Nothing will ever change here, not until the overall situation changes. And that won’t happen until something else changes. And that something else is the reason why the problem is there in the first place.

The principals arraigned in this matter have, over the course of seven decades, taken up and manoeuvred themselves into positions that are diametrically opposed to one another. The idea that any permanent settlement of their quarrel can ever be obtained has faded long ago, its dream incapable of realisation and doomed to failure time after time.

Twin cocoons of mutual resentment and mistrust has been woven by both sides around themselves and each other. The impenetrable nature of these barriers is now such that neither party can really see a way out, no exit that does not bring with it its full share of trepidation and fears for a most uncertain future.

So, what to do? Where do we go from here? A cocoon can so easily become a prison if no break-out strategy is in place. Even in death, no measure of release may be forthcoming, not unless some provision for it has been made well beforehand.

Only one possibility remains. But this would demand a complete reversal of the polarising influences that sustain and keep the conflict in being.

www.laxiankey.com – ‘ for those of us with better things to do.’

Even if the dream has become a nightmare, the alarm clock can usually snap you out of it. That is, if you have an alarm clock.

And you’ve remembered to set it.