Image by Thanti Riess.
Murdered doctors, paramedics, nurses,
teachers, artists, actors, poets, journalists.
The killing hand blessed and enabled by the “civilized” West,
soulless reincarnation of Kurtz who intone the right of killers to defend themselves,
uncaring of the innocent, women and children
blown to pieces in their sleep, pulverized, burned
in the killing fields by armies of AI inventors and investors.
All the while Arab rulers and monarchs do little and lament less,
the “extermination of brutes” is not of their concern,
and the Arab street, how tragic, remains silent, as silent as most of the planet
who pass day and night glued to their screens, witnessing the horror
aired live, witnessing all except the darkness of their own souls.
Last night the poet Rafaat Alareer visited me in my dreams.
Nailed to the Cross he whispered that our silence is not
the Silence of God but the expression of poor souls who know all
but Love, blind to the fate of his companions in the Golgotha:
slaughtered Ukrainians, napalmed Vietnamese, gassed Jews,
incinerated Japanese, mutilated Congolese, lynched Blacks.
I asked him if the Calvary was near its end, but he exhaled his last breath.
No, the genocide will not end when deranged American presidents
and cynical European leaders stop sending weapons to “the most moral
army of the world”, nor when Iran starts, God forbid, lobbying missiles to the “only democracy of the region”, nor when Netanyahu decides enough is enough (is this
possible?), nor when his wife and the current American ambassador to Israel realize
that Palestinians do exist, nor when the spirit of Golda Meir (“I cringe when a
Palestinian baby is born”), finally exits the scene, nor when Brooklyn-born settlers
stop stealing Palestinian land, nor when Apartheid magically disappears,
nor when meek Western journalists decide to report the truth.
No, the horror will not end until all Palestinians die. Not before, please let me clarify, the
moment we all die, I mean, allow me to clarify further: the horror will live with us,
in us, as us, until this most primitive consciousness that rules the world,
that thrives in Othering, in dehumanization, finally dies. I know it in my heart
because Rafaat Alareer had returned from the death to inform me
of his embrace with Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Mandela,
to tell me he had seen a world reborn out of the crucifixion of his people.
A world where people are not afraid to break their hearts wide open so that
the fragrances of wisdom, true empathy and compassion are released. A world
where Conrad can no longer imagine a Kurtz.
“Really?”, I asked him, incredulous. “Yes!”, he replied, categorically. “It only takes
12 committed people. 12 people is enough to change the world.”
