Tears, anger, frustration don’t easily surface with an 83-year-old, but come they do.
Perhaps let me start with a Graham Greene novel I read many years back and. ‘The Quiet American’ written as an ominous prelude to the Vietnam War in the early 1960’s. Greene had for so long been my favourite novelist because he was able to expose hypocrisy and show through the façade of human folly.
The narrator in the story, a jaded English journalist became involved with the doings and the activities of a starry-eyed American Alden Pyle, who in attempting to do good for the Vietnamese, whose culture and character he in no way understand or was unable to comprehend other than the graduate mind of Indiana’s Notre Dame University, famous for its football teams and the godly and virtuous do-gooders in the cause of pre-Vatican 2 Catholicism. For it was here that the real fight was to rid the world of atheistic communism, and by good works and example, bring all into the fold of the one true church. There was a cause to fight for and Vietnam with its Buddhism faith and Marxist regime needed to be toppled. The good cause was to bestow freedom on a people under the yoke of oppression and the means justified the end.
The instinct of the journalist, in the tale, is as an impartial observer keeping out of the evolving conflict. He tells the French pilot who takes him around on a mission that he wouldn’t be involved in a cruel war and Pyle whose naivety was to have tragic results tells him “I thought you took no sides but as he is drawn more and more into the secret machinations of Pyle, who turned out to be CIA agent, the more concerned and indeed involved he became. A Vietnamese elder said to him ‘Sooner or later one must take sides, that is if one is to remain human.
Now as we look for similarities today in the Gaza conflict, where does one stand when we view of a night on SBS nightly news channel, the genocide we are faced with? For is it is to turn the TV off or turn to another channel? Perhaps for many this may be the case for it makes for uncomfortable viewing. But for others it becomes a heart wrenching experience, because all the excuses made to justify such a genocide taking place lacks any credibility. Lies, obfuscation and changing a narrative to allow this pogrom to continue is insane, that is if one honours the sense of being human.
Hamas was wrong, it was both cowardly, brutal, callous, and inhuman. Yet in their eagerness the Israel forces with the backing and weaponry support of America see their actions of revenge as their payback. But what has resulted from that happening beggar’s comprehension. It is outright slaughter of innocent lives.
There is an irony in all of this when institutions become part of the picture. They are told not to take sides. They were to create safe spaces in which parties on both sides of the conflict could meet and start some form of communication. The only institution doing that is the U.N. They have been criticised by Israel’s main backer USA. The latter’s track record is chequered going back to the invasion of the Philippines at the end of the 19th century, to the defeat in Vietnam to the mess made of their unjustified invasion of Iraq to the present supporting of a genocide in Palestine. Israel has turned Palestine into a graveyard for the innocent inhabitants and now it is up to the brave journalists who want the world to know the true story, not the one contrived for the sanitised Israeli position.
But the brave journalists who have endeavoured to let the wider world know what is happening have been silenced. Over 100 journalists have been killed by the Israel forces. Yet even though death clouds hang over their heads they keep doing their work so out the world can see the true story of the atrocities committed by the Israeli forces on an innocent people who want nothing more than a homeland they can call their own.
May I go back to our journalist in Greene’s story. By his actions he did take sides. even though he just wanted a peaceful and uncommitted life. What he learnt along the way was that lies, fabrication of truth, the justification of a very dubious and ultimately destructive end, and the use of any means to bring this about, is nothing other than the personification of evil.
The bravery of the journalists and the sense of mission they hold so dearly to meet their audience through the camera lens even on pain of death is remarkable. They are declaring something that is true. for it is only in their eye-witness account that the truth can be revealed. So many have been both witnesses and hence martyrs. It is not about choosing death. It becomes the most human of acts in be able to reveal truth to a world that is otherwise distracted so easily by the baubles offered up as entertainment.
The message these brave journalists offer in bearing witness is so straightforward. They want us to know the reality of Palestinian life especially in this time of catastrophic devastation. There seems to be evidence that they are being singled out to be killed. Yet they stay and continue the work they set out to achieve, which is that the world outside of Gaza knows the truth and how one day Israel must be held accountable. History has a long track record and in time it will all be revealed. There will be no USA support when that time comes.
