O World Thou are Sick Part Two

Duty of Care

I woke up this morning to partake of my daily bread of horror . Must I and all those who are watching the tragedy of Gaza unfold ,ever revealing unprecedented levels of intolerable suffering and unrelenting cruelty, must we drink the cup of poison to the full? Is there no end to the rivers of lava shattering the skies and desecrating the earth, ever hungry for more fragile life to devour? Can't they put us out of our misery and stop it?

O world thou art sick. I see that we have two options only. Either we believe that we are living in the twilight of human ethical heritage, that is the universal human ethical body of reference to which, since the dawn of humanity religious thinkers, prophets, philosophers, intellectuals, teachers, visionaries, writers, poets, artists, and law givers have contributed , facing death, persecution and banishment in order to uphold; either we believe this and continue to cry out loud and clear:that the universal human ethics are what we have lived and survived by so far and will continue to live by, or surrender to the gathering ethical twilight in order to hail the dawning of the terrible ethical age of politics and the morality of super powers. Humanity is in danger of having to live by the shifting, changeable pragmatic morality of power with all its savagery, disregard to all but its self-righteousness and self gratification. This era which is governed by state ethics and the brilliant all persuasive ethical polemics of power , the state ethics of Israel and the USA for instance ,which legitimize and uphold a unique hallowed code of conduct and morals, blind and deaf to all but their lofty holy notions of pragmatic ascendancy and world domination. How many millions of people are going to be sacrificed to this terrible god of national interest, national security and self-defense which parade unabated claiming new glories, continuously citing terrorism and calling terrorists whoever says no, whoever differs in opinion. This process of disinheriting mankind and severing them from the sources of light and enlightenment has been going on for a long time but the force of its adamant progress at present has been unprecedented. In the words of the Irish poet William Butler Yeats;

Things fall apart; The centre cannot hold,

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere,

The Massacre of Innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Is full of passionate intensity.....

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

On a personal level, as an artist, I am sick to death and on a universal level I feel the sickness of the world too. On one level the world is sick because in the age of state ethics people are but pawns and vulnerable exposed pieces in the grand design of power, whether economic or humanitarian. The world is sick because it can no longer distinguish between right and wrong, black and white, dignity and humiliation, and the capacity to feel shame.Our world has no leaders . Such is the bankruptcy of our world that its political leaders are at best a product of their local necessities and dictates, unable to see beyond the confines of their geography and history, and at are worst advocates of annihilation and death. Where are the men and women of vision, where are the enlightened orators, philosophers, intellectuals and teachers who are going to and can stand up to the onslaught of the ethics of domination and the morality of the mass media of power which can preach the righteousness and justification of almost any crime committed against humanity and almost any genocide except those which fit into the framework of their exclusiveness, hegemony and world dominance..

Going back to the saga of exile, exiles, and the dispersion of the Palestinian nation, I believe we all should bend our heads in shame, countries and people for our complicity in allowing it to happen.. Should the whole world ask forgiveness of the Palestinians, this might soften but it will not wipe out a heinous crime committed against a peaceful nation so that the conscience of the West might be appeased for the crime the Nazis committed against the Jewish people. That is why it has become a taboo in the West to put any blame on the state they have created in Israel on the ruins of Palestine and the political genocide of its people. Only they have forgotten that what was created by injustice can only live by injustice and a crime committed to atone for a crime will perpetuate itself for all eternity until the taboos of silence are broken and the shameful premise upon which the Zionist state is built is purged of apartheid inhumanity to its victims and the disgraceful shameful enforcement upon the world awareness and conscience that Israel is always the victim, the everlasting victim and would be victim of the people it savagely uprooted and relentlessly pursued for the last 60 years, committing against them the most heinous crimes, displacing and dispossessing them again and again. If the West and the US say that Israel is a great democratic country fighting a bunch of terrorists for its very survival. This does not make it so. It is a lie. And this lie has been perpetuated for more than 60 years and paraded in the guise of truth until those who created the lie started themselves to regard it as the truth and nothing but the truth. The Palestinians are the victims not Israel. Israel's history of ruthlessness, savagery and terrible awful crimes against the humanity of the Palestinians is not only murky but unbelievably determined, cold-blooded, consistent and relentless. The state of Israel exists in the vacuum of moral lawlessness, in the inferno of ethical limbo no matter how it is glorified and hailed as a gusty democratic member of the civilized world and indeed the United Nations.

But the world is waking up. In many countries, Gaza has become a symbol of the peoples own struggle for justice ,for freedom; their own quest for integrity and dignity, their prayers to raise their beloved children in peace. Gaza has become a symbol for their own struggle to be heard and counted and for their struggle to make the political adventurers accountable. Gaza has become engraved in our minds and spirits as part of the human search for emancipation in all its dimensions and forms. The pictures of the children of Gaza, dead, mutilated and terrorized, the peoples of the world are raising high and parading under because no human being would and should accept the terrible anguished death of children screaming for their mothers and tearing the heart of heavens. The masses of the world have taken the dead and dying children of Gaza into their hearts and are lovingly marching for them in order to accompany them on their journey towards, let us hope, eternal rest. Sleep in peace little children and forgive us for having proven lacking. We beg you to carry with you the images of the love of the peoples of the world instead of the horrors of the massacre of innocents. May the global lullaby we have witnessed appease your mutilated little souls.

God forbid that the Palestinians should become executioners of the children of Israel, God forbid that the soldiers of Hamas or any other resistance fighters should break into the homes of the frightened peasants, render them epileptic with fright, shoot their young babies at point blank , strip the fathers, order them to flee and shoot them in the process. God forbid that they should butcher the parents and leave the very small children beside the corpses of their relatives in order to die of thirst and hunger. God forbid that this should ever happen again. May the suffering of the people of Gaza ennoble them instead of dehumanizing them.The world, instead of condoning the crimes of Israel should try to save Israel from itself. The taboos of guilt which give immunity to Israel enabling it to murder, sack cities, pillage, smash and destroy from behind veils of moral blindness and ethical distortions should be lifted. No country in the world should be given moral immunity.. Is poor civilized Israel defending its citizen or embarking yet once more on a feat of genocide and blood baths. There are so many of them, They regularly punctuate the progress of Israel towards greatness. How dare you call this self defense?

Are we going to continue calling black white, crime virtue, naked savagery humane, excessive violence necessity,.destruction, annihilation of villages, and homes.self defense and all those who attempt to defend their land and children terrorists? What perversion is this, what utter suspension of sanity, logic and feelings. What utter eradication of mercy, compassion and clarity. There would have been no Hamas, Fatah, resistance of any kind if the Palestinians were not deprived of their land and their simplest human rights. If you condemn a whole nation to exile, hunger, humiliation, virtual imprisonment behind walls and blockades and continuous violence, expect them to defend themselves. Expect them to fight back. Expect them to say no. If there is justice to the Palestinian people there will be no Hamas or the likes of Hamas. Such groups come into being because the rights of their people are squandered and overlooked, because their lives are plighted beyond redemption because the only alternative they have is to die either by peace or by war.. No matter how misguided or not they might be, no matter how coherent or incoherent their message is, it is the deafness and the blindness of the world that give them life and sustain them.Do we expect the surviving children of Gaza to grow up normally like other children, do we expect them not to be maimed mentally, spiritually and socially? Do we expect them to sing and dance and fool around, to flirt with girls and play their favorite records like all teenagers outside their inhumane prison ? If they turn into monsters it is our fault.We have been proven unworthy guardians to the traumatized, the deprived and the dispossessed. When a whole nation is orphaned, the world gains custody of them until they are restored and redeemed. The UN has proven the most inadequate of custodians and the world an unworthy guardian, This is a crime not only against humanity but the humanity of humanity. That is why we should ask forgiveness of the Palestinian people. That is why Israel should ask for their forgiveness. All we offer them is a Pauper not a Palestinian State, a state surrounded by senseless walls on a shifting land which is continuously being swallowed up and digested by the settlers of Israel, continuously bulldozed and burnt O we get most upset because they do not fall at our feet and shed tears of gratitude. Shame on us. Shame on the United States. Only five of its members of the House of Representatives voted against Israel's war which in truth is a proxy war on behalf of Israel.