Out of the sea of emotions
Here now. Safe. Far removed physically from the terrors humans inflict upon each other. Gifted by some random birth lottery.
Rage, rage roiling inside. Rage at hypocrisy – one nation sanctified as having the right to defend itself while another has no right to defend itself, even against acts of genocide, deliberate starvation of an entire ghetto of 2.1 million people, assassinations on sovereign territory, 162 murdered journalists and 222 UN workers and strikes and invasion of another sovereign country. Not to mention the children. So many dead children. But let’s do tit for tat. As if that works. Escalate the escalation until the inevitable. Even when the ‘evil’ side has shown incredible restraint.
Good Westerners didn’t start off hating Israel, but if they are truly good, they end up hating Israel, writes Caitlin Johnstone. Zionist, settler colonialist Israel, to be very specific.
Not a hatred of Jews. Nor Arabs. Nor Muslims.
I am offended by states built on ethnocracy no matter where they are. Either apartheid is right, or it’s wrong. It’s really that simple. Ta-Nehisi Coates.
I agree, Ta-Nehisi.
Any human, no matter their pigment or religion, who stands as superior to another, seeds the ground for violence. Anyone who believes their rights are greater than another’s rights to the same. Anyone prepared to do terrible things, to enact terrorism on others. Anyone who thinks it is perfectly permissible to kill hundreds or thousands, just to kill one particular person. Anyone who thinks one atrocity on them needs to be met with vengeance and atrocity after atrocity multiplied one hundredfold.
Every time I find myself taking a superior position, with my sense of righteousness, something I see in myself often, my discipline is to catch this act and return to humility. This is so hard, as I like being right. Yet this is the work. It is also our work to not allow enthocracy and apartheid to exist.
There are no grounds at all, no justification, zero, none, nada, that live in alignment with human decency, for ethnocracy and apartheid to exist.
The rage, mixed in with the joy of my life. Mixed in with all the miracles around me.
And the ocean. Telling the story this morning. The waves a mess. Unpredictable. Tricky. Lucky to be in the right place to catch one. A fractal expression of the pattern of my being.
What, I wonder, weaves this greater thread of all life – this rage and joy and grief and awe all tangled in this moment? The question goes into infinity, landing with the billion times a similar question has been asked by others.
Silence returns with a wise smile.
Photo Taken September 27th 2024
