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Contact Bruce About PWP Links Photo Credits:- Mirror to our Worst (creatifrankenstein, Pixabay) Evil Books (Maklay62, Pixabay) Tree slaughter 1 (Tonderai Matiyenga, via Twitter; fair use, educational) Tree slaughter 2 (Tonderai Matiyenga, via Twitter; fair use, educational) Tree slaughter 3 (Tonderai Matiyenga, via Twitter; fair use, educational) Tree slaughter 4 (Tonderai Matiyenga, via Twitter; fair use, educational) Imprisoned indigenous Australians (State Library of Victoria via Daily Mail; fair use, educational) Witches burned and tortured (Wikimedia Commons) WWI execution (Wikimedia Commons) WWII execution (Wikimedia Commons) Overloaded boat (Massimo Sestini/ Eyevine via BBC; fair use, educational) The Storming of the Teocalli... (Wikimedia Commons) Tom Torlino (Wikimedia Commons) Putumayo incident (Wikimedia Commons) Blinded for lithium (John Owens via The Guardian; fair use, educational) Idaho Massacre (Frank Leslie; fair use, educational) Wounded Knee Massacre (Wikimedia Commons) Whipped Slave (Wikimedia Commons) Deck of a Slave Ship (North Wind Picture Archives/Alamy via The Guardian; fair use, educational) Slave Ship Diagrams (Wikimedia Commons) Harpooned Whale (StopKilling Whales.com; fair use, educational) Pilot whales slaughter (Andrija Ilic/Sipa/Rex/ Shutterstock via The Guardian; fair use, educational) Indian famine (Wikimedia Commons) Russian famine (Wikimedia Commons) Congolese Man (Wikimedia Commons) Bergen-belsen mass grave (Wikimedia Commons) Lviv pogrom (Wikmedia Commons) Soviet POWs (Wikimedia Commons) Bergen-belsen body bulldozer (Wikimedia Commons) Capitalism's greatest success... (Climate Dad & Sophie Gabrielle; via Twitter, posted and accessed 29 December 2022; fair use, educational) Corporate freedom (Max Gustafson, posted 23 January 2022, accessed 19 January 2025; fair use, educational) Cultural Revolution mass execution (Li Zhensheng/ Contact Press Images; via Vox, YouTube, posted 14 February 2020, accessed 18 January 2025; fair use, educational) Tibetan self-immolations (Tibet Museum, Dharamshala, India; via Free Tibet, 2025, accessed 18 January 2025; fair use, educational) Carbonised boy (Yōsuke Yamahata via Wikimedia Commons; also at ICAN) School playground bones (Teiji Nihei, via ICAN; fair use, educational) Burnt school girl (Wikimedia Commons) Irradiated brother and sister (Shunkichi Kikuchi, via ICAN; fair use, educational; also at Wikimedia Commons) Man with birth defects from a nuclear bomb test (Phil Hatcher-Moore, via National Geographic; fair use, educational) USA Waterboarding (Wikimedia Commons) China Torture (via BBC; fair use, educational) Baby seals killed for fur (IFAW; fair use, educational) Industrial meat (PETA; fair use, educational) Monkey brain research (Cruelty Free International; fair use, educational) Bullfighting (Irish Council Against Blood Sports; fair use, educational Synchronised, the racing horse (Scott Heppell/AP via The Guardian; fair use, educational) Discarded greyhounds (RSPCA; fair use, educational) Fox hunting (League Against Cruel Sports; fair use, educational) Reshma Qureshi (Public domain via SBS Gujarati; fair use, educational) Stoning protest (Thierry Roge/ Reuters, via The Guardian; fair use, educational) Survivors of sexual violence (City of Joy; fair use, educational) Dead Daughter (Samar Abu Elouf for the New York Times via CNN; fair use, educational) Wounded Women (Belal Khaled/AFP via Al Jazeera; fair use, educational) Neighbourhood Obliteration (Ali Jadallah via The Guardian; fair use, educational) Gaza Obliteration (Unknown source via Bluesky; fair use, educational) Wall of Fire (Unknown source via X; fair use, educational) Blank Canvas (BRRT, Pixabay) Eerie Skull (JCK5D, Pixabay) World of Buddhas? (suketdedhia, Pixabay) |
![]() Catalogue of Evil 2
After Part 1, we could write plenty more catalogues of human evil. Instead, Part 2 is intended as a shocking visual museum of horrible history. The exhibits may not be the most shocking but they are still deeply visceral and gruesome. Warning - please do not continue if you might be offended or deeply traumatised. Please do continue if you champion virtues like unity, truth, love and peace. The horrible history on show is collective, not individual, e.g. countries and groups rather than psychopaths and serial killers. The orders for the atrocities may have come from an elite or an individual but masses were involved or complicit - whether through apathy, indifference, ignorance, fear, or lack of choice. In other words, it is something we all may fall into. A mirror to our worst. Part 2 urges us to bear witness to humanitys atrocities. Part 2 asks that we rebel morally against the worst in us, in humanity. Part 2 wants us to wake up. Realise that free speech, wealth, romance and power are insufficient. You have to want all creatures to be saved - and work to manifest it! Part 2 pleads that we stop history from repeating itself. Part 2 prescribes a Culture of Love, a Solar Culture. The museum is a work in progress... Galleries
Trees Humans have killed over three trillion trees. We have taken way more than we need. "The
forest is a peculiar organism of unlimited kindness and benevolence
that makes no demands for its sustenance and extends generously the
products of its life and activity; it affords protection to all
beings." (Buddha)
But we have repaid their kindness with brutal greed. We have perpetrated a colossal carnage. Forests are special. You can't simply replace them. It takes so much time and respect. "You can plant trees, but you cannot plant forests. Forests are not renewable." (Greta Thunberg)
Trees cry. They feel pain. Julia Butterfly Hill, who spent two years on top of a redwood tree protesting their destruction, observed that sap in the tree began to run when logging began nearby. “We
have to stop the rape of our forests and stop putting the almighty
dollar above the environment.” (Julia Butterfly Hill)
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Witch HuntsGalleries Genocide of Indigenous People This gallery is about how indigenous people have been treated and continue to be treated hatefully and genocidally. The genocide is both physical and cultural. This is despite many of them being peaceful, living in harmony with Nature and respecting Great Spirit. 'Civilised' man labels them as savages. Then 'civilised' man destroys them. How civilised is that? Perhaps the 'civilised' are the savages? Also see: Mass Destruction of Native Americans; Genocide of Native North American Indians; Denial of genocides of Indigenous peoples (Wikipedia); Survival International [over 50 years fighting for the survival of Tribal Peoples]. ![]() Imprisoned indigenous Australians. They are mostly cattle 'thieves', forcibly displaced from their traditional hunting grounds by white settlers, then imprisoned for spearing starving animals. Indigenous people were massacred and treated terribly by white settlers in Australia's first 150 years (1788-1938). British colonisers first arrived on 26 January 1788 and 26 January is when Australia celebrates Australia Day. But this day is called 'Invasion Day' by first Australians. (State Library of Victoria via Daily Mail; fair use, educational) Witches have been persecuted throughout history. Over about 500 years, from 1257-1816, the Inquisition of the Catholic Church killed up to nine million humans, 80% being women. A 14th century woodcut of
witches burning and others held in stocks (Wikimedia
Commons)
War "War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes." (Major General Smedley D. Butler, summary to his book War Is a Racket, cited at Wikipedia, accessed 5 September 2021) ![]() World War I execution - Austro-Hungarian troops executing captured Serbians, Serbia, 1917. Serbia lost about 850,000 people during the war, a quarter of its pre-war population. (Wikimedia Commons) ![]() World War II execution - Polish civilians wearing blindfolds photographed just before being massacred by German soldiers in Palmiry forest, Poland, 1940 (Wikimedia Commons) Migrants 'Migrants' are here being used to include: nomads, migrants, immigrants, asylum seekers, refugees, and the internally displaced. Read more here, here. "Ninety-eight
per cent of our time on Earth as anatomically modern humans has been
spent as nomads. Living your whole life in the village, town or city of
your birth is a relatively recent, anomalous development." (Felix
Marquardt, The New Nomads: How the Migration Movement is Making the World a Better Place, 2021; also see here)
Yet, migrants are typically treated as inhuman: scapegoated, exploited, smuggled, abused, sexually assaulted, attacked, brutalised. Where is Love? ![]() Overloaded boat, taken from an Italian navy helicopter in 2014 between Libya and Italy. This is 500 people who have spent five days and nights on a boat. It shows the dangers of the migrants' journey. (Massimo Sestini/Eyevine via BBC; fair use, educational) Mass Destruction of Native Americans From about 1418 to 1620, European colonisers destroyed so much in their conquest of the 'New World' of North and South America. The ongoing colonialism to the 1890s annihilated 100 million indigenous people. Wherever the colonisers went, 95% of any indigenous population was extinguished. ![]() The Storming of the Teocalli by Cortez and His Troops is an 1848 painting by the German American history painter, Emanuel Leutze. This teocalli - a Mesoamerican pyramid surrounded by a temple - used to exist in what is now Mexico City. Hernán Cortés was a Spanish conquistador who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and subjugated much of what is now mainland Mexico. (Wikimedia Commons) This included the genocide of North American Indians. Then there is cultural genocide. For example, the Canadian Indian residential school system removed indigenous children from their own culture and assimilated them into the dominant Canadian culture in boarding schools. Over 150 years (1831-1996), about 30% (150,000) of indigenous children were taken. At least 6,000 died while residents. These "civilizing" schools also existed in the United States. ![]() Tom Torlino entered a residential boarding school in the USA on October 21, 1882 at the age of 22 and departed on August 28, 1886. (Wikimedia Commons) All this has been called the 'American Holocaust'. Total indigenous deaths pre-1948 are over 130 million. It continues to the present day as the land and people are brutally exploited. Notable examples: the constant search for gold (here, here); the rubber boom (1879-1945); cattle ranching (here, here); the current 'green' transition (here, here). ![]() The Putumayo genocide was the severe exploitation and subsequent ethnocide of the indigenous population in the Putumayo region (Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil) from 1879-1930. This was part of the rubber boom. When published, this photo was titled "An incident of the Putumayo". (Wikimedia Commons) ![]() Blinded to enable our 'advanced' technological society. Lithium is the “white gold” crucial for electric car batteries, laptops and mobile phones. In a peaceful protest against lithium and for water and life, Ernesto Jorge Aguirre was blinded in one eye after police fired on protesters with teargas. This was in San Salvador de Jujuy, a city in Argentina, on 20 June 2023. (John Owens via The Guardian; fair use, educational) Genocide of Native North American Indians This was from 1492 to 1900. It was due to European settlers. Atrocities were committed by both sides, but the bulk of the horror was from the settlers, and their governments which encouraged the oppression and annihilation of the native populations. The American Government has broken every one of the 350+ treaties signed with the American Indians. George Washington, the beloved Father of America, was a hater and destroyer of American Indians - 'recalcitant savages' had to be 'extirpated'. Basically, if they refused to cooperate with the invaders, they were exterminated. Disease-related death was secondary to the brutal treatment of the natives. Over four million were killed - or perhaps as much as 50 million. 98% of ancestral homelands were lost. ![]() Mass grave for the Lakota dead after the Wounded Knee Massacre, South Dakota, January 1891. Some corpses are frozen in different positions. (Wikimedia Commons) Slavery Slavery has existed for much of human history. Despite being banned globally, it still exists as modern slavery. Perhaps its most infamous example is the Atlantic slave trade, from the 15th to the 19th centuries, mainly enslaved Africans by European slave traders. Scars of Peter/Gordon,
a whipped enslaved man from Mississippi, USA, 1863.
Two months in bed sore from the whipping. (Wikimedia Commons) An 1860 woodcut
showing the deck of a slave ship
(North Wind Picture Archives/Alamy via The Guardian; fair use, educational) A plan of the
British slave
ship Brookes,
showing how 454 slaves were accommodated on board after the Slave
Trade Act 1788. Previously, this same ship had reportedly
carried as many as 609 slaves.
Used in the triangular slave trade. (Wikimedia Commons) Industrial Whaling Whaling is a method of hunting whales for their meat, oil and blubber. The hunting of whales on an industrial scale began in the 17th century and into the 20th century, and as a result of the quantities caught many whales became endangered species. The International Whaling Commission (IWC) banned commercial whaling in 1986 to increase the remaining whale population in the seas. Whales are killed at sea often using explosive harpoons, which puncture the skin of a whale and then explode inside its body. Anti-whaling groups say this method of hunting is cruel, particularly if carried out by inexperienced gunners, because a whale can take several minutes or even hours to die. (Adapted from Wikipedia, accessed 9 January 2025) AI (accessed 9 January 2025) tells me that many whale species were nearly hunted to extinction. The whaling industry was particularly intense in the 1960s, and many whale species were pushed to the brink of extinction. The 1988 book Whale Nation by Heathcote Williams was the thing that first woke me up to the atrocity. It was incredibly powerful emotionally. Listen to a short clip here. ![]() Pilot whales being herded and slaughtered, Faroe Islands (Andrija Ilic/Sipa/Rex/Shutterstock via The Guardian; fair use, educational) Famine Famine is a widespread scarcity of food. Yet we have and had enough food to feed the world. It was never the weather. Always the power and the greed. Examples: by century; by continent; by country. Basically any famine is and was due to political failure, compassion failure. ![]() Victims of the Great Famine of 1876–78 in India. (Wikimedia Commons) Read more here, here, here. The British Empire and Churchill caused millions of starvation deaths in India. ![]() Three children who are dead from starvation, Russia 1921. (Wikimedia Commons) Read more here. Stalin was involved in millions of starvation deaths in the Soviet Union. Atrocities in the Congo Free State 1885-1908 A missionary
holding the arm of a Congolese man. The Congolese man is likely to have
been a victim of the "Congo
atrocities":
punishment, murders and mutilations (particularly amputation of the
right hand on living victims or after death) that took place on
colonial rubber plantations in the Congo Free State, territory owned by
Belgian King Leopold II, who exploited it for plant and mineral
resources. (Wikimedia
Commons)
Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe, around two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population. The murders were carried out in pogroms and mass shootings; by a policy of extermination through work in concentration camps; and in gas chambers and gas vans in German extermination camps, chiefly... in occupied Poland. Separate Nazi persecutions killed a similar or larger number of non-Jewish civilians and prisoners of war (POWs). The term Holocaust is sometimes used to encompass also the persecution of these other groups. (Adapted from Wikipedia, accessed 6 March 2021 and 8 January 2025) The Liberation of Bergen-belsen
Concentration Camp, April 1945. Dr
Fritz Klein, the Nazi camp doctor, stands in their midst. He
was convicted of two counts of war crimes and executed in
December
1945.
(Wikimedia Commons) ![]() Photograph of the Lviv pogrom on/around 1 July 1941 in Lviv, German-occupied Poland (now Ukraine). The Germans encouraged attacks on the Jewish community in two pogroms, 30 June – 2 July 1941 and 25 – 29 July 1941, during which around 6,000 Polish Jews were killed by Ukrainian nationalists and local people. (Wikmedia Commons) ![]() Soviet POWs standing before a barracks in Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Austria. In addition to six million jews, millions of of non-Jewish civilians and POWs were also killed by the Nazis. (Wikimedia Commons) ![]() A British Army bulldozer pushes bodies into a mass grave at the 1945 liberation of Bergen-belsen (Wikimedia Commons) Capitalism Capitalism does not work. Not for humanity. Not for Nature. Read why at PWP's dedicated page. ![]() Capitalism's greatest success... (Climate Dad [quote] & Sophie Gabrielle [graphics]; via Twitter, posted and accessed 29 December 2022; fair use, educational) ![]() Corporate freedom (Max Gustafson, posted 23 January 2022, accessed 19 January 2025; fair use, educational) Communism Capitalism does not work. Communism neither. Selected communist atrocities: mass killings; Holodomr (3.3 to 5 million dead); Cultural Revolution & Maoism (40 to 80 million dead; by starvation, persecution, prison labour, mass executions; also see here); Cambodian genocide (1.5 to 2 million dead); China's family planning policy including forced sterilisation; Tibet (ongoing); 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre; Uyghurs (ongoing); North Korea (ongoing); Ukraine invasion (ongoing). ![]() This seems to be a Cultural Revolution mass execution in China ~1966 (Li Zhensheng/Contact Press Images; via Vox, YouTube, posted 14 February 2020, accessed 18 January 2025; fair use, educational) ![]() Some of the 150+ Tibetans who have self-immolated in protest against the Chinese occupation of Tibet (Tibet Museum, Dharamshala, India; via Free Tibet, 2025, accessed 18 January 2025; fair use, educational) Nuclear Weapons A nuclear weapon is a highly destructive explosive device. A nuclear device no larger than a conventional bomb can devastate an entire city by blast, fire, and radiation. They were first tested on 16 July 1945. They have only been used in war twice, by the USA, on 6 and 9 August 1945. The Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki suffered 150,000 to 246,000 deaths by the end of 1945, almost all being civilians. They have since been tested thousands of times. They are a major reason that the Doomsday Clock exists. The consequences of a nuclear war include: millions of deaths; nuclear fallout; nuclear famine; nuclear winter; societal collapse. ![]() A carbonised/incinerated boy in Nagasaki, believed to be 13-year-old Shoji Tanizaki. Many of the corpses close to ground zero could not be identified. (Yōsuke Yamahata via Wikimedia Commons; also at ICAN) ![]() Children’s bones at a school playground in Nagasaki, September 1945 (Teiji Nihei, via ICAN; fair use, educational) ![]() A school girl has suffered burns to face from the WW2 nuclear explosion. Photo taken at Hiroshima Red Cross Hospital, 9 August 1945. (Wikimedia Commons) ![]() Siblings Toru (left) and Aiko (right) at the Hiroshima Red Cross Hospital in October 1945. At the time of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Toru was seven years old and his sister, Aiko, was nine. They were indoors, around one kilometre from the hypocentre. Within four or five days of the attack, they began losing their hair because of exposure to the bomb’s radiation. They suffered various other symptoms of radiation illness, including fever, loss of appetite and bleeding gums. While both recovered from the acute stage of the illness, they ultimately succumbed to the delayed effects. Toru died four years later at age 11 and Aiko 20 years later at age 29. (Shunkichi Kikuchi, via ICAN; fair use, educational; also at Wikimedia Commons) ![]() Berik Syzdykov, 38, was born with birth defects after his pregnant mother was exposed to radiation from a nuclear test blast conducted by the Soviet Union in Kazakhstan. He is blind, and has had several operations to reduce the swelling in his face. (Phil Hatcher-Moore, via National Geographic; fair use, educational) Torture Torture has existed throughout human history. Here are some modern examples by superpowers. A North
Vietnamese POW being waterboarded by two U.S soldiers and one South
Vietnamese soldier.
Waterboarding simulates drowning. It can cause extreme pain, damage to lungs, brain damage from oxygen deprivation, physical injuries due to struggling against restraints, and lasting psychological damage. This Vietnam War image was taken on 17 January 1968 and published on 21 January 1968. (Wikimedia Commons) An
artist's impression of "tiger bench" torture whilst in police detention, by authorities in 21st century China. The legs are tightly bound.
Bricks are gradually added under the feet, forcing the legs
backwards.
(via BBC; fair use, educational) Animal Cruelty Also see: Industrial Whaling; Industrial Meat Production; Animal Experimentation; Animal Sports; Climate & Ecological Emergency. ![]() Carcasses of Baby Seals killed for fur (IFAW; fair use, educational) Baby seals with beautiful white fur coats were or are slaughtered in Canada, Greenland, Namibia, Norway and Russia. During Canada’s annual commercial seal slaughter, as many as 400,000 seals were/are shot or bludgeoned. Even Putin’s Russia has banned it. (Sources: Harpseals.org; HSI; National Geographic; PETA) Industrial Meat Production ![]() Whether it's halal or kosher or humane, industrial meat is always cruel (PETA; fair use, educational) Animal Experimentation ![]() Brain research on monkeys at The Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany, 2013/2014 (Cruelty Free International; fair use, educational; also see their video and this) Animal Sports ![]() Bullfighting (Irish Council Against Blood Sports; fair use, educational) ![]() Synchronised, a racing horse, #1 in the centre, is about to fall at the 2012 Grand National horse race. The horse survived the fall and continued riderless until fracturing a leg and having to be euthanised. (Scott Heppell/AP via The Guardian; fair use, educational; also see here) Animal Aid estimates that 1 in 35 racehorses that start a season are dead prematurely by its end. Racehorses lose their lives in several ways: some collapse and die while racing; a fall with a broken neck is frequent and an almost-instant death; most suffer fatal spine or serious limb injuries that cannot be fixed. ![]() Mass grave of greyhounds bred for racing, but then discarded (RSPCA; fair use, educational) Many puppies bred for greyhound racing are killed in selective breeding and never even reach the racetrack. Those who do qualify to be raced are typically kept muzzled in cages – where they’ll spend 95% of their lives – after just a few minutes on the track. Some are trained in secret training sessions using live bait (e.g. piglets, possums, rabbits). The bait is fixed to mechanical lures and catapulted around tracks while chased, and eventually killed, by the dogs. Drugs and heavy meals are used to speed up or slow down dogs, so as to fix races. The doping carries high risks for the dogs, including seizures, stroke, and death. Countless greyhounds are killed each year when breeders deem them too slow to win races. Dogs have been shot, bludgeoned or simply dumped to fend for themselves. Others face even worse fates. Greyhounds don’t fare well on the track, either. Broken legs are common, but other reported injuries include: head trauma, bone fractures, electrocution from the electrified fence surrounding the track. And, despite being extremely sensitive to temperature because of their lack of body fat and thin coats, they are forced to race in extreme temperatures — from freezing cold to sweltering heat. Once their racing days - only a few years - are over, many are abandoned or killed. Even if “saved” by adoption, there are too many to manage. Some end up being exploited in mass blood banks. Others are kept on allotments in horrific conditions, with little to no proper shelter, bedding, stimulation, or vet treatment. (Sources: ABC, BBC, Caged Nationwide, PETA, PETA, RSPCA, The Conversation, The Guardian) Domestic Violence Domestic violence is violence or other abuse that occurs in a domestic setting. This includes: marriage, cohabitation, exes, adults, parents, elderly, children. The violence can be: physical, verbal, emotional, economic, religious, reproductive, financial, sexual. It can range from subtle, coercive forms to marital rape and other violent physical abuse, such as choking, beating, female genital mutilation, and acid throwing that may result in disfigurement or death. It includes the use of technology to harass, control, monitor, stalk or hack. Domestic murder includes stoning, bride burning, honour killing, and dowry death, which sometimes involves non-cohabitating family members. Although this article focuses on collective evils, domestic violence is still relevant, as cultural evils like gender inequality, misogyny and patriarchy are key to why individuals perpetrate domestic violence. ![]() Reshma Qureshi, a survivor of a domestic violence acid attack (before and after the attack) (Public domain via SBS Gujarati; fair use, educational) ![]() An Iranian woman at a protest in Brussels highlights the barbarity of death by stoning. Women are accused of adultery, then buried up to their necks in front of a crowd of volunteers and killed in a hail of rocks. (Thierry Roge/Reuters, via The Guardian; fair use, educational) Sexual Violence 'Sexual violence is any harmful or unwanted sexual act — or attempt to obtain a sexual act through violence or coercion — or an act directed against a person's sexuality without their consent, by any individual regardless of their relationship to the victim. This includes forced engagement in sexual acts, attempted or completed, and may be physical, psychological, or verbal. It occurs in times of peace and armed conflict situations, is widespread, and is considered to be one of the most traumatic, pervasive, and most common human rights violations.' (Wikipedia adaptation, accessed 23 January 2025) As with domestic violence, sexual violence is often driven by disturbing collective norms like gender inequality, misogyny and patriarchy. ![]() Survivors of sexual violence at the City of Joy. Centre is Christine Schuler Deschryver, its director. (16th Graduation, City of Joy; fair use, educational) The City of Joy is a transformational leadership community for women survivors of violence, located in Bukavu, Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Serving 90 survivors of gender violence aged 18 to 30 at a time, City of Joy has graduated thousands of women leaders since it opened in 2011. These women have survived gang rape, vaginas and rectums destroyed by sticks, machetes and guns. "When women first come they cannot see you, they can’t talk to you, they are ashamed, they are fearful, but after six months at City of Joy they can stand, talk without fear, without shame, and they have confidence in themselves." (Francine Bintu) Israel/Palestine Photojournalist
Mohammed Alaloul carries the body of one of his children who was killed
at the Al-Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza in November 2023
(Samar Abu Elouf for the New York Times via CNN; fair use, educational) An
injured Palestinian woman, covered in dust and blood, hugs an injured
girl at the hospital following the Israeli bombardment of Khan Younis
in the southern Gaza Strip on 15 November 2023
(Belal Khaled/AFP via Al Jazeera; fair use, educational) A
man sits among the debris as Palestinians conduct a search and rescue
operation after a second bombardment in 24 hours at Jabalia refugee
camp in Gaza City, on 1 November 2023
(Ali Jadallah via The Guardian; fair use, educational) The photographer described this last photo: "In this war, we have
witnessed an unprecedented level of devastation – the
complete
obliteration of entire neighbourhoods. This man sat in disbelief,
barely able to hold himself upright as he confronted the reality that
his home no longer existed. The wreckage blurred the lines between his
house and those of his neighbours, leaving him lost and disoriented. No
traces remained of the life he once knew; the memories that once filled
those walls were now mere echoes in the rubble. I felt helpless, as I
had no words to offer in response to his sobs. I captured the moment in
a photo, hugged him, and then left, but the feeling never left my mind."
![]() Gaza Obliteration = Genocide by Israel (Unknown source via Bluesky; fair use, educational) A UN analysis of 43,300 deaths in Gaza in Palestine in 2023/2024 found 44% or ~19,000 were children - and 80% of these children were killed in their own homes. The most-represented ages of the dead children was age five to nine. Women deaths were 26% or ~11,000. Do you think all this is right? Climate & Ecological Emergency The apocalyptic possibilities of the Climate & Ecological Emergency (CEE) have been known from at least 1954. The US president was warned in 1965 and 1977. Meanwhile, environmental defenders continue to receive harsh prison sentences (here, here, here) or are killed (here, here). They should be hailed as heroes. And the politicians, fossil fuel executives and oligarchs remain free - and gleefully monetise the suffering and chaos. They are perpetrators of evil. Billions will die. Humanity may even go extinct this century. ![]() Wall of Fire and Smoke dwarves Trees, Alberta, Canada, May 2023 (Unknown source, via severe weather journalist Kyle Brittain, X, 17 May 2023 tweet; fair use, educational) Forthcoming Exhibits ![]() What does our
future hold?
![]() More of the same?
WW3? Or... A world of
Buddhas?
Even if humans go extinct. |
Also see:- The Human Catalogue of Evil On Evil If God exists, why does God allow pain, suffering, evil? Suffering articles |
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