It doesn't happen as often as it
should but the book I was reading made me cry.
It was Kurt Vonnegut's “A man
without a country”
The tears ran down my face and had
to be wiped away.
He is a very funny writer but I
wasn't crying tears of laughter.
This is what he wrote that made me
cry.
“Joe,
a young man from Pittsburg, came up to me with one request:
“Please
tell me it will all be okay.”
“Welcome
to Earth, young man,” I said. “It's hot in the summer and cold in
the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, Joe,
you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I
know of: Goddamn it Joe, you've got to be kind!”
So what do you think?
I was thinking it is impossible not
to feel passionate about what is happening in Gaza to ordinary
people, women, children and civilians.
Passion is needed to make things
better.
I was also thinking that the
suffering makes it more important to be dispassionate about the facts
that led to and created the problems of the Middle East.
If we aren't dispassionate at the
same time we will undermine our own arguments.
Vonnegut talks about a one day
massacre that killed 135,000 people. It was inflicted on the 'worst
people in history' – those guilty of the Holocaust - by the 'good'
people of Britain. It was done out of revenge or as an experiment and
was not necessary to end the war.
Those same 'good' people refused to
allow Jewish refugees to travel to Palestine even though there was no
place on earth for them. Many died or drowned. Those same 'good'
people refused to allow the creation of Israel until the Stern Gang
and Irgun, both terrorist organisations, forced their hand.
The suffering on the people of Gaza
does not make Hamas any better than it is.
The Holocaust does not justify the
attack on Gaza.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/07/gaza-1994-2004-peace-led-war-2014720144816864760.html
What can we do? What can I do?
Be passionate about helping people who suffer.
Be dispassionate. It is not the
suffering on either side makes people good or bad or justifies their
politics or history.
Be kind to both parties to be fair.
Be merciful to be just.
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