Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Silence
The following is reprinted by permision from the blog of The Perpetual Refugee. He is a Lebanese expatriate who has worked with people from around the world. His posts, prior to the war, contained hope for peace with Israel, as he was able to build relationships with Israelis and to share stories of reasonable people from many nations who have been able to accept one another. Recently, the events in Lebanon have led him to question his dream of, if not friendship, at least peace with Israel, as many of us do.
This is what life is like when you have to watch your world destroyed, and when you are helpless to save her:
This is what life is like when you have to watch your world destroyed, and when you are helpless to save her:
from the killing fields. Silence.
The sound of death is horrifying. It’s doesn’t sound of bombs or missiles. Guns or F-16s. Those are the sounds of war and misplaced ideology. We become accustomed to those through 42 inch plasma screens showing embedded playstationesque reporting. Women and children becoming mere statistics in the fight for high ratings and even higher ad revenues.
No, death has more horrifying sounds.
The wail of a grandmother upon seeing her 6 month old granddaughter mutilated by Seattle-made precision-guided missiles. The pain emanating from her hope that with this infant a new future full of happiness would embrace her descendants. A future where life was not hard. Where food was bountiful. Where love prevailed. Yet death came suddenly from the heavens, and now this broken teta directly confronts her God in a language only He understands. Yet He doesn’t reply. Only silence.
The empty stare of a 36 year old man as he wraps his mother in white, quickly saturated with a bright red as if she was consciously rejecting the purity of the white linen. Her son’s grey eyes screaming in agony, recounting his childhood. Her warm, caring hands caressing his flowing hair when he stayed home from school. Fever reaching 40 degrees. Feeding him home made chicken soup. Or as she held him to her bosom, comforting him as he mourned the passing of his father those many years ago. Yet we don’t hear anything looking at his picture. We hear nothing. Silence.
I try and imagine the 371 stories of each fatality of this current genocide. I try and remember how beautiful a summer it was in Lebanon. How children played in the streets at all hours of the day. The sounds of innocence echoing through the valleys of Lebanon’s countless villages. How the restaurants were full of foreign people in love, I mean totally in love with the host country that has so generously welcomed them into her heart. How each person I had spoken with just one week ago had so positively looked to the future of a nation that just earned a hard fought independence. A confident Lebanon. A proud Lebanon. A Lebanon so full of promise.
And now, as I watch high rated news telecasts projecting images of destruction. Images of genocide. I don’t hear anything. Just silence. Mixed in with ads for McDonald’s and Ford automobiles interspersed between the funerals.
Silence from the brotherly ‘Arab’ countries as they take pleasure in watching lowly Shi’ites perishing before theirs eyes. They don’t ask questions. They don’t want to know how many Sunnis were brutally murdered. Or Maronites. Greek Orthodox. People. Human beings. They sit back in their majlis, drinking their tea while infidels are slaughtered. Six month old infidels. 75 year old infidels. And everything in between. And they don’t ask. Don’t hear. Don’t see.
Silence from the ‘moral’ western governments as their weapons do what they were manufactured to do. Wreaking havoc on a nation while profits roll into Manhattan bank accounts. Bank transfers silently finding their way to manufacturers, middle-men and terrorist regimes alike. Those same banks will find more profits once the reconstruction funds come to fruition. Morality and silence frolicking quietly in bed together.
I just watched the death of #372. And I hear nothing. Silence.
Comments:
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Unfortunatly there is no morality in politics. The innocent people are always the ones who suffer for the politics of their nations. Only need to read the OT to see that or any newspaper. Permanent peace in the Middle East? Hard to believe. God told Isreal that if they turned their eyes from Him....they are a secular country now, no longer in service to Yahweh.
and yet... America, the supposed nation under God, with a supposed God fearing leader... is supporting them, and they are using America's weapons to kill the innocent...
Because I am a bibilcal scholar, I have to say that, in Amos, the prophet tells Israel that their gonna' get a double helping of what-for because of their special relationship with God. If either Israel or America actually qualifies as having some sort of special arrangement with God, then we're all in pretty deep trouble.
I agree with you both. There is no morality in ANY countries politics. Including America. We just get to vote in 'different' people into the same system. Is the system broken or the people we vote in??
You're right. There is no morality in government; there's no integrity, either.
But would you sit on your hands if your neighborhood was constantly being attacked, innocents killed along with the "enemy," which in this case is you?
Israel has a modern history, too.
Anyone who attacks them must have a death wish.
The horrific part in this case is that the Hezbollah was allowed to hide behind Lebanon's skirts in the first place.
But then, this is a "holy war" for Islam. Who better to put in harm's way than a country so highly populated with Infidel Christians? Two birds with one rocket, so to speak.
Islam seems intent on destroying everyone in the world but themselves. I wouldn't let them take pot shots at my family and friends; I'd be more intent on showing Islam that they're not going to succeed, at least not in my neighbohood.
Nobody has all the answers. We just hear what the media wants us to hear, anyway.
That's why I'm anonymous. I don't have all the answers, and I'm not out to alienate friends.
But such one-sided arguments sound like the media itself, villifying one side with a huff of moral judgement. And by pointing out America's part in making the weapons, it makes us feel good because we get a thrill of false humilty, proclaiming ourselves to be above the immorality of our own government.
It's easy to take the side of one factor and find nothing but evil in the other.
It is far more difficult to seek the truth in both sides, and to try to understand the personal part of the war on the other side, too.
Innocent people die on both sides. Innocent people die from starvation in other places. Innocent people die in the United States of accidents, of disease, of senseless violence.
The fighting going on now in Lebanon is horrible; all war is horrible. But there is a reason behind it, and unless we allow ourselves to remove our blinders and see that, how are we to gain wisdom? How are we to know how to take care of things in our own neighborhoods? How are we to learn how to make honest judgments during the rest of our lives?
Let us continue to pray without ceasing, and ask for wisdom for those who can make a difference there.
God go with you.
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But would you sit on your hands if your neighborhood was constantly being attacked, innocents killed along with the "enemy," which in this case is you?
Israel has a modern history, too.
Anyone who attacks them must have a death wish.
The horrific part in this case is that the Hezbollah was allowed to hide behind Lebanon's skirts in the first place.
But then, this is a "holy war" for Islam. Who better to put in harm's way than a country so highly populated with Infidel Christians? Two birds with one rocket, so to speak.
Islam seems intent on destroying everyone in the world but themselves. I wouldn't let them take pot shots at my family and friends; I'd be more intent on showing Islam that they're not going to succeed, at least not in my neighbohood.
Nobody has all the answers. We just hear what the media wants us to hear, anyway.
That's why I'm anonymous. I don't have all the answers, and I'm not out to alienate friends.
But such one-sided arguments sound like the media itself, villifying one side with a huff of moral judgement. And by pointing out America's part in making the weapons, it makes us feel good because we get a thrill of false humilty, proclaiming ourselves to be above the immorality of our own government.
It's easy to take the side of one factor and find nothing but evil in the other.
It is far more difficult to seek the truth in both sides, and to try to understand the personal part of the war on the other side, too.
Innocent people die on both sides. Innocent people die from starvation in other places. Innocent people die in the United States of accidents, of disease, of senseless violence.
The fighting going on now in Lebanon is horrible; all war is horrible. But there is a reason behind it, and unless we allow ourselves to remove our blinders and see that, how are we to gain wisdom? How are we to know how to take care of things in our own neighborhoods? How are we to learn how to make honest judgments during the rest of our lives?
Let us continue to pray without ceasing, and ask for wisdom for those who can make a difference there.
God go with you.
# posted by 
: 7/27/2006 12:57 PM
: 7/27/2006 12:57 PM Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
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