Israeli jet bomber over Gaza. photo by Shareef Sarhan, from my friend Nahed Abu-Asbeh's Facebook page. Nahed is living in Palestine. I met her in Germany 8 years ago. She is wearing black these days.
Earlier, I was talking on MSN with my daughter and my younger son who are in Bahrain and they told me all New Year's Eve's celebrations and music have been canceled because of the violence in Gaza. They were looking forward to celebrating their first New Year's Eve in the Gulf, but it'll be a quiet family evening.
In fact, Across the Arab World New Year's Eve's parties have been canceled. In Dubai, through an official order, people are asked to mark New Year "'with a somber tone as a token of solidarity' with Palestinians and Gazans."
3 comments:
I didn't celebrate the New Year either. I went to bed at 10:00 p.m.
What, if I may ask, are your children doing in Bahrain?? Don't answer me if you don't want to, I'm just curious... Happy 1st of January. Much love, M.
Merche, my sister, her son, and our good friend came over to sit and talk with my husband and I but we all felt somberness. In fact, we wondered how it is that some of us feel these things in our hearts like an ache and our emotions are so disturbed and troubled by what we must bear witness to, yet others cheerily go about their days.
That was one thing that made be feel even more crazy when my family was in Lebanon during the 2006 bombings. My "regular" life stopped and I was overcome and obsessed with what had happened but life just goes on. This is really the hard part. While I had many many friends --including people that I didn't even know--express concern, visit me, send me notes, and support me, other friends were silent. Some pretended it wasnt' even happening.
This made me feel very serious despondency about how can anything change in the world when it is always seen as someone else's problem and
SO WHAT.
I thought of Romeo Dallaire and how he did "lose" his mind after coming back from Rwanda. I thought that is easy to happen when severe trouble and military violence and terrorism strike you personally yet others around you shop as normal, the snow falls just as prettily and it's business as usual.
You're very right. I can't understand how people can go about their business without even realizing and acting against this barbarous massacre of the Palestinians. They're simply brainwashed by western media. Much love, M.
Post a Comment