Yesterday, I heard again the story of what happened in a small village just prior to the tsunami that literally swallowed everything. The story goes that this was a fishing village, and had been for many generations. Their wisdom, folklore and knowledge had been handed down from father to son for hundreds of years. One day, an old fisherman went out to his boat and saw that the ocean had receded a great deal. Immediately he raised a cry in the village that everyone must go directly to higher ground.
The man's own grandchildren mocked him and did not believe him. Some thought he was just an old fool. Still, with much persuasion in the little time they had, they were able to get everyone off the shore and out of the village before the “wave that eats people” came and swept everything away. Of all the islands and peoples who witnessed that tsunami, only that one little village was able to save all of it's people.
A few months ago, I was reading a history book. This book was describing political, social, economic and religious conditions just prior to a major event. The description caught my attention for several reasons. First, it was almost as though I were reading today's newspaper; the events so closely resembled today's. Second, there were many key elements that seemed to be taken word for word out of today's vocabulary of major events. Third, I seemed to see the writing on the wall when I compared those events to those I see today and took them to their natural conclusions.
Shortly after reading that history book and being a little shaken by the possible conclusions, I was surprised to come across someone who had done something similar to what I had just done. She had not only analyzed the history of that one event, but had taken many such events and had done extensive research on each one and made direct comparisons across the board. Her conclusions were exactly the ones that I had come to, only she had gathered more facts to back them up.
If I had lived in a tiny fishing village just prior to the tsunami, I would like to think that it wouldn't take a baseball bat over the head to persuade me that the old man was telling the truth, or at least I hope I would have the good sense to see that I had nothing to lose by believing him and it might end up saving my life. Before the tsunami hit, the villagers had only a few minutes to bring everyone to safety. In the history book I was reading, the people had a few years of warnings. If they had been reading their own history, they too might have seen some of the parallels and perhaps could have prevented, or at least prepared for such an eventuality. I have read many accounts of people during that time who, though warned many times, and in different ways, were more inclined not to believe the warnings, but would rather believe the propaganda, and were thus caught unawares and unprepared, costing some of them their lives. It pays to know the difference.
I am not an old fisherman and I do not have a PHD in history, but what I have read and seen in my life has taught me that when an old man says to DO something NOW, you'd better do it, and when a historian says we are going to repeat history, you'd better plan on it.
No one had to tell me today that the 'water' is receding so to speak. No one had to tell me that there are a lot of things 'fishy' right now in my world. I have never SEEN this happen before in my life, but I know people who have, and they all say the same thing: This has happened before, only on a smaller scale and history is repeating itself.
The trouble is, no one wants to 'get to higher ground' while the sun is still shining and there's money to be made. Nope, even if they were sure it was coming, there are those who will wait until the water is splashing down on top of them from a 40 ft. wave before they will try to do something, and then wonder why someone didn't do it FOR them.
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