By Tom Valovic
Lament on Gaza
“We become what we hate” — William Irwin Thompson
The world in turmoil, no respite, no lessons learned. Our cultural amnesia has obliterated the hardest lessons of both deep and recent history. And who are these “leaders” who have guided our beloved Spaceship Earth Into this plummeting darkness? What goes around comes around. It’s a dizzying process. The roles reversing, the polarity switching yet always (always) the same outcome. This endless sorrowful round of humanity’s self-inflicted wounds; this human suffering beyond measure, that has no words.
Oppression/Liberation/Liberation/Oppression. Yet the hope, the work remains and the hope is the work. The lingering psychosis of war, aided and abetted by the mad workings of the reptile brain. The enticing illusion of rationalism courtesy of The Enlightenment. All must go, and illusions about false values that the last world war should have long dispelled.
The people of Israel have become the people of Gaza have become the people of
Israel have become the people of Gaza. Yet neither can see their reflection in each other’s countenance. There is no shock of recognition, no aha moment, no true enlightenment and so there is no peace. The Pandora’s box is opened and now spills its dark contents across continents. As Yeats warned: “The best lack all conviction and the worst of full of passionate intensity.” This deep and dark suffering sharpens and dulls at the same time. The weary world gasps in helplessness, bathed in psychic numbing. Women and men of peace look for a way out of a seemingly boundless labyrinth. They raise their voices in well- wrought anger for the children. The children! Unearthing hope, digging hopelessly for hope in a deranged world, the noble work persists, the movement persists and, as Frost said:
“The best way out is through”.
Wake up humanity! There are no winners in this race to the bottom.
Wake up humanity! Peace is more than the absence of war.