Have you watched your TV lately? Have you seen the destruction of lives and property in Gaza? What have you done?
These are the questions all of us ought to be asking ourselves and others.
Some of us believe that we cannot do anything to help. This is the biggest lie of all, in the search for excuses why cannot do anything; why we would do nothing. We can all do something. Start by feeling disgusted as you watch the Israeli Defense Forces clubber the people of Gaza into submission just because they joined with the Palestine Authority in the governing of their home land. Speak out to you friends, the people you routinely have conversations daily. If we speak out often, our whispers would turn into shouting and before you know it people with mega phones and loud speakers would catch on.
Have you watched the reaction from the super powers USA and other EU countries? They are trying to get Hamas to stop sending missiles into Israel but without any efforts to get Israel to stop bombing, killing Palestinians so that the shelling would stop. And these are supposed to be mediating? As I watch the Mr. John Kerry and the rest of the Obama administration doing “dances with wolves” I am appalled by the silence of the lambs.
In case anybody does not know how we got to this point let me recap. Europeans, all of them, (Poland, Hungary, France, Italy, etc.) with emphasis on Germany (Nazi Germany) massacred the Jews in their mist, killing about 6 million Jews. When they were done they deposited the survivors on the Palestinian land to get rid of them. These Jews were Europeans, but EU did not want them anymore. The Jews who lived in the Middle East had very good relationships with their Mideast neighbors. Having forcibly relocated the Jews, the scramble for land began around 1948. The Palestinians that lived peaceably on their land were forced out by Europeans to create the Jewish home land. These Palestinians have been living as refugees all over the world as the Jews live comfortably in the houses built by their fathers, on their own lands. The West that massacred the Jews are helping the victims victimize innocent people. This is the story in a nutshell.
I know a lot about massacres, about genocide, about dislocations, about bombing, about killing of innocent civilians. I lived in Biafra. I was a grown up. I saw it with my big eyes. I lost uncles and aunts. I lost cousins: Henry, Clifford etc. I have members of my family who have bullets in their body. 40 years after the war, I still cannot forget all that happened. I now believe that I suffered from what is now known as PTSD but has been lucky to have survived it. It is not beautiful.
The shocking thing is that the world has assumed its usual posture: watching; keeping silent; blaming the victim; shading crocodile tears. When it is all over the world would write volumes to explain what happened and praise the victors and cast aspersions on the victims and wash their dirty hands like the Roman rulers at the time of Christ’s murder. They did so during the Jewish holocaust; they assumed this posture during the Biafran genocide; they assumed this posture in the Rwandan holocaust; they watched for decades as Apartheid South Africa wasted African blood. They are now watching Palestinian holocaust.
The world is you and me. We are the world.
We all need to stand up wherever we are and speak. We need to tell the Obama Administration that siding with Israel when it is doing exactly the same thing that EU did to them is bad. We need to urge Israel to withdraw and allow Palestinians to live. It is the moral thing. We need to say so in our offices, in our churches, in our country clubs, as we watch baseball games or play cards.
You can do something. I can do something. We cannot keep silent.
Listen to Edmund Burke:
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
All that is needed for the forces of evil to triumph is for enough good men to do nothing.
All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.
In order for ‘evil’ to prevail, all that need happen is for ‘good’ people to do nothing.
All that is needed for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.
The surest way for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.
All it will take for evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing.
All that is necessary for the forces of evil to take root in the world is for enough good men to do nothing.
All that is needed for the forces of evil to succeed is for enough good men to remain silent.
All it takes for Evil to prevail in this world is for enough good men to do nothing.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
http://www.leefrank.com/9112001/into_war.html Edmund Burke
Written by Benjamin Obiajulu Aduba.
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