Rewriting Bob Dylan’s Blowin’ in the Wind: Unlearnt lessons from history

With the higher evolved species – like elephants and chimps – which have long memories, this could perhaps be questioned. But an elephant matriarch will not set out on a campaign to entirely wipe out a rival herd, babies and all. Besides, animals kill in order to eat and survive. They claim territories in which to hunt and find partners, in order to propagate their species, which is the main purpose of their lives. And hunger can be a mighty powerful driving force.

I suddenly realised this for myself when recently, on discharge from hospital, I reached home ravenous and found myself wolfing down a banana faster than any monkey could; my eyes already fixed on the second. Suddenly I could relate to all those pictures of 10-year olds desperately holding out empty containers. But this was man-made deliberate starvation, not the effect of climate change. You see the same sort of pictures coming out of Africa (where war due to climate change is a factor), of hollow-eyed mothers holding up skeletal babies. As also, of those terrible shots of painted wolves devouring their victims alive.

Feeding frenzies indulged in by animals may seem gross but are not about cruelty – they are about assuaging hunger as quickly as possible. And here too, behind their hunger lurks climate change and global warming – and war because of them. Nearly every wildlife documentary on Africa begins with shots of dusty landscapes and the gloomy voice over… ‘it is the dry season and there has been no rain for the last nine months…’

As for extreme weather events, with eerie prescience, Dylan, in his iconic ‘A Hard Rain’s A Gonna Fall’ warns of ‘the sound of a thunder it roared out a warnin’/ Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world…’ The song is about the cold war between the then Soviet Union and U S, but is equally relevant for climate change today.

Before the tipping point terror attack in the Middle-East and Russia bulldozing into Ukraine, we had started turning our attention somewhat to that problem confronting us: global warming and climate change. These would regularly make the headlines in the press and on TV and more and

more people became aware of the issue and action had even started being taken to mitigate it. But then, the two wars exploded and an ‘idiot wind’ blew through the White House, and swept away whatever progress had been made. Now we are told, fossil fuels are good, we need more and more

oil and coal (except from Russia) and that global warming and climate change was just the result of the overheated imagination of morons, despite the hard scientific evidence to the contrary.

Now, of course, these issues have been swept completely under the carpet, as we look on in horror as ‘gentlemen’ in suits order the butchery of babies.

Also, as attention is diverted, controversial projects (like in the Nicobar Islands) are getting the green signal to go ahead ASAP, without much objection – how can one object in the face of those other horrors we are indulging in and that demand the attention of our conscience?

With this in mind, and apologies to Dylan, I took the liberty to update ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ to keep up with the times:

How many scams must a man fall in?
Before you call him a man?
Yes, and how many seas must a refugee swim?
Before he’s shot on the sand?
Yes, and how many times must the cruise missiles fly?
Before they are forever banned?
The answer my friend
Is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind…
How many years can a mountain exist?
Before it is drowned by the sea?
Yes and how many years will our forests exist?
Before we cut all the trees?
Yes, and how many times must a child turn her head
And pretend that she just doesn’t weep?
The answer my friend….
Yes, and how many times, must a man look up
Before he can see blue sky?
How many ears must one General have?
Before he can hear babies die?
Yes, and how many deaths will it take till we know
That all of our leaders have lied?
The answer my friend, is blowin’ in the wind…
The answer is still blowin’ in the wind…