killing, who is behind all this?

And while all this is going on around us, the hate and racism is growing and mistrust reigns in the cities and its streets, also fired by politicians, media who see a chance to make their way into high positions.

I have so often asked around publicly….where are the religious leaders in whose holy books it says to love each other? Why don’t they lift their hands up and shout STOP? The politicians either send out military aid or find an excuse for diplomatic and economic reasons.

The ones that carry the whole misery of our world are innocent people, women and children.

The human society is on its way to destroy itself, you read every day that countries are upgrading their armies, political groups are marching and protesting against all immigrants and other nationalities, hate paroles drip from all service nets.

The voices speaking sense, the poets deploring the word situation, artists, musicians, their voices are hardly heard.

I think, to speak with the tongue of a dear old African friend, we have lost the connection to our soul, we are connected to machines, we have lost our roots, our individualism. We have lost contact to nature, we have forgotten what it feels like to be part of it.