OH Peace!

At the time when I am writing this note, the world has become a kingdom of death. People are dying in Syria, Egypt, Ukraine, Israel, Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan on a day to day basis. A passenger jet (Malaysian Airlines MH-17) was shot down by some Manimals (Man+Animal) where 298 passengers were killed. Of them at this point 79 were kids. All the victims are from across many nationalities.

One very obvious but sad thing about all these killings is – how some people react. We have been observing some of us express our concerns on gradually diminishing humanity in various ways. Some of us use social media and create banners and images with quotations and appealing images to create awareness.   Most of us share our support by re sharing those banners and writing strong comments of few lines. We express our sympathy to the victims and their relatives. We express our anger and hatred against those who perpetrate those atrocities. But a lot of us -we do all these only if the victims conforms with us- either ethnicity, religion, culture, economy or any other form of group feelings.

The latest war situation in Israel-Palestine could be an example to illustrate this. Being a bi lingual and living overseas with a different cultural system from my home helped me observe the reaction on this war very closely from my own perspective.

According to media, the current crisis began with the kidnapping of three Israeli students in the West Bank on June 10th, who were found murdered. Israel blamed Hamas, and arrested a number of Hamas operatives. Israel also hit Gaza with airstrikes, and Palestinian militant groups fired rockets into Israel.

Later, a Palestinian boy in Jerusalem was murdered, allegedly by Israeli extremists retaliating for the murder of the students, and another Palestinian was beaten in Israeli custody. Palestinian anger at Israel increased considerably. There had been sporadic rocket fire from Gaza throughout the crisis, but Hamas launched a wave of 40 rockets on July 8th, for which it claimed responsibility for the first time since 2012. Then Israel launched more strikes in Gaza, as part of what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said was an effort to make Hamas "pay a heavy price."

By July 11th, 100 Palestinians had been killed in about 1000 Israeli airstrikes. Roughly 700 rockets had been fired by Palestinians, making this easily the most significant escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since the 2012 Gaza war. By July 14th, the total casualties had exceeded the 2012 conflict.

As long as we have a soul full of hatred, we won’t be able to end atrocities against humanity. I have noticed we cry only when people from our regime dies. -And that is the problem. We should cry whenever someone dies. We should hate whoever commits crime. We should see whatever sin is manifest before our eyes. As at today 230 Palestinians and One Israeli have been killed.

Notice, how civilians have been paying price because of the two power hungry groups feud.

But if we look at the reactions in the social media, originated from southern Asia, Asia and Middle East,  we find people are crying for victims of Palestinians and not for the three school boys who were murdered on 10^th June. Or for the shattered Israeli mothers –fathers-sisters and brothers whose life has become full of terror because of Hamas’ rockets. –Like the Palestinian parents and children, these are also human made of flesh and blood.  

On the other hand, media in west and Australia reported the conflict but highlighted the three Israeli kids.  Blogs are written about how Hamas has changed the lives of Israelis–These are the initial days of the 2014 conflict.

The social media like face book has been flooded with sympathy for Palestinians and hatred for Israelis if the organizer is from Muslim country or anti west.

On the other hand, leaders in the west are not as active as they would have if the state was Palestine instead of Israel who has lunched full phase war against the civilians in Gaza strip in the name of hunt for Hamas.

But both sides of us are similar in following ways:-

·         Both of us are concerned about loss of lives and humanity

·         Both of us hate opposite side but both of us want PEACE (or piece)!

·         Both of us do not see our own faults

·         Both of us feel  pain and become concerned only when the victims are on our side  

The problem is -

We see only what we want to see and find faults in others only if they belong to different group. This will only prolong peace. You cannot bring justice being biased towards a group. Group Bias is also injustice. And surely you cannot bring justice by being us injustice.

How many of us expressed any grief for those school boys who were murdered? We did not grief because they belong to Israel! -Then how are we any better than those we hate? I am sick of these socio-centric emotions. And we have been making this empirical evidence that our socio centric emotion will bring us more misery and pain than any good.

If you really care about humanity- care it regardless of religion-race-color-gender-rich and ethnicity.

-Syed Kollol 18.07.2014